For de Gaulle this seemed to mean the vanishing of any last hope of a meaningful solution of “association” with an independent Algeria, which he had always felt — dating back to his wartime acquaintance — might be possible with Abbas in charge. With Ben Khedda and the new F.L.N. direction appearing to represent the continuance of revolution, of agrarian reform, expropriation and left-wing Socialism, the prospect of any valid “guarantees” for the pieds noirs also looked increasingly bleak. What was the alternative? To continue a war to which the majority of metropolitan Frenchmen, not to mention the outside world, was now becoming resolutely hostile, and which was increasingly profitless to France in every sense?

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1452