The government’s decision to open the French judicial archives on the Algerian war fifteen years in advance will help families “consider the future and mourn,” the lecturer told Franceinfo on Friday. Political science Kader Abderrahim.
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“I just hope that we can lift the veil on all the gray areas that remain”, declared this Friday, December 10 on franceinfo Kader Abderrahim, lecturer at Sciences Po and specialist in Algeria, after the announcement by the Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot of the opening of the French archives on the war in Algeria fifteen years in advance.
The researcher hopes this will help families to “look to the future and mourn”, by allowing to do “shed light on a number of situations.” He thinks in particular of the massacre of October 17, 1961, in the midst of the Algerian war, when a peaceful demonstration by Algerians against the curfew in Paris was very violently suppressed by the prefect Maurice Papon. At least several dozen demonstrators had been killed.
Many questions are still being asked about this event today. “Who are the order givers? How did the situation unfold? What is the precise number of victims? There are many families waiting to be fixed. It is a question of getting out of the fantasy, the rumor to go down in history, based on irrefutable facts and testimonies “, explained Kader Abderrahim.
The researcher welcomes this gesture from France, even if “it’s still painful for everyone”, because these events were “buried in our memories for a long time.” A gesture that could not be very well received by the Algerian government, in a context of tension with France. Two months ago, Emmanuel Macron accused the Algerian regime of maintaining a “memorial rent”, serving citizens with an official story that “not based on truths”. “It was aimed more at citizens than at leaders”, explained Kader Abderrahim.