France

Commemoration of the Algerian war split France

The wounds of the French colonial past sores. That France of the victims of the war in Algeria this Saturday intended for many veterans, a provocation. Also, Conservatives are outraged.

A reminder of the 19th century. March 1962 – the official armistice day

The French President, François Hollande, has been thought as the first President of the ceasefire in the Algerian war in 1962. With the 19. March had not yet come to the peace, but the end of the war, said Hollande. Thus, the state played the boss on the controversy in the run-up to the commemoration, which took place before the Paris memorial to the war in Algeria and the battles in Morocco and Tunisia, on the left Bank of the Seine.

Politicians from the camp of the Conservatives, headed by opposition leader Nicolas Sarkozy, had the date of the 19. March criticized, because it is not the troops, after that triggered violence in many in Algeria, a Frenchman living and the Harkis consider, former auxiliary soldiers in the French colonial. The memorial day stay in the centre of a “painful debate”, according to Sarkozy.

Angry Protest: against demonstrators in Rivesaltes defend themselves against the official commemoration in Paris

Tricky Premiere

Hollande had in his first year in office, the 19. March to the national alarm date to the victims of the war in Algeria declared. This Saturday, he celebrated the memorial day for the first Time. A group of former auxiliary soldiers, the so-called Harkis, had already called in advance to counter-demonstrations. Among other things, in Rivesaltes, near Perpignon a number of people have recalled more than half a century, murdered Harkis.

France is struggling until today with the refurbishment of the colonial war – long talk was only of the “events in Algeria”. In the case of the two sides with extraordinary cruelty led war around half a Million Algerians and 30,000 French were killed, at least half of the Algerian victims were civilians. The war ended in 1962 with the independence of the former North African colony.

jj/sti (dpa, afp)