François Mitterrand Refused to Pardon Algerians Sentenced to Death

A French historian has revealed the other side of former French President François Mitterrand, one of the most prominent political figures during the “Algerian War of Independence 1954/1962”, describing him as the executioner of Algerians in the “Algerian War”, a period during which he held ministerial portfolios, including the ministries of justice and interior.

In his book “Africa First” (L’Afrique d’abord), historian Thomas Deltombe denied that Mitterrand fought colonialism as some platforms promote. He confirmed that he was a fierce defender of the continuation of French colonialism in Africa, citing the role played by this leftist French politician in suppressing Algerians who fought against French colonialism, by refusing to retract the death sentences issued against Algerian activists at the time.

The book read: “We think we know everything about François Mitterrand, including what he tried to hide all his life, from his Vichy past to his double family life. However, one area of his biography remains largely unknown: his fierce defence, in the 1950s, of the French presence in Africa. The France of the 21st century will be African or won’t be, he wrote in 1952”.

“Three decades before becoming head of state, the man was a shining star of the Fourth Republic. Minister of Overseas France in 1950-1951, of the Interior in 1954-1955, and of Justice in 1956-1957, the young politician was passionate about the African continent. Seeking to modernize colonial relations and thus solidify the imperial edifice, the ambitious minister placed the sub-Saharan, Tunisian and Algerian issues at the heart of his political strategies”, Thomas Deltombe wrote.

“Far from having campaigned for decolonization, as he later claimed, and far from having defended the independence of the colonies, as his biographers and admirers have long believed, François Mitterrand was on the contrary one of the precursors of French neo-colonialism”, the author added.

What Thomas Deltombe wrote was not just talk, but rather based on an unpublished archive. He bet on the protectors of the French Empire in the hope of rising to the top of power, a story that he said shook the legend of the French left and sheds new light on the emergence of France-Afrique (France Afrique).

Regarding Algeria, the autobiography of the late French president shows, according to Deltombe, that Mitterrand’s active participation in the “dirty war” in Algeria, as Minister of the Interior and Justice in Guy Mollet’s government, including his refusal to pardon Algerians sentenced to death, to what he described as “military-police terrorism in Algeria in 1957”, contradicts his opposition to colonialism.

The author also spoke about Mitterrand’s intense hatred of Algerian nationalists, whom he described as separatists (from France), because they took up arms against the occupation, while he was defending the hardliners of “French Algeria” from the Pieds-Noirs and their powerful extensions within the French army, such as the criminal, General Raoul Salan.

Deltombe asserted that in 1962 Mitterrand was still very hesitant about the decolonization that had been officially completed and that he had also defended Raoul Salan during his trial for the coup of April 1961 and the leader of the terrorist secret army organization (OAS), in addition to expressing solidarity with the supporters of “French Algeria” on the eve of Algerian independence.