Louisette Ighilahriz
Ighilahriz "describes herself as coming from a whole family of nationalists," calling her mother "illiterate but hyperpoliticised" and saying that her maternal grandfather clandestinely manufactured guns for "revolutionaries.
[3] Strongly anti-French, Ighilahriz joined the FLN under the codename Lila in late 1956 to work as a courier, smuggling information, weapons and bombs across Algiers in bread baked by her father.
Ighilahriz was taken to a military prison at Paradou Hydra where a French Army captain, Jean Graziani, cut her bangs, prodded her wounds with a bayonet and then raped her in her words "with all sorts of objects" to make her talk.
[6] During this time, Ighilahriz was not allowed to bath and spent months covered in her own blood, excrement and urine as she was held in a tiny cell.
[7] Ighilahriz remembered: "Mon urine s'infiltrait sous la bâche du lit de camp, mes excréments se mélangeaient à mes menstrues jusqu'à former une croûte puante" ("My urine passed through the sheet covering the camp bed, my excrement mixed with my menstrual blood, forming a stinking crust").
"[9] Ighilahriz stated about Captain Jean Graziani: "Mais l'essentiel de ses tortures ne s'exerçaient pas à mains nues.
Il était toujours armé d'ustensiles pour s'acharner contre mon plâtre" ("But he did not carry out most of his torture with his bare hands.
[7] At the time she first met "Richard", Ighilahriz recalled " "J'étais en train de devenir folle" ("I was losing my mind"), stating the effects of torture, rape and repeated injections of the "truth drug" Pentothal had pushed her to the brink of madness.
[10] "Richaud" played something of a surrogate father to Ighilahriz as she remembered him telling her: "Mon petit, vous êtes bien jeune pour le maquis.
[10] Mortimer also noted the irony that though "Richaud" saved Ighilahriz's life he was a supporter of Algérie française, approving of the goals though not the methods of the French Army in Algeria.
"[1] Ighilahriz stated that her reason for coming forward – after remaining silent for decades, as she was too ashamed of what had happened to her – was that she wanted to see "Richaud" one last time to thank him.
[7] Bigeard stated in an interview that her story was a "tissue of lies" meant to "destroy all that is decent in France" and denied that Dr "Richaud" existed.
In March 1957 his conscience was eased when the Catholic chaplain attached to his unit told him that God approved of torture as the only way to defeat the FLN, who were all Muslims.
[19] Mortimer writes that though Ighilahriz suffered terribly, the purpose of her story is more to pay tribute to Dr Richaud than to express rage at her torturers and rapists.
[8] Mortimer commented that it was striking when it came to dealing with the memory of unspeakable physical and sexual abuse, apart from Dr Richaud, all of the emotional support that Ighilahriz drew upon came from other women.
[24] The lack of a subsequent court case causes Vince to describe Ighilahriz as "the vindicated underdog who had forced Saadi to back down despite his greater political power.
[23] The British historian Martin Thomas writes that Ighilahriz's interview and her book generated a media storm in France in 2000 and 2001, as her account of physical and sexual abuse while in the custody of the 10th Paratroop Division for three months in late 1957 resonated with the French people, making her the face of victims of torture in Algeria.
[26] Schmitt stated that he served alongside Graziani in Vietnam, and called him a passionate French patriot from Corsica, whom he described as incapable of committing the acts that Ighilahriz accused him of.
More controversy has centred on the fact that in the first edition of Algérienne, Ighilahriz denied being raped, saying "Il ne pouvait pas non plus me violer, j'étais trop dégueulasse!"
[27] However, Mortimer defends Ighilahriz on the grounds of the Muslim Berber culture's attitude that it is deeply shameful for an unmarried woman not to be a virgin, so to avoid public scorn she would not want to discuss being raped.
[8] After the war, Ighilahriz worked with the Union Nationale des Femmes Algériennes (UNFA), an association designed to embody "'the Algerian woman' abroad," represent "her interest and needs at home" and prepare "her to participate in the running of the state", although it essentially functioned as a "branch of the FLN's mass organisation apparatus" supporting the single party state.
[29] Ighilahriz's activities as a member of the executive committee of the UNFA included visits to other countries, "ostensibly with the task of looking at socio-economic models which might work in Algeria".
[30] Furthermore, Ighilahriz explains that, regarding her work towards female political participation, "My task was too much, the weight of tradition was enormous and the number of conservative men extremely high.
[35] She described him as brave, humble, and wise, remarking that she believed that he would satisfy the Algerian people and bring about significant changes for the good.
[35] But on 7 March 2019, in the context of massive protests across Algeria against President Bouteflika running for a fifth mandate, Ighilahriz announced to TSA that she no longer supported Ali Ghediri as a candidate.
[37] Instead, she said, "Nous sommes en train de tout faire pour que le système s'en aille et quant le système partira, on se mettra d'accord sur une constituante comme point de départ et nous formerons un nouveau gouvernement par la suite" [We are doing everything so that the system goes away, and when the system leaves, we will agree on a constituent phase as a departure point and we will form a new government thereafter].
