Down at In-Salah in the Sahara, on the Tuesday Robert Buron had been awakened by a heavy rumble in the distance. It was France's latest atomic bomb test at Reggane — an extraordinary demonstration of the realities of Gaullist power, in spite of the fact that in Algiers to the north the rebel generals were still in power.

QUESTION: This is the Algerian crisis period. The juxtaposition of nuclear tests with the rebel generals controlling Algiers is striking — worth understanding how the French Fifth Republic pursued colonial warfare and nuclear power simultaneously.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1393