The May 1958 Crisis: The Algiers Putsch That Toppled France's Fourth Republic
On May 13, 1958, a coalition of French military officers and settler activists seized power in Algiers, demanding that Charles de Gaulle be installed as head of a government capable of keeping Algeria French. The uprising, born from despair over a stalemated war and a paralyzed Paris government, triggered a six-week constitutional crisis that destroyed the Fourth Republic and returned de Gaulle to power after twelve years in the political wilderness. It ultimately gave birth to the Fifth Republic, the political system that still governs France today.
A War Without End, A Republic Without Strength
By the spring of 1958, France had spent nearly four years fighting an increasingly brutal insurgency in Algeria, a territory legally considered part of metropolitan France rather than a colony. The Fourth Republic's revolving-door governments, often lasting only months, seemed incapable of either winning the war or negotiating an end to it. European settlers in Algeria, known as pieds-noirs, and the French army stationed there grew convinced that Paris politicians were preparing to abandon them through secret negotiations with Algerian nationalists. This anxiety reached a breaking point after news emerged that Pierre Pflimlin, a moderate seen as open to negotiation, was likely to become the next prime minister. To the settlers and many officers who had already lost the war in Indochina in 1954, another perceived betrayal was intolerable.
Did You Know?
Some of the same officers who helped install de Gaulle in 1958 to save French Algeria, including Raoul Salan and Edmond Jouhaud, later turned against him and joined the OAS terrorist organization when he granted Algeria independence in 1962; both men were eventually arrested and imprisoned for their roles in plotting against the government they had once helped create.
The Uprising in Algiers
On May 13, 1958, a massive demonstration in Algiers, ostensibly to honor three French soldiers executed by the National Liberation Front, turned into an armed seizure of the government's headquarters. Pierre Lagaillarde, a reserve paratroop officer and deputy for Algiers, led activists who stormed the building, and General Jacques Massu, commander of the elite 10th Parachute Division, emerged to head a Committee of Public Safety. Crucially, senior officers including General Raoul Salan, the commander-in-chief in Algeria, General Edmond Jouhaud, General Jean Gracieux, and Admiral Philippe Auboyneau of the Mediterranean fleet lent the revolt military legitimacy rather than suppressing it. Former Governor-General Jacques Soustelle, a fierce advocate of French Algeria, rushed to Algiers to add political weight. The committee's demand was unambiguous: a government of national unity under Charles de Gaulle, the wartime leader who many believed possessed the authority to preserve Algeria for France while restoring order to the fractured Republic.
De Gaulle's Return and the End of the Fourth Republic
As the crisis spread, with Corsica falling under rebel control by May 24 and fears mounting of paratroopers landing in Paris itself, de Gaulle carefully positioned himself as the indispensable arbiter. On May 15, he declared his readiness to assume the powers of the Republic, and on May 19 he held a press conference reinforcing his image as a statesman above factional politics, all while avoiding explicit endorsement of the Algiers rebels' methods. President René Coty, recognizing that only de Gaulle could avert civil war or a full military coup on French soil, invited him to form a government on May 29, 1958. The National Assembly confirmed de Gaulle as prime minister on June 1 with sweeping emergency powers, and he was authorized to draft a new constitution. That constitution, approved by referendum in September 1958 with overwhelming support, created the Fifth Republic and its strengthened presidency. De Gaulle became president in December 1958, and though he initially left Algeria's fate ambiguous, he ultimately negotiated Algerian independence in 1962, a decision that stunned and betrayed many of the very officers who had brought him to power.