France Repressed Protesters To Subjugate Colonized Peoples

Historians’ research continues to reveal, from day to day, the inhuman practices of the French occupation in its former colonies, especially Algeria, which suffered from the worst occupation for more than a century and a third.
The latest studies related to this file, revealed by the French historian Emmanuel Blanchard, indicate that the French police and army, very brutally suppressed the demonstrations of the “indigenous people” in Algeria, a violence that was also in force on the original French lands (the Metropole), especially in the thirties and after World War II.
The historian Blanchard is a well-known academic, currently acting director general of the political studies of the Institute of Saint-Germain-Lays, as well as a lecturer and researcher at the Center for Sociological Research on Law and Penal Institutions, and the author of “The Parisian Police and the Algerians, 1944 / 1962” and “History of Algerian immigration.
Blanchard was asked by the French daily “Le Monde”, whether the maintenance of order in France and its former colonies was subject to the same logic, and he replied: “No. If the gradual pacification of the maintenance of public order is necessary, in the twentieth century, during the demonstrations in France, for the natives of the colonies, themselves victims of extreme violence, were entrusted to the police, as well as to the army and local militias made up of armed settlers, with the aim of restoring order in the empire, but in fact the aim was to subdue the colonized peoples.”
The historian points out in this regard that in the thirties of the last century, the air force was used to shoot peasant gatherings in Indochina, and in 1945, the suppression of demonstrations in Sétif, Guelma and Kherrata in Algeria, led to the deaths of more than ten thousand people, while the Algerians were celebrating the victory over the Nazis, they hoped to be paid attention to by colonial France, which promised to help them in the war in exchange for granting them independence after liberating their country from the Germans.
In response to another question as to whether that repression also applied to the colonized peoples demonstrating in France, the French historian explained that “Since the 1930s, and especially after 1945, this police violence manifested itself as soon as the colonized population demonstrated in Paris or in the provinces.
They were not treated by the police as French citizens,” although French law considers them French citizens.
He added: “On May 28, 1952, the only person killed in the protest against General Redway was an Algerian. He was shot dead. In 1953, the police shot at the peaceful celebration of the Messali El Hadj movement, killing seven protesters – not to mention, of course, the massacre of October 17, 1961 and dozens of the dead were on the streets of Paris, and in the post-war period, the police treated “French Muslims” of Algerian origin even more harshly..
On his reading of this discriminatory treatment between the French of French descent, and the colonized peoples, Blanchard clarified that “the issue of policing is not a technical issue, but a matter of political recognition. During mass gatherings, the police do not behave the same way with all protesters: some are more restrained and disciplined or even oppression is unleashed to others.