The head of state chose the date of March 19, which marked in 1962 the entry into force of the ceasefire between the Algerian French army and independentist.
Le Monde with AFP
Emmanuel Macron will chair a ceremony, Saturday, March 19, at the Elysee for the 60th anniversary of Evian and Ceasefire Agreements in Algeria with a “of appeasement concern” “Memoirs and” hand outstretched “to Algeria, announced, Wednesday, the Presidency. “Commemorating is not celebrating”, however, “said the Elysée, taking care to house all susceptibilities less than a month of the first round of the presidential election while the date of March 19, 1962, which marked the entry into Strength of the ceasefire between French army and independence Algerians, continues to make controversy.
Repatriates challenge the reference to Evian agreements – signed on March 18, 1962 and which led to the implementation of the ceasefire the next day – to commemorate the end of the Algerian war (1954-1962 ) Due to the violence that continued until the independence of Algeria on July 5, 1962 and are concluded by the exodus of hundreds of thousands of them to France.
“All the events related to the Algerian war did not end each other overnight with the signing of Evian’s agreements,” conceded the Elysee by citing the shooting of Isly Street at Algiers, in which dozens of supporters of French Algeria were killed by the army on March 26, 1962. “On March 19 is a step on this path (of memory) but it is not the end,” Insisted the Presidency, recalling that a tribute would also be returned to the Callets of the Algerian War on October 18th if Emmanuel Macron is “re-elected”.
The ceremony, which will be held from 12 pm to 1:30 pm, will bring together witnesses from all the memories related to the war of Algeria, called, independence combatants, Harkis and repatriated. The Minister of the Armies, Florence Parly, the chief of staff of the armies, Thierry Burckhard, as well as elected officials, including the Mayor of Montpellier, Michaël Delafosse, a city that will welcome the future Museum of the history of France and the Algeria, will also be present. The Algerian Ambassador in France, Mohamed-Antar Daoud, was also invited, said the Elysee, without specifying if he had accepted the invitation.
put “a term to poisons of Division “
Relations between the two countries are marked by a certain appeasement as elections approach after two years of tension. Prime Minister Jean Castex could thus visit Algiers on March 23 and 24, said the Elysee. This, initially planned in 2021, had been canceled on the background of bilateral tensions.
The objective of this commemoration – “Reconciling” and “soothe” – remains the same as in the previous five-year appointments about the Algerian war, highlighted a presidential advisor. The head of state wanted, through a series of memorial gestures, “reconcile France and Algeria” as well as the “cloistered memoirs” in France, recalled the Elysee.
Depending on the recommendations of the historian Benjamin Stora, he acknowledged the responsibility of the French army in the death of the Communist Mathematician Maurice Audin and that of the Nationalist Ali Boumendjel lawyer during the Battle of Algiers in 1967. A Stele in the memory of Abd El-Kader, Algerian national hero of the refusal of the French colonial presence, was erected in France in Amboise (center) and the skulls of Algerian resistors of the XIX e century returned in Algeria.
But Algiers, who claims the official excuses of France for colonization, did not respond to this work of memory. “It’s a hand that is tense and who will remain tense,” said the Elysee.
In the French society, it is a question of “constitute in the long time a common memory, shared, appeased”, explained the Elysee by refuting the charges of “memorial clientelism” against the head of the ‘State. “It was important in the eyes of the President of the Republic as, three generations later, the poisons of the division who registered in this process which for sixty years was made in denial, in the unspoken, could find a term “, noted the presidency.