October, 17 Paris Massacres: French Associations, Parties Demand Official Condemnation By Macron

French associations, syndicates and political parties called on, a few days ago, the president Emmanuel Macron, to commemorate the massacres that were committed against Algerians on October 17, 1961 in Paris.

They also demanded official condemnation of these massacres and condemnation of the French state’s responsibility for these massacres, as Macron did and acknowledged France’s responsibility for the torture of Maurice Audin.

These associations, according to APS, including the French Communist Party and the European Ecological Party, regretted that France has not yet recognized its responsibility in the colonial wars that it waged, especially the Algerian war, demanding in their petition the French state to recognize the responsibility for the “arbitrary” detention of Algerians during the Algerian war, the right to obtain archives, especially for historians and citizens, and to encourage historical research on these issues within a French-Algerian and an international independent framework.

“French President should recognize in the name of France and condemn the crime of the state as he did recently for the assassination of Maurice Audin by the French army and the existence of a system of torture that was generalized during the colonial period”.

The same bodies said, in a petition that was published, on Saturday, that on October,17, 1961 tens of thousands of Algerians peacefully protested in Paris against the discriminatory curfew that was imposed by the government at the time when then Prime Minister, Michel Debré, was against Algeria’s independence, and the Police governor, Maurice Papon, who was under his orders, when the Algerians defended their right to equality, independence and the right of peoples to self-determination, adding that on that day and the following days thousands of protesters were arrested, imprisoned and tortured, especially by the auxiliary police force and Most of them were expelled to Algeria, while hundreds of them were victims of violence and brutality of police forces .