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: The 'provoke the state into overreaction' strategy recurs across revolutionary movements (Tupamaros, Baader-Meinhof), yet here it produces the opposite effect — a useful pattern to trace across cases beyond the OAS.

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