Bollardière's sense of outrage was further increased when approached by weeping Muslim women who told him that their sons or husbands had "disappeared in the night", and finally he sought an interview with Massu, telling him that the orders he had been issued were "in absolute opposition to the respect of man, which was the foundation of my life". After this Bollardière commented: "if the leadership yielded on the absolute principle of respect for human beings, enemy or not, it meant an unleashing of deplorable instincts which no longer knew any limits and which could always find means of justifying itself".

XREF: Echoes the 'foot-in-the-door' or slippery-slope dynamic in moral psychology and organizational obedience research.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 603