PM Sellal folds French colonial page
الشروق أونلاين
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Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal with his french counterpart Manuel Valls. Photo: copyright
Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal, beholds to definitively turning the page on the debate about France’s colonial past in Algeria, preferring to use files on memory, at the expense of the colonial past which contains ugly crimes.
Sellal said, in the press conference held in Paris with his French counterpart, Manuel Valls, that the vision that we share in Algeria and France, to open all the bilateral files, whether economic, cultural or related to the shared memory, has allowed to dispel misunderstandings and provide an atmosphere of confidence which has become a base for political dialogue.”
Word “memory” is a French term that refers to the historical past, and is a method of evading responsibility, because it ignores the tragedies and crimes caused by the brutality of colonialism against Algerians and all colonial peoples, as the legislator used the word “French colonialism” in rare cases, including the Act of February,23, 2005, because this law came to glorify “the positive practices of the French colonialism.”
It was clear from the words of the Prime Minister, that Algeria is giving a large importance to the economic relationships with France, and is no longer encumbered by the dimension of the colonial past, which is still a wound that did not heal for all the Algerians, due to the crimes of colonialism that stretched over nearly a century and 32 years, a trend that was established since the arrival of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to the Presidency in 1999.
It is clear that this action was oriented clearly in the minister’s words when he said that “measures that were taken by Algeria and France in order to upgrade economic partnership and trade exchanges have begun to bear fruit”, he was referring here to the cars factory “Renault”, which was inaugurated last month in Oued Tlilet in Oran (western Algeria), resulting in the emergence of the first Algerian made car, a partnership which partners hope to expand to include other sectors such as agriculture, energy and tourism. In the words of Abdelmalek Sellal.
During the first term of President Bouteflika, the French Algerian relationships were on two trends, first links between normalization of relationships with Paris as recognized by former colonial country in Algeria, while second trend, led by President Bouteflika, refused to limit bilateral relationships with the past tragedies, based on the belief that that would be too late for the country to benefit from the French technology and other benefits.
