Organization of meetings, accommodation of the Algerian delegation, discretion and secret … The Swiss authorities have played a decisive role behind the scenes of the talks of the peace agreements signed on March 18, 1962 between France and Algeria.
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The choice of the locality of Evian is not trivial. The thermal resort of Haute-Savoie is border of Switzerland, territory “neutral” where the Algerian delegation will be hosted, and scrupulously protected, during the negotiations on peace in Algeria started in May 1961. No chance in these daily crossings of Lake Geneva which, in fact, devote an effective involvement of Swiss diplomacy. How long would have lasted the war of Algeria without these good offices of the Swiss state, currently published by the diplomatic archives ? “It would have risked lasting longer,” responds to the Swiss diplomat Olivier Long in his book the secret file of Evian’s agreements: a Swiss peacemission for peace in Algeria (Lausanne, Edit 24 hours, 1988) which relates its activities, largely secret, for eighteen months of mediation.
At the end of the Second World War, Switzerland’s neutrality against Nazi Germany is reproached by the Allies. In the middle of the cold war and decolonization movement, the Federal Councilor Max Pétapierre, Head of the Federal Policy Department (FDP), that is, Minister Swiss Foreign Affairs, intends to rethink the role of Switzerland around the world. It makes the principle of “active neutrality” which invites Switzerland to make available to the States “to facilitate the search for a solution to their problems in the interest of peace,” he writes in the preface of the book Long Olivier.
2,000 Swiss citizens in Algeria
Very early in the war, as early as 1956, Mr. Pétapierre sees “other solution than the granting of independence” to Algeria. In June 1959, he condemned the use of torture by the French army. Its role will be decisive in providing the good Swiss offices. Switzerland must also think of the interests of more than 2,000 Swiss citizens living in Algeria, the Africa region where they are the most numerous. One of the biggest fortunes of French Algeria is also Switzerland: the Borgeaud family. Switzerland is, what Historian Marisa calls, “colonial colonialism”.
“The official Switzerland was first French pro-Algeria,” remembers Nils Andersson, Swiss publisher of the question, from Henri Alleg (1958), narrats the methods of torture used by the army in Algeria. Nils Andersson was a member of the National Libération National Liberation (FLN) Network who had ramifications in Switzerland. The contributions paid by the Algerians domiciled in France passed on by Switzerland. “France regularly accused Swiss banks to manage capital on behalf of the FLN,” says Antoine Fleury historian.
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