Then, on 17 March 1960, the cadi of Médéa, a small town nestling in the Atlas some fifty miles south-west of Algiers, received three clandestine visitors. They were Si Lakhdar, a former mason with a reputation for aggressive courage who had succeeded Si Salah as intelligence chief of Wilaya 4, Halim, the political boss of the Wilaya, and Abdellatif, commander of the Médéa zone. The message they brought the astonished cadi was that Colonel Si Salah and themselves were desirous of negotiating de Gaulle's formula of a paix des braves — so brusquely rejected by the G.P.R.A. — for Wilaya 4 and any others that might follow suit. But they would not negotiate with local military or civil representatives, of whom they were distrustful; it had to be a high authority in Paris.

XREF: This clandestine peace initiative by FLN Wilaya commanders contrasts with the official G.P.R.A. rejection, relevant to histories of the Algerian War's final negotiations.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1176