Former ambassador denounces French allegations

Former Algerian ambassador to France, Mohammed Ghoualmi, staunchly reacted to the declaration of the French president’s cultural adviser, Jean Marc Benhamou, when this one accused members of the National Liberation Front of committing genocide against “Harkis” (Algerian collaborators with French authorities during the war of independence).

• The former diplomat qualified the cultural adviser’s words suggesting that some 150 thousand Harkis were killed on the independence eve as “ a big lie”. M Ghoualmi said “ the number of collaborators never reached this total at any moment ”.
• The former ambassador said that these allegations do not refer to the past only, but extends to the present time also, he went on saying “ when somebody achieves something they refer to him as Maghreban and never mention his Algerian origins, unless he does something wrong” the ambassador added “ I, personally conferred with several “Harkis’ children when I was ambassador and came to apologize for their parent’s disloyalty towards their country”.