A small, rotund figure with a delicate stomach and said to live on Evian water, Blachette was known as the "king of alfalfa". In the area south of Oran his alfalfa fields reached the horizon on every side; most of his crop was earmarked for British paper mills, and it provided the source of no less than twenty per cent of all Algeria's foreign earnings. In addition, Blachette had fingers in a number of other agricultural and industrial pies; he owned the Journal d'Alger, was elected deputy to the Assembly in 1951, swiftly proved himself a skilled lobbyist there, and was even considered by Mendès-France for a ministry. In contrast to Borgeaud and Schiaffino, however, Blachette set out to be a liberal and progressive. Nevertheless, it could not be overlooked that the Muslim alfalfa workers were among the most poorly paid in the country.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 169