Organisation armée secrète
The Organisation armée secrète (OAS, "Secret Army Organisation") was a far-right[1][2][3] French dissident paramilitary and terrorist organisation during the Algerian War. The OAS carried out terrorist attacks, including bombings and assassinations, in an attempt to prevent Algeria's independence from French colonial rule.[1][4] Its motto was L’Algérie est française et le restera ("Algeria is French and will remain so").
This article is about French far-right paramilitary organisation. For the American anti-communist organization, see Secret Army Organization.Secret Army Organisation
Raoul Salan, Edmond Jouhaud, Yves Godard, Jean-Jacques Susini, Jean-Claude Perez
11 February 1961 – 1962
Opposition to Algerian independence from France
Inactive
3,000 members
The OAS was formed from existing networks, calling themselves "counter-terrorists", "self-defence groups", or "resistance", which had carried out attacks on the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) and their perceived supporters since early in the war. It was officially formed in Francoist Spain, in Madrid in January 1961, as a response by some French politicians and French military officers to the 8 January 1961 referendum on self-determination concerning Algeria, which had been organised by President de Gaulle.
By acts of bombings and targeted assassinations in both metropolitan France and French Algerian territories, which are estimated to have resulted in 2,000 deaths between April 1961 and April 1962, the OAS attempted to prevent Algerian independence. This campaign culminated in a wave of attacks that followed the March 1962 Évian Accords, which granted independence to Algeria and marked the beginning of the exodus of the pieds-noirs, and in Jean Bastien-Thiry's 1962 assassination attempt against president de Gaulle in the Paris suburb of Le Petit-Clamart. Another prominent target was the existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who supported the FLN.
The OAS still has admirers in French nationalist movements. In July 2006, some OAS sympathisers attempted to relight the flame of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier to commemorate the Oran massacre on 5 July 1962.[5]
Legacy[edit]
Many OAS members later took part in various anti-communist struggles around the world. Following the disbandment of the organisation, and the execution of several of its members, the OAS chaplain, Georges Grasset, organised the flight of OAS members, from a route going from Paris to Francoist Spain and finally to Argentina.[19][20] Grasset arrived in 1962 in Buenos Aires to take charge of the Argentine branch of the Cité Catholique, an integral Catholic group formed by Jean Ousset, the personal secretary of Charles Maurras, as an offshoot of the monarchist Action Française. This anti-communist religious organisation was formed of many Algerian war veterans and close to the OAS. Charles Lacheroy and Colonel Trinquier, who theorised the systemic use of torture in counter-insurgency doctrine in Modern Warfare: A French View of Counterinsurgency (1961), were members, along with Colonel Jean Gardes, who had first theorised counter-insurgency tactics during the Indochina War (1947–1954), Jean Ousset developed the concept of "subversion" referring to an essential enemy threatening the existence of Occident itself. Gardes arrived in Argentina in 1963, a year after the end of the Algerian War. There, he delivered counter-insurgency courses at the ESMA, which became infamous during the "Dirty War" in the 1970s for being used as an internment and torture center. Soon after Gardes met Federico Lucas Roussillon, an Argentine naval lieutenant commander, the cadets at the ESMA were shown the film The Battle of Algiers (1966) by Italian director Gillo Pontecorvo, during which the fictional Lieutenant-Colonel Mathieu and his paratroops make systematic use of torture, block warden system, and death flights.[19][20]
The Argentine admiral Luis María Mendía testified in January 2007 that a French intelligence agent, Bertrand de Perseval, had participated in the "disappearance" of the two French nuns, Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon. Perseval, who lives today in Thailand, denied any links with the abduction, but did admit being a former OAS member who escaped to Argentina after the Evian agreements.[21][22]
The financial crime expert Veit Buetterlin named the OAS as an example of a terror group which committed bank robberies to finance its operations. In a CNN interview, Buetterlin mentioned the attempted assassination of Charles de Gaulle as a historic example and related it to cases of the recent past where sanctioned parties are conducting cyber attacks on banks to acquire funds illegally.[23]
In popular culture[edit]
The OAS is referenced in Ian Fleming's 1963 novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service. James Bond's future father-in-law Marc-Ange, the head of a Corsican crime faction known as Union Corse, refers to the OAS in chapter 24, due to the OAS having a French military helicopter in their possession. Because of the OAS indebtedness to Marc-Ange and the Union Corse, the helicopter is loaned to the MI-6 – Marc-Ange/Union Corse coalition endeavoring to thwart Ernst Stavro Blofeld's plot to unleash biological warfare in the UK's agricultural industry.
OAS graffiti appears outside a bakery approximately eight minutes into the 1963 film The Bakery Girl of Monceau. Two minutes later, following the second appearance of the exterior, similar graffiti appears to have been removed from the facade of the bakery.
The OAS featured prominently in Jack Higgins' 1964 novel Wrath of the Lion, in which the organization fictionally manages to suborn the crew of a French Navy submarine and use it for missions of revenge.
Alain Cavalier's 1964 film L'Insoumis stars Alain Delon as a deserter from the French Foreign Legion who joins the OAS on a kidnapping mission.
The OAS features prominently in the 1971 novel The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth, and its film adaptation. The story deals primarily with a fictional assassination plot against Charles de Gaulle, where the organisation hires a British contract killer (the Jackal) to kill de Gaulle. Bastien-Thiry and the Petit-Clamart plot figure prominently in the early sections of the story. Forsyth also mentions the OAS in his 1974 novel The Dogs of War, with several of its protagonists having joined the movement. The fictional Colonel Rodin from Jackal is also alluded to.
The OAS is referenced in the Oliver Stone film JFK, as suspected conspirator Clay Shaw (played by Tommy Lee Jones) is alleged to have business connections with them. The plot to assassinate De Gaulle at the Paris suburb of Petit-Clamart[25] is also mentioned several times in the film.
The 2002 movie Legion of Honor is about an Englishman who joins the Foreign Legion and is set in Algeria shortly before their independence and "OAS" is mentioned numerous times as well as shown in graffiti outside a number of structures.
The OAS is referred to in the 2008 film Mesrine: Public Enemy No.1 (L'Instinc de Mort), describing the life of French criminal Jacques Mesrine. The character of Guido (played by Gérard Depardieu) is a member of OAS. Guido mentions OAS multiple times and together with Mesrine he assassinates another OAS member, who in his last moments declares: "De Gaulle killed us".
Subsequent groups with ties to OAS[edit]
In November 2016, an extreme right-wing terrorist cell calling itself the Organisation d’armées sociales (OAS) emerged in France.[26] The acronym was a nod to the original Organisation Armée Secrète. It was inspired by Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik and consisted of 9 people led by former Action Française activist Logan Nisin.[27] The cell had planned attacks against kebab shops, places of worship (especially mosques), drug dealers and politicians: Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Christophe Castaner were specific targets.[28] The group was taken down by French authorities in November 2017 before it was able to accomplish any attacks.