“Emmanuel Macron has set himself an impossible challenge, that of reconciling irreconcilable memories, those of the executioners and those of the victims”, estimated Bernard Coll, secretary general of the association of Young Black Feet (JPN), this Thursday on franceinfo, the day after the declarations of the head of state. Emmanuel Macron expressed “the gratitude” of France towards repatriates from Algeria and recognized two “massacres” which occurred after the signing of the Évian agreements of March 19, 1962, during which “dozens” of French demonstrators, opposed to the independence of Algeria, were killed by French soldiers, including the “Rue d’Isly shooting”, never recognized by France until now and which Emmanuel Macron described as “unforgivable for the Republic”.
Bernard Coll summed up his reaction to the president’s remarks with “disappointment”. “He was silent for four years, so last night we expected him to apologize but he didn’t go back on his statement from Algiers in 2017”, he continued, referring to the fact that Emmanuel Macron had described colonization as “crime against humanity”, during a visit to Algeria. “In February 2017, he made a statement in Algiers, saying that colonization was a crime against humanity, a real barbarism, but yesterday he praised the merits of the returnees and the pied-noirs in particular in a way absolutely astonishing, it continues in its logic of shared memories”, regretted the representative of Pieds-noirs, believing that “it’s a Kafkaesque bet”, that the President “only made for the war in Algeria”. “He does not do it for the French Revolution, nor for the Second World War”, he specified.
According to him, “the drama of the Algerian war”, “it’s that the crimes that were committed, were committed with the complicity of General de Gaulle”. “The man who is responsible for all these massacres has been erected into a myth in France”, added Bernard Coll, who called on the State to “recognize its responsibility as a government”. “We demand official recognition of the crimes committed against us by the French state and the governments of the time, which Emmanuel Macron designated in his speech for the harkis. He said: these are the governments of 1960-70. In power in 60-70, it was de Gaulle and it was Georges Pompidou”, he pointed out.