The blooding of the young Lieutenant and the way in which he reacts to his newfound knowledge and experience provides the dramatic arc of "L’Ennemi intime". Terrien’s idealistic view of French involvement in Algeria is summed up during a conversation with Captain Berthaut (Marc Barbé), an intelligence officer, when Terrien argues that as metropolitan French citizens the Algerians should enjoy the same political rights as any other French citizen and states that "You can’t fight barbarism with barbarism". Berthaut, identified as a former member of the French Resistance who was tortured by the Gestapo, a veteran of the French Indochina War and an old comrade-in-arms of Dougnac, disagrees and later in the film, states that, "At 110 volts the truth always comes out". Berthaut is killed and mutilated during a Fellaghist ambush as he attempts to evacuate a wounded soldier out of the ‘Forbidden Zone’ by jeep. Later, French soldiers (Terrien among them) retaliate by massacring and burning an entire village. In view of such atrocities, Terrien slowly begins to change his view.