Grand Zohra

Grand Zohra is the conspirators’ euphemistic name for Charles de Gaulle, whose death they regard as the necessary first step toward restoring France to their preferred political order. The phrase recurs as their private shorthand for the target: it disguises a person as an objective, even as the conversation surrounding it makes the intended violence unmistakable. Its use also marks a turning point in the organization’s strategy, from repeated failures and compromised plans toward the possibility of employing an outsider.

Identity and Usage

The identity behind the name is made clear by the context. Rodin describes the “disposal of Grand Zohra” as the organization’s prime aim and says that further plans depend on it. Moments later, he speaks of “the killing of Zohra” as the first objective. The two formulations connect the grand-sounding name to a direct, practical purpose: the assassination of Charles de Gaulle.

The phrase works as a euphemism rather than an alternative political identity. Rodin’s language places “Grand Zohra” within the vocabulary of planning, alongside objectives, methods, and the risks of exposure. The substitution briefly distances the speakers from the person they intend to kill; the surrounding discussion closes that distance again. Their plans are about a human target, but their shorthand renders him as the central obstacle to be removed.

Political Meaning

Rodin presents the killing as a prerequisite for the cause, not as an isolated act. He says the organization seeks to “liberate France” and argues that its plans cannot proceed without the removal of Grand Zohra. When explaining the movement’s motivations to the English assassin, he characterizes its members’ belief that France is ruled by a dictator who has polluted the country and dishonoured it, and that France can be restored to Frenchmen only if he dies. This is the organization’s political rationale as Rodin states it; the narrative does not present the claim as neutral fact.

The contrast between liberation and assassination gives the name its ideological force. Rodin’s language makes the intended killing sound like an instrument of national recovery, folding violence into a larger account of patriotic duty. The phrase conceals the immediate act within that grander purpose, but cannot resolve the contradiction: the movement describes its objective as restoring the country while proposing to achieve it through murder. In this exchange, “Grand Zohra” is therefore not merely a convenient label. It is part of the rhetoric by which the conspirators frame a personal killing as a political necessity.

Failure of the Existing Campaign

The name returns as Rodin explains why the organization believes its previous methods have become untenable. Funds raised through bank robberies in Algeria are being consumed by the costs of running the organization, donations from right-wing industrialists are drying up, and contacts with the underground in France are growing weaker. Safe houses are being raided, support has receded since the capture of Antoine Argoud, and the execution of Jean-Marie Bastien-Thiry threatens to accelerate that retreat.

Rodin adds a more immediate operational problem: the Secret Police have infiltrated the movement so thoroughly that decisions and personnel are being exposed within days. In his account, the group’s existing supporters are known to the authorities and cannot operate in France without facing both conventional police and informers. Under these conditions, the effort to eliminate Grand Zohra is not simply difficult; its familiar channels have become liabilities. The repeated failure of the campaign and the exposure of its participants make a different kind of agent seem necessary.

The Professional Assassin

Rodin’s case for considering a professional grows out of the failures he recounts. He tells the Englishman that six attempts by the organization’s supporters have produced three plans exposed early, one betrayed on the eve of action, and two attempts that went ahead but missed. He asks whether a professional could kill Grand Zohra and escape, making clear that the question is still under consideration rather than a settled contract.

The Englishman distinguishes professional calculation from patriotic fervour. In his view, a professional is less likely to make elementary errors or withdraw at the last moment, and will not enter an operation until a plan offers a route to escape as well as a way to complete the mission. Yet Charles de Gaulle is an unusually difficult target: he is forewarned of the general intention, his security is not likely to lapse into routine, and an attempt would provoke an active response rather than panic. The Englishman argues that the earlier attempts have made the task harder for anyone who follows.

Rodin begins to ask what would happen if the organization decided to employ a professional, but the Englishman interrupts to say that it has to do so. That interruption turns the euphemism’s significance into a practical test. Grand Zohra remains the same target throughout the discussion, but the proposed means of reaching him shifts—from compromised insiders, whose plans are repeatedly betrayed, to an outsider expected to devise and execute an independent operation.