Destins: Général De Bollardière

1975-03-24

Runtime: 52 minutes

Released

The exceptional portrait of a pacifist general, the only senior officer to have spoken out against torture. This precious testimony still remains censored in France, since no national channel has to date decided to program this documentary. Son and brother of a soldier, General Pâris de Bollardière was destined for a career in arms. He was, for many years, one of the most brilliant representatives of this adventurer career in France, from Narvik to the Algerian War. After fighting in the French maquis, he reached Indochina, where he suddenly found himself in the aggressor's camps. His beliefs are strongly shaken. But it is in Algeria, where the French army practices torture and summary executions, that he takes the big turn. He expresses his contempt to Massu, and is relieved of his command. Until his death in 1986, Jacques de Bollardière fought for world peace, from the Larzac plateaus to the Mururoa atolls.