Sixty years after the drama that has made nine dead, the head of state evokes a “manifestation violently repressed by the police”.
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Fixed against the sheaf of flowers, the prefect of Police Didier Lallement praised Tuesday, February 8, the galvanized palm touching the cap, the collective burial of the victims of Charonne in the square of the Communist Party of the cemetery of Father Lachaise, in Paris . The tribute was made to the “name of the President of the Republic”.
Sixty years after the repression of the anti-OAS demonstration that made nine dead (all members of the PCF with one exception) at the height of the Charonne metro, the state – at its highest level – honors their memory. Distributed in the wake of the sheaf deposit of the police prefect, the Elysee broadcast a brief “statement” in which Emmanuel Macron “pays tribute to the memory of the victims”. It also specifies that the “unitary event” – the PCF and the CGT are not cited – “organized for peace and independence in Algeria and against the attacks of the OAS” had been “violently repressed by the police” .
This tribute is not trivial. It is part of the dynamics of reconciliation of the memoirs around the war of Algeria, including in its Franco-French implications, impulsed a year ago by the Head of State on the Councils of the historian Benjamin Stora . The Elysee Declaration is certainly a first. None of his predecessors had tried to exercise, right as to the left, confirming Charonne in his exclusive annexation to the great communist story. The fact that the state delivers a word of humility on this “tragedy” – dixit the presidential declaration – is heavy meaning. “It’s a step forward,” Welcomes Stora:
“This is the first time that a President of the Republic honors the victims of Charonne.”
Official Will to get rid of taboos
The reference to the “police” which has “violently repressed” is equally meaningful of an official desire to get rid of taboos. A historian marked on the left as Alain Ruscio, author of Nostalgia, the endless history of the OAS (the discovery, 2015), recognizes it without difficulty. He says “satisfied” of this new official word, even if he admits his “frustration” in front of “his limits”. Because who ran at the time this police pointed today? “The search for managers and responsibilities would have published me indispensable in these circumstances,” says Alain Ruscio
“We are not going to wait for the Centenary of Charonne to finish it is said that the French state was directly invested in the repression of this peaceful event.”
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