FRANCE: A newspaper has gathered testimony that Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the National Front, tortured Algerians, writes Lara Marlowe.
The Algerian War intruded into French politics yesterday, six days before the first round of legislative elections, when the left-wing newspaper Le Monde published the front page headline "Revelations on Le Pen, Torturer in Algeria".
Mr Jean-Marie Le Pen, the leader of the extreme right-wing National Front, went to Algiers as a lieutenant in the Foreign Legion at the beginning of 1957.
Then 28, he was the youngest deputy in the National Assembly and wanted to show solidarity with French troops. In an interview with Combat five years later, Mr Le Pen said: "I have nothing to hide. I tortured because it had to be done.
"When someone is brought to you who has planted 20 bombs that could explode at any moment and who will not talk, you use all the methods at your disposal to make him talk," Mr Le Pen said then.
But he later took back his words and has since sued those who accused him of torture, sometimes successfully.
Mr Le Pen was the runner-up in the May 5th presidential election, when nearly six million French people voted for him. He has a strong following among Algerian War veterans, and among pieds noirs, the Europeans who fled Algeria at independence.
Most of Mr Le Pen's supporters probably don't care whether the chilling testimony gathered in Algiers by Le Monde's correspondent, Ms Florence Beaugé, is true.
None of the four men who talked to Ms Beaugé had ever spoken of their experiences outside their families. Abdelkader Ammour (64), Mustapha Merouane (66), and Mohamed Amara (63) recalled how Lieut Le Pen practised "house-call torture" in the Kasbah on the night of February 2nd, 1957.
Mr Ammour, a retired teacher, recognised later from photographs the leader of the 20 paratroopers who burst into his house.
"The others called Le Pen 'Marco'. He exuded violence. He did it more to break us than to get information."
Mr Ammour was forced to lie on the floor with his hands tied beneath his back. "They plugged the electrical wires directly into the mains and moved them all over my body. Then they soaked a rag with dirty toilet water and put it on my face and forced me to swallow. Le Pen was sitting on me. He held the rag while another man poured the water."
Mr Merouane, a retired building painter, saw paratroopers break the arm of an old man who protested at the torture.
"They took my clothes off and put me on a metal bed frame.
Le Pen turned the electrical switch on and off. He threw water on my body before starting the electricity again."
When Mr Merouane gave false information, Mr Le Pen allegedly put his pistol to the Algerian's head in a mock execution, then tortured his father, who was later shot dead in prison.
Mr Mohamed Abdellaoui, 72, met Mr Le Pen in Fort-l'Empereur, the prison operated by paratroopers on the heights of Algiers.
He did not understand why the French soldier who came to fetch him said: "The deputy is calling you to the Assembly!"
Mr Abdellaoui was tortured in an office where he was forced to lie on a wet sack on the floor, surrounded by electrical wires.
He described Mr Le Pen as "heavily built, with a round, white face and a nasty smile ... The other was tall, thin and wore a khaki uniform; he was Aussaresses."
Gen Paul Aussaresses (83) was convicted this year of being an apologist for torture.
Post-war pardons have made it impossible to prosecute such men as Gen Aussaresses and Mr Le Pen for war crimes. "The main problem with Le Pen was alcohol, when he wasn't on duty," Gen Aussaresses told Le Monde.
Mr Le Pen claims he never met Gen Aussaresses, that the Le Monde report was drawn up "with the complicity of the Algerian intelligence service", and constitutes an incitation to murder him.
The newspaper articles "are not worth a rabbit's fart", he added.