Paris After the Liberation_ 1944 - 1949 - Antony Beevor [16]
Soon afterwards the Communist Party’s military organization, Franc-Tireurs et Partisans Français (FTP), decided to associate itself with the Secret Army, thus acknowledging, at least in theory, General de Gaulle’s military authority. For the Communists it was also the only way to receive British arms drops, and their insistence on this point led to many wrangles. But this was purely for form. The French Communists within France saw the future Liberation in a totally different fashion from the Gaullists. They saw the retreat of the Germans from France as the signal for an uprising and complete social revolution. Far from accepting de Gaulle’s orders, they wanted their FTP to become the basis for a ‘democratized’ French army after the Liberation. To further this policy, they agreed to unite with other Resistance groups, while infiltrating ‘sub-marines’, or covert Communists, into key positions. Nowhere were they more successful in this than in Paris, where they soon controlled the capital’s Comité de Libération, a form of local provisional administration which they hoped would take over everything before Gaullist officials arrived from London.
At the Casablanca conference of January 1943 the Americans, supported by Churchill, promoted a ‘shotgun wedding’ between de Gaulle, ‘the bride’, and Giraud, ‘the bridegroom’. Roosevelt, however, was only interested in acknowledging a symbolic military leadership. As far as he was concerned, France did not exist as a political entity until elections were finally held in the whole territory. He still suspected de Gaulle of harbouring dictatorial ambitions.
Roosevelt, and also Churchill, had failed to realize how far things were changing within occupied France. The dramatic shift in de Gaulle’s favour was confirmed on 10 May 1943, the anniversary of the German invasion, when the National Council of the Resistance (CNR) was established, acknowledging de Gaulle’s leadership.
General Giraud, proud of his cavalry moustache and well-cut uniform, was devoid of personal ambition. His basic political education was supervised by Jean Monnet, sent by Roosevelt to strengthen his hand against de Gaulle. But Monnet, one of the few Frenchmen Roosevelt trusted completely, was much more of a realist than the President. He did all he could to prepare an orderly transition of power to de Gaulle.
De Gaulle arrived in Algiers on 30 May. Giraud, with a band playing the Marseillaise, was waiting to receive him on the runway. The American and British representatives remained in the background. The next few days would be marked by furious manoeuvres: there were even rumours of coups and kidnap plots. The scheming prompted General de Bénouville to remark that ‘nothing was more like Vichy than Algiers’.
Once again de Gaulle’s inflexibility, rooted in his implacable sense of mission, proved indomitable against anyone with a lesser will. On 3 June, the Comité Français de Libération Nationale was set up. Its constitution was almost entirely dictated by de Gaulle. Giraud found himself having to concede on almost every decision. One of the most significant was the legalization of the Communist Party. This dramatic change acknowledged their importance in the Resistance and led to their recognition of de Gaulle as leader of the government-in-waiting.
When the newly legalized Communist Party in Algiers heard that their arch-enemy, Pierre Pucheu, had turned up in Morocco, they could hardly believe his foolhardiness and their luck.
Pucheu had retired from Vichy politics after Admiral Darlan was replaced by Pierre Laval on 17 April 1942. A year later, he decided to join the ‘repentant Vichyists’ in North Africa – what one Resistance leader described