- silence

- Unlike the Normandy landings some weeks earlier, the French leaders were this time closely associated to the setting of this Dragoon operation.

- Among the 400, 000 committed men, a huge majority of French citizens mainly from the Maghreb and the African continent.

- Over 230,000 North Africans thus participated to this landing in Provence.

- Michel Fine collected the memories of one of those veterans.

- When the war broke out, Ahmed Touati was doing his military service in Algeria.

- He was 24 when France sent him to the front line.

- In 1940, Ahmed is held prisoner by the Germans in Pithiviers,

- he runs away and comes back to Oran.

- In 42, when the Americans land in Algeria, Hamed resumes fighting. He will first go to the Italy campaign, then lands in Provence.

- “We landed close to Saint Raphael, we landed there,

- we went up behind the troops, and straight, up to Belfort.

- On November 24th, 1943, the first bombings on Toulon make over 500 dead.

- The toughest battles will take place on the Mont Faron.

- Some major ones precede the final assault.

- A sporadic reaction still arises in the center of the fort.

- The hardest thing was to climb up there, there were many Germans behind the trucks, bang!, bang! Fortunately the planes strick… the planes knock the Germans down.

- Ahmed belonged to the 2nd regiment of Algerian skirmishers.

- From 1942 to 1944, 233, 000 Algerians like him, Moroccans and Tunisians supplied 2/3 of the liberation forces.

- We landed here.

- There were some French from Algeria, yes, but not many at that time.

- Did you get any medal, rewards?

- They gave me the War Cross twice.

- But that’s all.

- If I have been French, they would have given a military medal.

- I never went beyond the War Cross.