Algeria: The Rivals

There are two kinds of Frenchmen in Algeria, and no two men were ever more ironically type-cast than Pierre Lagaillarde and Pierre Popie. Both from well-to-do families, they grew up as next-door neighbors amid the rose gardens and orange groves of Blida, a small town nestled at the foot of the Atlas Mountains. 32 miles from Algiers.

Slim, swaggering and handsome, Lagaillarde liked to race hot-rods on the twisting mountain roads above the Chiffa gorge, was soon known locally as a casse-tout, or hellraiser. He believed that Algeria belonged to its French...

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