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Concept
May 1958 crisis in France
Summary
The May 1958 crisis, also known as the Algiers putsch or the coup of 13 May, was a political crisis in France during the turmoil of the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962) which led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic and its replacement by the Fifth Republic led by Charles de Gaulle who returned to power after a twelve-year absence. It started as a political uprising in Algiers on 13 May 1958 and then became a military coup d'état led by a coalition headed by Algiers deputy and reserve airborne officer Pierre Lagaillarde, French Generals Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud, Jean Gracieux, and Jacques Massu, and by Admiral Philippe Auboyneau, commander of the Mediterranean fleet. The coup was supported by former Algerian Governor General Jacques Soustelle and his activist allies.
The coup had as its aim to oppose the formation of Pierre Pflimlin's new government and to impose a change of policies in favor of the right-wing partisans of French Algeria.
Recurrent cabinet crises focused attention on the inherent instability of the Fourth Republic and increased the misgivings of the French Army and of the Pieds-noirs (European Algerians) that the security of French Algeria, an overseas department of France, was being undermined by party politics. Army commanders chafed at what they took to be inadequate and incompetent government support of military efforts to end the war. The feeling was widespread that another debacle like that of Indochina in 1954 was in the offing and that the government would order another overly precipitous pullout and sacrifice French honor to political expediency. The result was the return of Charles de Gaulle.
After his tour as Governor General, Jacques Soustelle had returned to France to organize support for de Gaulle's return to power, while retaining close ties to the army and the settlers. By early 1958, he had organized a coup d'état, bringing together dissident army officers and colonial officials with sympathetic Gaullists.
Official source
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