End of the Barricades

After four months of testimony, the "Barricades trial" ended last week in Paris with 13 acquittals. Of the 19 charged with "attacking the security of the state" during the January 1960 anti-De Gaulle uprising in Algiers, only six were found guilty-and all six had already fled to safety in exile. The stiffest in absentia sentences were handed out to the co-leaders of the uprising: death was decreed for burly Barkeeper Joseph Ortiz, chief of the terrorist Front National Franc,ais, and ten years' imprisonment for bearded, handsome Pierre Lagaillarde, the ex-paratrooper and student hero at the University of Algiers. A right-wing crowd at court wildly cheered the acquittals and the obvious fact that those found guilty are beyond the reach of the law.

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