 Massu became chairman of the Public Safety Committee and one of the leaders of the revolt.General Salan assumed leadership of a Committee of Public Safety formed to replace the civil authority and pressed the junta's demands that de Gaulle be named by French president René Coty to head a government of national union invested with extraordinary powers to prevent the "abandonment of Algeria".Salan announced on radio that the Army had "provisionally taken over responsibility for the destiny of French Algeria".