The mob went wild, and shouts of "Victoire! Victoire!" echoed round the city. Hearing the news Ortiz promptly declared: "We've won! Mollet's yielded in face of force," and ordered his cohorts to stand down the demonstration. … Throughout the turbulent course of French history, many a vital issue has been decided by the "street", and 6 February 1956 was certainly to prove a red-letter day for the French citizens of Algeria. That night, it is recorded that Mollet — perhaps appreciating the genie that he had just unbottled — murmured miserably, "I should not have given in." But it was too late; the Ortizes of Algiers now realised that they could bend to their will — or, possibly, even bring down — any government in Paris. There was nothing that street violence could not achieve — provided it was violent enough. The Forum itself would always, henceforth, wield a strange kind of mesmeric fascination upon the mob demagogue or would-be putschist. A leader of the student faction, one Pierre Lagaillarde, remarked to a colleague that day: "Now I know that we can effect a coup d'état here."

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 466