Mr. Chirac ordered the removal of General Paul Aussaresses from the Legion of Honor, an award for service or achievement, and said he had asked the defense minister, Alain Richard, to propose possible disciplinary action. There were threats of bombing attacks all the time and everywhere, he added. It's efficient, torture.
Most people crack and talk.
The one positive outcome from the Aussaresses affair is that the truth about the Algerian war of independence more than four decades ago may now come into the open. Official records from the period were opened last week. Prime Minister Lionel Jospin said he had been deeply shocked by the general's disclosures about torture and summary executions and expressed his total moral condemnation. In the book, General Aussaresses acknowledged publicly for the first time that he had murdered two Algerian liberation leaders, whose deaths have until now been described officially as suicides. The publication of General Aussaresses' autobiography this week, however, means the issue can no longer be ignored, since in the eyes of some legal experts he has publicly avowed actions that could be construed as crimes against humanity.