The Algerian state Minister and Personal Representative of the President, Abdelaziz Belkhadem castigated Saturday during the inauguration of the second session of the National Council of the Union of the Algerian Peasants, in the presence of the Minister of Agriculture Rachid Ben Aissa, the Minister of Water Resources, Abdelmalek Sellal, as well as all the staff of the sector of agriculture, those who try to glorify colonialism despite the crimes committed by the French colonialists on October 17th 1960 against peaceful Algerian demonstrators who were beaten up, shot or thrown into the river Seine in central Paris by French police forces on the orders of then police chief Maurice Papon.

• “We say to those who glorify colonialism and tell people that it came to civilise the others and teach them the civilisation, that the brutality of the colonization is untold… and that it had on this day of October 17 threw the Algerians in the Seine River in Paris, regardless of the other crimes such as killing the Algerians with smoke, shooting them, throwing them in the caves and valleys from aircrafts and helicopters, and the genocides.
• Belkhadem said, speaking in his capacity as Minister of State and Personal Representative of the President, not as head of the executive body of the FLN; “The brutality of the French colonialism reached Paris, and this date (October 17) requires a pause and needs an apology from the colonists. France must officially apologise for its colonial crimes, and have to enact a legislation that criminalises colonization in order to punish those who glorify colonialism and brutality against the Algerians”.