Editing Pierre Messmer (section)

=== Colonial administrator in Africa ===
Messmer began his high-level African service as governor of [[Mauritania]] from 1952 to 1954, and then served as governor of [[Ivory Coast]] from 1954 to 1956, when he briefly returned to Paris in the staff of [[Gaston Defferre]], Minister of Overseas Territories who enacted the Defferre Act granting to colonial territories internal autonomy, a first step towards independence.

That same year, Messmer was nominated as governor general of [[Cameroun]], where a civil war had started the preceding year following the outlawing of the independentist [[Union of the Peoples of Cameroon]] (UPC) in July 1955. He initiated a [[decolonization]] process and imported the [[counter-revolutionary warfare]] methods theorized in Indochina and implemented during the [[Algerian War]] (1954–62).<ref name=R89>David Servenay, [http://rue89.com/2007/08/30/pierre-messmer-un-soldat-que-le-cameroun-na-pas-oublie Pierre Messmer, un soldat que le Cameroun n'a pas oublié] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070903154547/http://www.rue89.com/2007/08/30/pierre-messmer-un-soldat-que-le-cameroun-na-pas-oublie |date=3 September 2007 }}, ''[[Rue 89]]'', 30 August 2007 {{in lang|fr}}</ref>
Visiting de Gaulle in Paris, he was implicitly granted permission for his change of policies in Cameroon, which exchanged repression for negotiations with the UPC.<ref name=R89 /> 

A "Pacification Zone" – the ZOPAC (''Zone de pacification du Cameroon'') was created on 9 December 1957, englobing 7,000 square km controlled by seven infantry regiments.<ref name=R89 /> Furthermore, a civilian-military intelligence apparatus was created, combining colonial and local staff, assisted by a civilian militia. [[Mao Zedong]]'s [[people's war]] was reversed in an attempt to separate the civilian population from the guerrilla. In that aim, the local population was rounded up in guarded villages located on the main roads that were controlled by the French Army.<ref name=R89 />

Messmer served as high commissioner of [[French Equatorial Africa]] from January 1958 to July 1958, and as high commissioner of [[French West Africa]] from 1958 to 1959.{{cn|date=November 2022}}