France Is Activating Communication To Contain The Anger Over Benjamin Stora’s Report

The French side was keen to play the truce card with the Algerian party complaining about the report that historian Benjamin Stora delivered, last Wednesday, to the French presidency, which disappointed the hopes and aspirations of the Algerians, albeit expected.

Since last Wednesday, the day when Benjamin Stora’s report was unveiled, the French side has not stopped communicating with its Algerian counterpart through more than one channel, hoping to calm the situation that is characterized by a state of discontent among politicians and the elite in the southern bank of the Mediterranean.

According to a statement by the Presidency of the Republic, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, on Sunday evening, received a phone call from his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, in which he expressed to him his desire to “resume work together on files of common interest, especially economic, regional issues and the memory file”.

President of the Movement for the Society of Peace, Abderrazak Makri, received the French ambassador, François Goyat, on Monday, and the memory file was among the issues discussed between the head of MSP party and the French diplomat who intensified his meetings with Algerian politicians in the last few days.

According to what was published by Makri on Facebook, this meeting came at the request of the French ambassador, and the discussion centred on “relations between the two countries in various aspects, especially historical aspects”.

The post also indicated that the French diplomat asked for “the movement’s opinion towards Benjamin Stora’s report”, and referred his followers to a previous post of Makri.

Before Makri received the French ambassador, he published a post on his Facebook account, commenting on Benjamin Stora’s report, stating: “In the report that Benjamin Stora presented to his president, you feel as if he was talking about two groups of people fighting over a common ground between them, so he says this is wrong here, and this is a mistake there, and this is his right here and this is his right there, and they have to reconcile and the matter is over”.

“You do not feel that he was talking about a story of occupation that is the worst kind of occupation that humanity has known, about a foreign country that usurped a foreign country, and a land that is not its own, and about a barbaric army that committed the most heinous crimes against the Algerian people, the worst crimes of all kinds for nearly a century and a half ago,” Makri added.

Makri’s Facebook post was followed by the exciting video, in which the French journalist, Jean-Michel Aphatie, was shown sharply attacking French colonialism, and asking his country to apologize to Algeria.

Makri was not the only politician who received the French ambassador since the details of the Benjamin Stora’s report were revealed, but Labor Party leader Louisa Hanoune preceded him last Wednesday, but he did not explain anything about what happened between Hannoune and her guest.

However, the French embassy said in a tweet on Monday, which it came very late, that; “Ambassador Francois Goyat thanked Louisa Hanoun, General Secretary of the Labor Party, for the warm reception, on January 20”.

The French embassy’s tweet indicated that “the talks with all the Algerian political parties is important to strengthen cooperation and friendship between our two countries.”