Le Seuil : Algerians’ view of their situation
In 1955, Colette and Francis Jeanson – he had been a member of Le Seuil’s reading committee since 1950 –, submitted to Paul Flamand, the literary director of Le Seuil, a manuscript: L’Algérie hors la loi.
This militant essay proclaims the inexorable failure of the ‘war of reconquest’ engaged by France. At first, Le Seuil refused to publish it but they had second thoughts after a long in-house debate.
The press reaction to L’Algérie hors la loi was meagre. One journalist confessed that ‘we have an efficient arm against certain books: silence!’
However, thanks to the polemic, the book found readers.
In 1960, when a warrant had been issued for his arrest for ‘offence against national security’ in reaction to his support of the Algerian pro-independence fighters, Jeanson published Notre guerre, (Minuit) which was immediately seized for ‘incitement to disobedience’