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During the Algerian War of Independence, metropolitan France and its colony gradually merged into a single theatre of judicial proceedings. Indeed, a closer look at the careers of government commissioners reveals that these were military men with extensive colonial experience who repeatedly crossed from one side of the Mediterranean to the other throughout the war, thus facilitating the circulation of repressive practices within the Franco-Algerian space. Their professional military and colonial training also help to explain the severity of the sentences they demanded when prosecuting Algerians in military courts. Previously unexplored archives shed light on the operations of wartime military courts and more specifically on the role of these military figures, who had hitherto only been depicted as shadowy enemies by former defendants.