Memory File: French Parliament’s Left for Recognition, Right for Rejection

A few days after “half a step towards recognition” at the level of the lower chamber of the French Parliament of the massacres of October 17, 1961 against the Algerian protestors, and reducing them to individual actions, far from holding the French state responsible, the Senate (the upper chamber) presented a proposed law alleging that massacres had taken place against the French and Europeans in Algiers and Oran between March and July 1962, calling on official Paris to recognize it.

This new step, which expresses a clear French “restlessness” regarding the memory file, came through a proposed draft law presented by Senator Valérie Boyer, representing the Republican Bloc (LR-right), and was registered with the Senat Presidency on March 28, 2024 (Echorouk checked out a copy of it).

In presenting the reasons for the proposal, the French senator strangely equated the victim with the executioner, claiming that “the wounds of those who lived through the Algerian War have not yet healed,” despite the passage of 62 years since the Evian Accords. Still, these wounds are not for the victims but for the executioners, according to what this French politician narrated, and she stated. In this regard, the veterans, the “Harkis” and those deported from Algeria, against whom, according to her story, violence was practised by the National Liberation Front.

In a position completely similar to the West’s current dealing with the aggression against Gaza, and not paying the slightest attention to the tens of thousands of Palestinian victims including kids, elderly, women and defenceless civilians, in exchange for exaggerating and highlighting the victims of the Zionist entity despite their small number, Senator Boyer came up with this, by trying to highlight that about 330 French people were missing when the Evian Accords were signed, while, according to her claim, nearly 600 people were missing between March and July 1962, forgetting the thousands of Algerians who went missing and were killed without their families being able to find them.

The right-leaning senator, known for her stances towards Algeria, went so far as to deny the story of French Army General Joseph Katz, commander of the French armies in Oran in August 1962, in which he confirmed that the first shots fired at crowds of Algerians celebrating independence were planned by the terrorist Secret Armed Organization “OAS”, which was formed by French civilians and former soldiers who rejected Algerian independence and the ceasefire.

The draft was contained in a single article, which stated the following: “The French Republic recognizes the brutality and scale of the massacres committed after March 19, 1962, in Algeria, in particular the massacres of d’Isly Street on March 26, 1962 (Algiers) and in Oran on July 5, 1962, against the French population, the soldiers and the civilians working with us, their wives and children.”

At the end of last March, the French National Assembly approved a proposed resolution submitted by MP Sabrina Sebaihi, of Algerian origin, condemning and recognizing the massacres of October 17, 1961, against peaceful Algerian protestors in Paris. Still, it was repetitive and empty of the values of state responsibility.

In a statement to Echorouk, the French researcher and historian specializing in colonial history, Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, considered the move a “new evasion” by Paris, which came after “major amendments” imposed by the Elysee Palace, stressing that the crime was a “massacre” that the state and the republic must recognize.

Historian Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison confirmed that what happened is considered “another evasion in line with Emmanuel Macron’s policy on these issues,” noting that compromises are sometimes necessary, but the text that was voted on shows unacceptable concessions, because they contradict the facts that have long been proven, documented and analyzed by French and foreign historians and politicians.

He explained in this regard: “The men and women who responded to the call of the National Liberation Front and protested peacefully in Paris and working-class neighbourhoods, against the racist curfew imposed on them by the Police Governor Maurice Papon, with the approval of the government, since October 5, 1961, were victims of a massacre.”

The historian addressed the deputies of the Left Movement, saying: “Before the celebrations of May 8, 1945, they proposed a new resolution demanding recognition of the massacres of Setif, Guelma, and Kherata as crimes against humanity, and took advantage of the discussions that would arise from that, to make the recognition include all the colonial crimes committed by France in the lands of its empire and in France itself.”