Abstract
The French political establishment, the vast majority of the French population and the pieds noirs denied the existence of an Algerian nationalist movement because, according to them, "there was no such thing as an 'Algerian nation' and that Algérie would always be française" (Drake, 2002, p107). The turning point took place at the end of 1955 when Esprit published another article called "Let us Stop the War in Algeria" which confirmed that the French were already using torture in Algeria and that it was the role of intellectuals to report what was happening there. In the beginning of 1956, many intellectuals took sides on the Algerian question: on one side, the liberals such as Albert Camus who advocated a reformed colonialism, and on the other, the radicals such as Frantz Fanon who openly demanded that Algeria become independent. If the war was made with guns in Algeria, it was made with pens and ideas in France.
