President Sarkozy's Advisor re-ignites the polemic about the crimes of French colonization in Algeria

Despite his soothing remarks made by French President Sarkozy during his December 2007 state visit to Algeria about the sombre French colonial presence in Algeria, one of his closest advisors Henri Guinot has relaunched the bitter controversy on this burning issue with outrageous statements made to an Italian news Agency.

Despite his soothing remarks made by French President Sarkozy during his December 2007 state visit to Algeria about the sombre French colonial presence in Algeria, one of his closest advisors Henri Guinot has relaunched the bitter controversy on this burning issue with outrageous statements made to an Italian news Agency.

In the words of Sarkozy’s Advisor, the responsibility of the horrendous crimes committed by French colonialism in Algeria should be “shared and assumed” by both countries and not only by France alone, as he put it.

He referred, in this connection, to the “Harkis and the pieds noirs” who fled Algeria on the eve of her independence on July 5th 1962, after closely collaborating with the then French colonial rulers during the national liberation armed struggle.

He also ruled the idea of a an official apology by the French state for the hideous crimes perpetrated by the French colonial soldiery against the oppressed Algerian people whose only fault was to demand freedom and independence after 132 years of brutal foreign occupation.