Thus, he affirms that in spite of his fidelity to Pétain, it was not a blind discipline which guided him, that he only composed with the enemy to save the essential: his departure would have done pass Tunisia under Italian control, the delivery of wheat to the Italians in Libya was compensated by identical shipments to the French populations, he sabotaged the recruitment of the African Phalanx, he did not have enough troops, with 12,000 men, to oppose the Axis forces, the Allies being too far away.