French retired army generals threaten a coup d’état On April 21, the 60th anniversary of the 1961 attempted French military putsch in Algiers, 23 retired generals published an open letter to the government in the neofascist website Valeurs Actuelles . The letter is an extraordinary intervention by the army into political life. One hundred and fifty years after the 1871 Paris Commune and the massacre of the Communards by the army in the Semaine sanglante, the letter alludes to a military intervention and bloody civil war in the country, supposedly provoked by the “complacency” of the French. France's President Emmanuel Macron and French Armies Chief Staff General Francois Lecointre stand in the command car, center, as they review troops before the start of the Bastille Day military parade, Tuesday, July 14, 2020 in Paris. (AP Photo/Francois Mori)