First modification:
On Saturday, President Emmanuel Macron became the first president of France to participate in the recognition of the massacre against Algerian protesters, which occurred on October 17, 1961, in the capital Paris. Macron took a step further than his predecessor François Hollande, although his words come at the worst moment of bilateral relations with Algeria, stating that Algerian history “is not based on truths.”
The Government of President Emmanuel Macron recognized this Saturday the fateful repression by the police in the 1961 Parisian march of thousands of citizens of Algeria, then a French colony.
“The crimes committed that night under the authority (of the Paris police chief) Maurice Papon are inexcusable for the Republic. France sees its entire history with clarity and recognizes the responsibilities clearly established,” he said in a statement issued by the Palace of Elysium.
On the eve of the anniversary of one of the bloodiest episodes in the capital, Macron participated in a ceremony in memory of the victims, on the Bezons bridge – in the Parisian ‘banlieue’ – being the first president to star in such a tribute.
Although the president acknowledged the facts, he did not issue a formal apology. However, he went further than his predecessor François Hollande did, who in 2012 admitted that the Algerians who protested on October 17, 1961 were “killed during a bloody repression.”
Algeria expected a bigger gesture from Macron
The activists hoped that Emmanuel Macron, the first president born in the post-colonial era, would make a bigger gesture and ask for forgiveness on behalf of his country, fixing reparation to the families of the victims and recognizing that what happened constituted a “crime of state” .
The president’s position on this 60th anniversary has been the object of great expectation, especially at a time of extreme tension between France and Algeria.
On September 30, Macron affirmed that the official Algerian history “is not based on truths” but on a “hate speech towards France”, which reignited the controversial debate of various groups that even question whether the African country was a State before its independence.
The controversy triggered the withdrawal of the Algerian ambassador in Paris, Mohamed Antar-Daoud, after President Abdelmadjid Tebboune demanded from the Elysee “respect for Algeria and the Algerian state.”
What happened that October 17, 1961 in Paris?
October 17, 1961 went down in history as a “massacre”, as one of the most violent days in the capital of France. Then, thousands of Algerians (then a colony) made a claim for their independence.
The mobilizations were called in response to a strict curfew imposed on Algerians to prevent the underground resistance movement of the National Liberation Front from collecting funds, following a series of deadly attacks on French police officers.
Some of the worst acts of violence took place on the Saint-Michel bridge, near the Notre-Dame cathedral, where some witnesses reported seeing officers throw Algerians into the Seine River, where they drowned.
The exact number of deaths is still unknown, although historians estimate that it was hundreds of people.
“There was a State cover-up, a State lie. There were government statements on the morning of October 18 that tried to incriminate the FLN and the Algerians,” explains historian Emmanuel Blanchard.
Years later it was revealed that the Paris Police Chief at the time, Maurice Papon, had come to collaborate with the Nazis during World War II.
France occupied Algeria from 1830 to 1962, the year of the country’s independence.
With his recognition of the massacre, Macron, who is seeking reelection in next year’s presidential elections, marks a distance from the position of his main political opponents.
His far-right electoral opponents, nationalists Marine Le Pen and Éric Zemmour, are outspoken critics of efforts to acknowledge or show regret for past crimes.
With AFP and Reuters
.