On 4 July the tricolour was lowered in Algiers for the first time in 132 years as High Commissioner Fouchet, the last of France’s all-powerful pro-consuls, left for home. Consulting de Gaulle whether he should be present at the flag-lowering ceremony or not, Fouchet after a pause of several seconds had been told simply: “Je crois que ça serait inutile….” But as he left the massed bands played Le Marche Consulaire composed for Napoleon after Marengo — something Fouchet would never forget. “It was a victory march,” he explains. “That may seem curious, but really it was symbolic because in these last days it represented a great victory over ourselves…. And, after all, wasn’t de Gaulle’s decision on Algeria in effect a great victory over himself?”

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1621