Published on :
The screenwriter Nicolas Juncker and the cartoonist François Boucq combine their talents and tell in comic strip the events that took place around the Algiers putsch of May 13, 1958. A vaudeville-like politico-military comedy, with striking humor, on an episode major event in the history of the Fourth Republic.
We are in 1958. France is mired in the war in Algeria. In Paris, powerless governments follow one another according to parliamentary upheavals. After the Battle of Algiers, the city is in turmoil, and the generals seem overwhelmed. How to get out of the impasse?
Perhaps by a putsch, which would make it possible to recall to power the man of Colombey, this General de Gaulle who keeps himself carefully away from the politicking of the Fourth Republic. And that is what is happening.
On May 13, a Public Safety Committee was set up in Algiers, and the insurgents took over the General Government, with the support of several generals. On May 14, General Massu appealed to de Gaulle. On the 15th, he declared himself “ready to assume the powers of the Republic.” On the 28th the government resigned, and on the 29th of May President Coty appealed to the “most illustrious of the French,” who would have the end of the Fourth Republic voted in parliament, and would bring the Fifth on baptismal fonts.
From this key episode in French political history, François Boucq and Nicholas Juncker have made a loud-mouthed, hilarious and farcical comic strip, a vaudeville-esque satirical comedy with slamming doors and erupting lines.
“A general, generals” is a comic strip published by Le Lombard.
Reportage : Laure Broulard went to the first edition of the Kigali International Book Meetings in Rwanda. She is interested in the future of children’s literature in Africa.