 From 1958 to 1959, the French army won military control in Algeria and was the closest it would be to victory.In late July 1959, during Operation Jumelles, Colonel Bigeard, whose elite paratrooper unit fought at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, told journalist Jean Lartéguy, (source)

During this period in France, however, opposition to the conflict was growing among the population, notably the French Communist Party, then one of the country's strongest political forces, which was supporting the Algerian Revolution.Thousands of relatives of conscripts and reserve soldiers suffered loss and pain; revelations of torture and the indiscriminate brutality the army visited on the Muslim population prompted widespread revulsion, and a significant constituency supported the principle of national liberation.