projects firing on anything that moved. The Neos organised defence groups and fought back armed with their stocks of illegal arms. The police looked on doing little to prevent racist violence, as though they approved, it was as though they were taking revenge for the years they had been deprived by the politicians of the necessary authority to impose law and order in the neighbourhoods. On the other hand they replied with brutality against the Neos.
It was then a young centrist Senator from Chalon-sur-Saône, Charles d'Albignac, emerged as a leader, a reluctant compromise between left and right. He was seen as honest, unscathed by scandal, standing for law and order, family and moral values. Albignac was firm in his position on the problem of the Neos, he believed they owed an unswerving loyalty to the nation, where they lived or where they were born.
His small party bore the label Democratic Liberal Socialist Movement, and though he preached a centrist line he often tended towards authoritarian nationalism, advocating a strong centralised state, refusing the nation’s loss of sovereignty to the Federation. He had previously run for president, winning a little over nine percent in the first round, a respectable score against a line up of serious candidates and the usual gaggle of political opportunists that popped up with regularity at every French election. He came from a strong Catholic background, which appealed to the traditional middle of the road French voter, in spite of coming from an old family that still proudly bore the coat of arms of the Ducs d’Albignac, though nobility had no been recognised in France for more than a century.
His leadership appealed to the public, as he was neither linked to the Socialist coalition, which had more than its share of responsibility for the crisis, nor was he bound to the traditional Gaullist party whose endless disputes would have left the path open to the Socialist coalition composed of Socialist Party, Greens, Radical Democrats and extreme leftist splinter factions. To the country’s desperate leaders he represented new ideas and a compromise in a dire situation that had damaged the image of most of the leading political figures.
The German Chancellor implored Berat and the provisional French government to take action, the Euro was in free fall and the Paris Bourse had all but collapsed with a knock-on effect throughout European markets. The smaller members of the Federation were in a state of shock as they watched the events unroll on their screens in real time.
The convulsions that shook France were in opposition to the politics practised by its government over the previous half century. Europe had become a federation of mono-ethnic/mono-religious nations, a process that had commenced with the reunification of Germany, the division of Czechoslovakia, the implosion of the Soviet Union, the fragmentation of Yugoslavia. During the same period the autonomy of the Spanish provinces and the separation of Belgium into its ethnic parts were taking form alongside the devolution of the United Kingdom, leaving England struggling with its ethnic minorities.
France remained the only European nation that made the pretence at being an integrated multi-ethnic society. It was no more than an illusion, since the attribution to minorities of exceptions and privileges in education and religion practises by the Socialist, only served to alienate the growing ethnic minorities from the main stream, as did their cultural intrusion in the media and entertainment. The resentment generated manifested itself in an occult racism that permeated through the whole of French society setting a double standard. In public, the vast majority French of all backgrounds ‘adored’ the country’s minorities, whilst in private they barely tolerated them or even detested them with the changes that they were brought to France.
Segregation was both economic and social, it was blatant in employment, preferred residential areas, meeting places and holiday destinations, wherever possible the French sought to escape what they were forced to accept in their capital and almost all their large provincial towns and cities.
The tolerance of the French had reached its limits, they were sapped by the demands of Arabs, Africans plus the whole gamut of so called refugees and asylum seekers, who were completely indifferent to ‘nos ancetres les Gaulois’, resulting in the exclusion of those minorities from work places. Unemployment resulted in poverty and delinquency, creating further prejudices and divisions, aggravating the status of the hapless minorities.
As the General strike swung into its stride, the inner suburban neighbourhoods organised themselves. Radical leaders appeared at the head of young Neos groups who took up arms, these leaders were an elite who had fought in Palestine, North Africa and the Central Asian conflicts. Men who were members of Islamic movements, or so called freedom fighters, or even plain criminals who frequented martial arts clubs initiating young men in theology, politics and crime. They spread not only ideas, but also techniques including the use of arms and explosives, house to house combat and terrorist methods using abandoned factory sites, old quarries, mountain hideouts and isolated farms.
Networks had been established for different tasks. The more dangerous initiates specialised in bank and supermarket hold-ups, ostensibly for funds to finance their movements, though certain did not hesitate to line their own pockets. Others defended their brothers against injustice, real or imagined, by the police and the authorities. These Neo sons of Settlers were recruited by the older members, the more serious setting examples by not smoking or drinking, reciting verses of the Koran, learning Arabic, whilst others introduced them to base criminality. In any case many had become hardened combatants for the cause, whether it was for Islam or against their rejection by French society.
They, together with sympathisers, young blacks and whites from the Settler neighbourhoods, who either admired them, felt rejected or for simple excitement and adventure, formed the hardcore of the rebellion.
The provisional government feared that Marseille would be turned into another Beirut or Gaza. Christians against Muslims, guerrilla warfare with foreign interference, arms smuggling, the pillage and destruction of the City and its surrounding areas.
The President, fearing a political stalemate, ordered the Army to put down the rebellion by force. What he did not foresee was the refusal of certain army units to obey orders. Many of the military were themselves non-Gallos and sympathised with the insurgents. Marseille and several nearby towns resisted faced by a discourage army, they were besieged but not defeated. The rebels then launched an appeal for international assistance. The Caliphate called for volunteers.
The situation turned for the worse when hesitations appeared in the ranks of the provisional government, either they backed the President’s call for an all out assault against the rebel bastion of Marseille, or back the socialists’ proposal of power sharing with the minorities. The country’s leaders were split between hardliners, who rejected as preposterous any idea of power sharing with the minorities, and the left who refused the continued use of force at any price.
An alliance of conservative hardliners and the extremist National Front threatened to take up arms against the extreme left and their allies to prevent any form of appeasement threatening to transform the situation into civil war. Demonstrations were called for and fighting between the different supporters broke out in Place de la République in Paris.
During the night of the 14th February, d’Albignac, backed by a hard core of followers, army generals and police heads seized power. A cease fire was declared supervised by Federation forces and the provisional government disbanded. All key figures were rounded up and put under house arrest, whilst less important personalities were held incommunicado in a Chateau on the outskirts of Paris.
D’Albignac was acclaimed as a new de Gaulle when with the aid of the Federation the situation was quickly brought under control. Guy Charret, the ex-Prime Minister, together with his close followers were unceremoniously packed off to an unknown destination and President Berat wisely accepted the offer of an honourable retirement in Martinique.
It was nothing less than a putsch.
The huge demonstrations acclaimed d’Albignac as the saviour of the
nation, who declared that France would not tolerate the violence of those who had accepted its generosity. The rebels had committed high treason and would not be forgiven for their criminal acts against the nation that had striven to integrate them with the gift of citizenship, providing them with homes and protection.
The 14th February was declared a solemn national holiday, not only for those who died in the terrible battle against the Rebellion in the lost Region of Provence, but in memory of those who died in the French colonial wars.
In addition to the French of Settler origin, the Rebellion had been backed by Gallos who also lived in the rundown neighbourhoods of France’s cities. Those of Gallo-European origin were considered traitors or sympathisers and even more brutally treated than the Neos. They were branded by the word ‘Excluded’, stamped on their identity documents, signifying that they were deprived of all civic rights, social benefits and government employment however low the level.
During the cease fire secret negotiations were held in Evian under the auspices of the Federation. D’Albignac proposed a plan whereby Marseille and an area stretching to Toulon would have the status of a