An important issue within metropolitan France was public opinion, given that a substantial native population held a formally anticolonialist ideology (Communists, in particular) or was debating the war. The parties fought on this front too. The Prefecture of Police denied using torture or undue violence. Conversely, informers reported an organized campaign to implicate the FPA such that FLN "leaders and carefully chosen militants from the workers' residence in Vitry - 45, rue Rondenay - have been tasked with declaring in cafés and public places that they have suffered exactions, were robbed of pocketbooks or watches[...], and were victims of violence by the 'Algerian police'." A note diffused by the French arm of the FLN to its branches in September 1959 specifically focused on making claims of torture to influence the legal system: