Death Squadrons: the French School

War always involves violence and death, but when soldiers are confronted with armed rebels using methods that have nothing to do with the Geneva Conventions, things really get scurvy. This was what the French experienced, first in Indo-China and later during the war of independence in Algeria in 1957. In this war, the French developed methods that would become known as ‘anti-subversive warfare’. One of the main elements was the use of drastic torture techniques, in order to obtain information about the enemy. Director Marie-Monique Robin talks with veterans from those days and illustrates their accounts with footage from the film THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS from 1966. This film was not just a feature film, but was used as an instruction film by the army. Robin’s investigation leads to the conclusion that the French method of warfare was copied by various other countries, including the United States. Conversations with soldiers and victims, which were partly filmed with a hidden camera, reveal that in the sixties and seventies the French influence on military rulers in Latin American countries like Argentina and Chile was substantial; an equally stunning and alarming outcome.