Fernand Yveton

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Fernand Yveton (his surname is sometimes rendered as "Iveton"; 12 January 1926 - 11 February 1957) was the only pied noir among the 198 supporters of the FLN who were executed (as opposed to being killed in battle or dying under torture) during the war in Algeria.

Yveton was born in 1926 in Algiers to a Spanish mother and a French father. The father was a member of the Algerian Communist Party (PCA) which the younger Yveton also joined, at the age of sixteen. When the PCA and the FLN signed an agreement in 1956, Yveton, who had previously been a member of the Communist Combattants de la Libération, consequently became a member of the FLN.

In November 1956, Yveton, who worked as a turner at the Algerian Gas and Electric Company, was given the task of planting a bomb at the Hamma power station. In order not to kill anybody, he decided both to place the bomb in his locker and to set the timer so that the bomb would explode when the workplace would be empty. However, because of his political record, Yveton was closely watched and the bomb was found before it could explode^[1].

Yveton was arrested, tortured, and sentenced to death. A group of lawyers attempted to get President René Coty to commute the sentence, noting the fact that nobody had been killed, or would have been killed if the bomb had exploded. They failed, because of the press campaign that had been mounted against Yveton.^[2].

He was guillotined in the yard of Barberousse prison in Algiers.

A little later, his accomplices, Jacqueline and Abdelkader Guerroudj, were tried. He was a political officer who liaised between the Combattants de la Libération and the FLN, while she was a teacher, originally from Rouen in France. She had been given the task of handing the bomb materials to Yveton; on being given the assurance that no lives would be lost, she did so. The Guerrodjs were condemned to death. The fate of M. Guerroudj is unclear but Mme. Guerroudj, at least, was never executed, partly due to a campaign on her behalf conducted by Simone de Beauvoir^[3].