On the eve of the takeover a major of Godard's old unit, the 11th Shock, presented himself at Sûreté headquarters with an armed escort and demanded of the flabbergasted police officials that they hand over all their dossiers on F.L.N. suspects. After an unremitting twenty-four hours' examination of the dossiers, lists of suspects for summary arrest were sent out to each regiment. A mass round-up then took place, accompanied by none of the judicial formalities of warrants or preferring of charges as required by cumbersome civil procedure, and with the suspects subjected to questionable methods of interrogation.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 568