French Battle of Algiers general Bigeard dies

Bigeard led an underground resistance group during World War II. In the early 1950s he led a parachute battalion in southeast Asia, where France was struggling to regain control of its colonies in Indochina. He and his unit were dropped into Dien Bien Phu, which fell to the Vietnamese in May 1954, signalling the end of the French presence in the region.

He was released from captivity in Vietnam in time to join the campaign in Algeria. He took part in the Battle of Algiers in 1957, when French forces made use of torture in their attempt to defeat the National Liberation Front.

Later, in the 1970s, he was junior defence minister under President Valery Giscard d'Estaing.

At the news of his death, a former leading Algerian independence fighter criticised him for not apologising for France's torture of Algerians during the war of independence.

"Until the last minute, I thought he was going to acknowledge his actions and present his apologies," said former liberation fighter Louisette Ighilahriz. "For us, the name of Marcel Bigeard is synonymous with death and torture. He could have cleared his conscience before dying."

In July 2000, Bigeard said that torture had been a "necessary evil," but denied playing any part in it himself.

Bigeard was known to be one of several models for Colonel Mathieu, a brutal French parachutist depicted in Gilles Pontecorvo's 1966 film The Battle of Algiers, which was banned in France for five years after its release.

Born into a working-class family in Toul on 14 February 1916 and wounded five times in battle, he was one of France's most decorated soldiers, having among other awards the Medal of the Resistance, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, the British Distinguished Service Order and the rank of Commander of the American Legion. He also wrote 15 books.

He died in Toul, the northeastern town where he was born, after recently being hospitalised twice for phlebitis.

"General Bigeard was for the French the incarnation of the heroic figure of the fighter," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy in a statement issued on a visit to London.