France pays tribute to Algerians slaughtered in 1961 massacre

A TRIBUTE march was organized yesterday in Paris for the 60th anniversary of the French police’s bloody crackdown on a protest by Algerians in the French capital during the final year of their country’s independence against colonial France.

The commemoration comes after French President Macron acknowledged that the “crimes” committed on Oct. 17, 1961 – which authorities have sought to cover up for decades – were “inexcusable for the Republic.”

The peaceful demonstration of some 30,000 Algerians – mostly living in shanty towns around the French capital – was called by Algeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN) and continued from Oct. 17 to Oct. 20. The FLN pro-independence movement put strong emphasis on anti-imperialism and fought

France in the Algerian war which lasted nearly eight years from 1954 to 1962. After having been a French colony since 1930, Algeria declared independence in 1962 as a result of the war. The movement stepped up the pressure with attacks in French cities, particularly in Paris. The police were especially targeted as a symbol of the French state.

“The repression was brutal, violent, bloody” under orders of Maurice Papon, Paris’ police chief, Macron said in a statement released Saturday.

About 12,000 Algerians were arrested and dozens were killed, “their bodies thrown into the Seine River,” the president’s office said. Historians say at least 120 protesters were killed, some shot and some drowned, according to Macron’s office. The exact number has never been established as archives remain partially closed by the French government.

Papon later became the highestranking Frenchman convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity for his role in deporting Jews during World War II. Human rights and anti-racism groups and Algerian associations in France staged a tribute march in Paris on Sunday afternoon.

They called on authorities to further recognize the French state’s responsibilities in the “tragedies and horrors” related to Algeria’s independence war and to further open up archives.

Earlier yesterday, Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo attended a tribute ceremony at the Saint-Michel bridge, in the capital’s city center. Macron paid tribute to victims Saturday at the Bezons bridge over the Seine River in the northwest of Paris. He was the first president to attend a commemoration event for the massacre.

Earlier this year, he announced a decision to speed up the declassification of secret documents related to Algeria’s 1954-62 war of independence from France. The new procedure was introduced in August, Macron’s office said.

The move was part of a series of steps taken by Macron to address France’s brutal history with Algeria, which had been under French rule for 132 years until its independence in 1962.

In 2018, Macron formally recognized the responsibility of the French state in the 1957 death of a dissident in Algeria, Maurice Audin, admitting for the first time the French military’s use of systematic torture during the war.