TORTURES BY FRENCH

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28532, 11 March 1958, Page 15

TORTURES BY FRENCH

Allegations ByPrisoner

(Special Correspondent N-Z.P.A.) [Rec. 8 p.m.)

LONDON, March 10. “La Question” a book published in France a fortnight ago in which Henri Alleg, a leading member of the Algerian Communist Party and a former editor of the banned newspaper “Algar Republicaine” describes the tortufes he underwent last year while in the hands of French paratroopers, has sold more than 30,000 copies and another 15,000 have just left the presses. The French Government took no action against “La Question” but has now seized fdur Leftwing weeklies which either reproduced extracts from the book or commented upon it. According to the Paris correspondent of the “Daily Express,” newspapers of all shades of opinion have protested angrily at the seizure.

They say that constant arbitrary seizure by the French Ministry of the Interior is threatening the survival of many low-circula-tion papers and magazines. The “News Chronicle” correspondent says “La Question” is a horrifying book in which Alleg describes calmly, with almost clinical detachment, the tortures he suffered at the hands of French paratroopers whose prisoner he still is. “It is a tragic condemnation of the France of today to say that in reality Alleg’s book contains nothing particularly new. Most people are now aware that torture is a habitual weapon of the military and civil authorities in Algeria.” The “Manchester Guardian” correspondent says the success of the book indicates a grave political danger caused by cowardly tolerance of torture in Algeria by Socialist and Radical Ministers. “It is a Communist whp now emerges as a hero before French public opinion of which part at least is now being stirred to a deep anxiety about the way things have gone in Algeria.”