More than ever, Salan was now the hero of the hour, and this sudden access of popularity and influence could not help but affect him as indeed it had Soustelle two years previously. The next day, 16 May, the euphoria of the moment occasioned one of the more remarkable and inexplicable phenomena of the whole war. Into the excited pied noir crowds that thronged the Forum, which had now become well-established as the centre of the daily entertainment, that evening there merged dense groups of Muslims. Waving tricolours and crosses of Lorraine, and banners that proclaimed “We demand a Government of National Unity”, or even “Vive Massu!”, they came in their thousands from the Algiers Casbah and from douars throughout Algeria; old men sporting wartime decorations, young students, pregnant fatmas in haiks. A voice from the “G—G” balcony shouted, “Here are our Muslim brothers! Make a place for them!” and there followed extraordinary scenes of mass emotion. Pieds noirs linked arms with Muslims, embraced them; European girls lifted the veils of acquiescent Muslim women; all together sang the Marseillaise and the military Chant des Africains. From the famous balcony the stentorian voice of Massu rang out, welcoming “with pride” this “spontaneously organised” assemblage of Muslims, and asserting, “Let them know that France will never abandon them.”

XREF: Connects to the Algerian War and Salan/Soustelle's rise, likely relevant to broader readings on decolonization and settler-colonial dynamics. QUESTION: Why did thousands of Muslims participate in these pro-France rallies only days before the tide turned? The author calls it 'inexplicable.'

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 888