President Tebboune Suggested Working on the Memory of Colonialism 1830-1962

French historian Benjamin Stora said that President Abdelmadjid Tebboune offered to prepare a “work on the shared memory” throughout the French colonisation of Algeria.

This meeting between President Tebboune and Stora is unprecedented, especially after the criticism levelled in Algeria for a report submitted in January 2021 to French President Emmanuel Macron on the memory of colonialism and the Algerian war.

Tebboune received Stora, who carried a letter from Macron, for more than an hour, Monday, in the capital, Algiers, on the eve of the celebrations of the sixtieth anniversary of Algeria’s independence.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse published on Sunday, after he visits Algeria to participate in the celebrations of the sixtieth independence, Stora said he was present among Algeria’s guests at the honorary podium, “This is the first time during which the fundamental issues related to memory have been discussed by the Algerian side since the issuance of the report”.

The report on which the French president relied to formulate his policy on shared memory does not recommend an apology or remorse, which sparked wide criticism in Algeria.

Stora also said in the interview; “I think there is a will to revive, I do not know if this is the appropriate word, but to continue a dialogue”, referring to a “change in tone” between the two countries, adding that President Tebboune explained to him “the great importance of working on the memory of the stage of colonialism”, and not confining it to the liberation war alone (1954-1962), which Stora himself supports.

The historian reminded that “the war of occupation of Algeria was very long and very bloody, and lasted practically half a century” from 1830 to 1871, and was accompanied by “dispossession of property and identity”, as “when people were losing their land, they were losing their name”, and with the establishment of a “settlement” with the arrival of Europeans eventually numbered one million against a population of nine million.

These are all shocks, the consequences of which are still present today in the two peoples’ view of the other, and they, in his opinion, “explain the difficulty of the French-Algerian relationships.”

“People don’t know what happened. It’s a problem of passing on to younger generations and working together”, he added.

“The main focus in Algeria was on the war of liberation, and there was intense polarization, whether in France or Algeria, around the war period exclusively, and even until the end of the war, between 1960 and 1962”, Stora added; “The signing of the Evian Accords led to Algeria’s independence on 5 July”, but he considered that “we cannot remain prisoners of one date, 1962, we must expand our research field”.