[5] A rebel government seized power in Algiers in order to defend "French Algeria".

[6] The rebellious generals took control of Corsica threatening to conduct an assault on Paris, involving paratroopers and armoured forces based at Rambouillet.

[7] On 1 June, returning from his 12 years out of power since his abrupt resignation as Head of the Provisional Government of the French Republic in 1946, De Gaulle replaced Pflimlin to lead a government of national unity and nominated as Ministers of State (Vice-Prime Ministers) Pierre Pflimlin (Popular Republican Movement, MRP), Guy Mollet (French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO), Louis Jacquinot (National Center of Independents and Peasants, CNIP) and Félix Houphouët-Boigny.

[9] Only the Communists and some center-left politicians such as Pierre Mendès-France and François Mitterrand, opposed this "coup against the Republic".

However, these oppositions were then met with counter demonstrations with a series of car honking stand off from Parisians occurring at the Avenue des Champs Elysées that very same night.