France Committed Genocide In Algeria And Must Apologize

French politicians, historians and media professionals, including historian Benjamin Stora, have criticized the hateful racist statements made by far-right extremist Eric Zemmour, founder of the “Redemption” party, in which he attacked Algeria, describing it as “never having been a sovereign state or a people.”

In a “tweet” on his account on the “X” platform (formerly Twitter), Benjamin Stora responded to Eric Zemmour, saying: “First argument in response to Eric Zemmour: It was the Principality of Algeria that lent France the money it needed at the time of the French Revolution,” referring to the money and grain that Algeria gave to France to save it from famine.

Stora added in his “tweet” emphasizing the relevance of the Algerian position in the dispute with France over those debts before the fan incident, saying, “It was the refusal of (France) to pay the Algerian debts that led to the fan incident, which was raised by the Dey of Algeria in the face of the French consul in 1827.”

Eric Zamor, a Zionist French Jew born in Algeria during the French colonization, wrote a long tweet in which he attacked the French MP for the “Fatherly France” party, Rima Hassan, of Palestinian origin, who accused colonial France in a “tweet” of eliminating a third of the Algerian people during the brutal French occupation.

Eric Zamor, one of the most extreme right-wing French extremists and the most hostile to Algeria, attacked Rima Hassan, saying in his tweet: “Rima Hassan knows nothing about history. Algeria has never been a people. Algeria has never been a sovereign state. Algeria has always been a colonized land, a remote and neglected land of a great empire. It has been colonized by Romans, Vandals, Arabs, Spaniards, and Turks. Then by the French, from 1830 to 1962.”

Algerians are used to hearing such statements and spiteful attitudes from supporters of “French Algeria”, who are now part of the far-right National Front party and the “Redemption” party, which Zemmour founded a few years ago.
French President Emmanuel Macron was also involved in such statements in an article in the French newspaper “Le Monde” more than two years ago, and the incident caused the recall of the Algerian ambassador from Paris, Mohamed Antar Daoud, at the time.

The controversy began with a strong tweet from a French MP of Palestinian origin, Rima Hassan, who said: “France built for itself and for the purposes of its colonial mission, slaughtered a third of Algeria’s population, tortured, killed, raped, looted, and moreover was less educated than the population it thought it was civilizing, and used this land to conduct its nuclear tests (bombs ten to twenty times larger than Hiroshima, leaving behind highly radioactive waste with a lifespan of 24,000 years). What France owes Algeria is not only an apology, but also, and above all, compensatory justice.”

This factual and logical description of French colonialism in Algeria left Eric Zemmour in a state of madness. He responded with a lengthy tweet that included all the meanings of the word hate, claiming that the French “did not find a road, hospital or school, but rather cholera and typhus.” He also denied that France committed genocide in Algeria, as he claimed.

Jean-Michel Abate, a journalist known for his stances on colonialism, did not let the controversy pass without strongly attacking Eric Zemmour, in a long tweet that read: “The portrayal of the invasion of Algeria on July 5, 1830 as a desire to defend human rights (Christian slavery) or maritime law (piracy) is wrong.”

“The invasion of Algeria is here a screen for a coup d’état, justified by a desire for historical revenge. This fact is systematically concealed by Eric Zemmour. And here is the result. July 5, 1830, Algeria is captured.
July 25: Four royal decrees suspend parliament and freedom of the press. July 27, 28 and 29, the “Three Glorious Days”: Parisians revolt and obtain the abdication of Charles X, replacing him with Louis Philippe. Another fact not mentioned by Eric Zemmour is the desire of the French, since 1840, to make Algeria a settler colony.

Jean-Michel Abate adds: “This decision is fundamental. Normal colonization involves administering a foreign land while leaving the land to those who occupy it. A settler colony is the expulsion of indigenous people from the land they occupy to allow people from elsewhere – here, specifically, the French minority and the Spanish and Italian majority – to take their place.”

He noted that France sought to create “an unequal society, a de facto apartheid system. Arabs had no rights, were excluded from educational efforts, and any disobedience was punished violently, often with death.” He added: “Eric Zemmour’s irony is astounding when he talks about eradicating epidemics.”

Jean-Michel Abate concluded: “The colonization of Algeria under the conditions described represents France’s greatest historical blunder. A series of bad choices led the country of human rights to systematic violence and brutality. One day, it will have to acknowledge and apologize for the magnitude of the mistake. It is impossible to leave the field open for revisionists like Eric Zemmour.”