Accepting that from the beginning the dice were loaded against him, Sergent reckoned that "our only chance to swing in our favour a significant section of metropolitan opinion is to create a situation obliging the regime to react violently and discredit itself". It was the traditional formula of the modern revolutionary terrorist, whether Tupamaros or Baader-Meinhof, and — as so often happens — it was to produce quite the opposite results from those desired by Sergent. Over the six months, culminating in February, that the main O.A.S. offensive in France lasted, it was to do as much as anything else to tilt French sympathies towards de Gaulle's acceptance of a precipitate withdrawal from Algeria.

XREF: Echoes the classic provocation paradox seen in Baader-Meinhof and other insurgency failures, where violent provocation rallied publics to the state.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1523