 What made the interview very touching for many French people was that Ighilahriz was not demanding vengeance, but rather wished to express thanks to Dr. François Richaud, the army doctor who extended her much kindness and whom she believed saved her life by treating her every time she was tortured, asking if it were possible for her to see Dr. Richaud one last time to thank him personally (Dr. Richaud it turned out had died in 1997).As Ighilahriz had been an attractive woman in her youth, university-educated, secular, fluent in French and fond of quoting Victor Hugo, and her duties in the FLN had been as an information courier, she made for a most sympathetic victim as she was a woman did not come across as Algerian.William Cohen commented had she been an uneducated man who had been involved in killings and was not coming forward to express thanks for a Frenchman, her story might not had resonated the same way.