On a purely tactical level, Lacoste's decision meant that, virtually for the first time in the two years of war, France was accepting the F.L.N.'s challenge, confronting it with total force and backed by the will to use it. The confrontation would have to end in a clear-cut defeat for one side or the other. But beyond this, the calling in of the paras was to signify far more than just a transient cession of power by the civil authorities to the military; for it was never fully to be restored for another five years. That good Socialist and democrat, Robert Lacoste, was in effect placing his signature on the death warrant of the Fourth Republic.

XREF: Connects to governance collapse and civil-military relations literature from other readings.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 564