On the day of the publication of simultaneous communiqués announcing the Evian talks, Louis Joxe, de Gaulle's Minister for Algeria, committed what looked like a major gaffe. He announced that he would "be meeting the M.N.A. in parallel with the F.L.N.". It was a last final attempt by France to resurrect the idea of a "third force" — and a thoroughly unsuccessful one. The G.P.R.A. exploded; here at the eleventh hour was France trying to turn the peace talks into a round-table affair; trying to do just what Ahmed Francis had always warned they would do — "produce a Bao-Dai out of a hat".

XREF: Parallels with France's earlier Bao Dai strategy in Indochina, as the G.P.R.A. themselves allude.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1422