High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Paul Aussaresses (born 7 November 1918) is a retired French Army general, who fought during World War II, the First Indochina War and Algerian War. His actions during the Algerian War, and later defense of those actions, caused considerable controversy. Aussaresses was a career Army intelligence officer with an excellent military record when he joined the Free French Forces in North Africa during the Second World War. In 1947 he was given command of the 11th Shock Battalion, a commando unit that was part of SDECE, French intelligence.