Pacification in Algeria is an educational documentary in two parts by André Gazut, a committed witness of his time.

It could be a brother or a father. The voice is peaceful, not very young anymore. It invites us to go back in time to metropolitan France in the 1950s, against a backdrop of "troubles" in Algeria. The climate is restored: influence of the Catholic Church (Sunday mass is still the norm, including for many non-believers), fear of international communism (the "hand of Moscow" is everywhere), recent loss of Indochina and upheavals of the Fourth Republic... The voice is that of the director of this documentary in two parts (already broadcast in "Les mercredis de l'histoire" in February 2003), André Gazut, a committed witness of this time, and who does not hide it.

He shares with us the journey and disillusionment of his 18 years and tells us that, in 1956, he will desert, rather than go and fight in Algeria with methods that he believed were reserved, he says, for Nazi Germany. Instead of delivering raw testimonies, he puts them into perspective, which is the main interest of his work.

Educational, his film is aimed primarily at those who know little about the Algerian War and those years. To those who do not know that the break between France and Algeria does not date from November 1, 1954 but from May 8, 1945 (the date of the Sétif massacres). To those who have forgotten the role of Paul Teitgen, Germaine Tillion, or General Jacques de Bollardière, a magnificent figure to whom André Gazut dedicated, in 1974, a film that was boycotted censored? by general television in France.

Pacification in Algeria recalls many facts, such as the reintroduction, in 1955, of a decree abolished by de Gaulle at the liberation of Paris, relating to collective responsibility; the scale of the phenomenon of regroupment camps or the shameless lies of Guy Mollet, as well as the silences of the military chaplaincy... Where does submission to authority end? Where does individual responsibility begin? André Gazut challenges each of us. And the book that Jean-Pierre Vittori made from this film, Le Choix des larmes (Ed. du Félin/Arte Editions), is an admirable extension of it.