It was the people to whom the enigmatic words had been principally addressed—the pieds noirs—however, who understood them least well. In all his speeches during that first tour de Gaulle, by constantly repeating the phrase “only Frenchmen à part entière”, made it fairly clear that he was thinking in terms of equality between the races and thus, by extension, eventually majority rule. What de Gaulle “understood” about the pieds noirs was certainly by no means as flattering as they wished to believe, and as the realisation of this sank in Je vous ai compris became the bitterest of insults.

DEFINE: Clarifies that 'Je vous ai compris' carried implications of racial equality and eventual majority rule, not the reassuring meaning pieds noirs took from it.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 927