The French Are Terrified Of The “Post-Criminalization Of Colonialism” Phase

The French sensed the danger of the firm policy adopted by the Algerian authorities in dealing with the arrogance and condescension of the French state when it comes to its somber colonial past, full of heinous crimes against humanity in Algeria. Paris began searching for a card to respond to the Algerian authorities’ firm resolve this time, in enacting a law criminalizing French colonial practices, a precedent that could be the beginning of a similar wave in countries that were victims of the French state’s horrendous crimes.

Because the French right and far-right refuse to look in the mirror, indulging in the habit of escaping forward, their politicians and ideologues have begun searching for ways to respond to the law criminalizing colonialism in Algeria, whose embodiment is closer than ever. They finally resorted to digging into the history before 1830, hoping to find a scapegoat to hang their hopes on.

This trend can be seen in a lengthy article in “Le Figaro Histoire” magazine, published on the newspaper’s website on Friday, by Marie-Claude Mosimann-Barbier, under the title: “What if we demanded compensation from Algeria for the thousands of French people enslaved there?”, referring to Algeria.

The magazine urged the article to be accompanied by an illustrative picture of the famous Spanish soldier, writer, and novelist, Miguel de Cervantes, author of “Don Quixote de la Mancha,” being presented as a gift to Hassan Pasha, the Dey of Algiers, who was captured by the Algerians in 1575 and remained there for five years before being released, in an attempt by the French to internationalize the issue in Europe, so that it does not remain alone in facing its appalling crimes in Algeria, which do not expire by statute of limitations.

The fallacies in the “Le Figaro Histoire” article, belonging to one of France’s major right-wing platforms, stated: “It seems that Algeria, which constantly demands compensation for 130 years of French colonialism that led to the creation of Algeria, has forgotten that the region was under foreign rule for centuries: five centuries in the Roman Empire, then conquered by Arabs from the seventh century, to become under Ottoman control since 1526. It also seems to have forgotten its active participation in the slave trade and slavery.”

Marie-Claude Mosimann-Barbier, the author of the article, is not just a journalist, but a distinguished academic figure. She works as an honorary lecturer at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay and is a member of a research group on racism and eugenics (GRER) at Paris Cité University.

In her theorization of the issue, the honorary lecturer at the École Normale Supérieure de Paris-Saclay attempts to delve deep into history in search of what, in their claim, could incriminate the Algerian side with practices similar to those for which France is accused today, in order to raise them against Algerian demands for the French state to acknowledge the crimes against humanity it committed in Algeria for 132 years, a demand that has begun to shift from the political to the legal dimension, which has become more terrifying to politicians in France than ever before.

Marie-Claude Mosimann-Barbier claims: “For most of our citizens, the slave trade is still associated with the transatlantic slave trade, and slavery is still seen as an exclusive product of the transatlantic slave trade. However, the slave trade in Africa began as early as the late seventh century AD, when the Arab commander Abdullah ibn Sa’d, twenty years after the death of the Prophet Muhammad (Allah’s blessings and peace be upon him), set out to conquer North Africa.”

She adds: “After conquering Egypt, he imposed on the Nubian Christians, under the Treaty of Baqt, to deliver 360 slaves annually. He then continued his way towards the Maghreb… The Barbary slave trade has been widely documented in history: slave markets on the Maghreb coast, including the bustling market of Algiers…”, in a desperate attempt to find something to incriminate Algeria.