PARIS- Seventy-eight French deputies have introduced a bill that brings France to publicly acknowledge its responsibility in the massacres of Algerians in Paris and its surroundings on October 17, 1961, sources at the French Assembly told APS on Monday.
The bill comes in one Article: “France publicly recognizes its responsibility in the massacres of 17 October 1961, caused by the French police repression against Algerian demonstrators, demanding independence for their country.”
Explaining the reasons of this bill registered at the French Assembly last 26 October, the left-wing MPs, including Patrick Menucci, Kader Arif and Benoit Hamon, recalled that on that day “Algerians who had demonstrated in Paris for their country’s right to independence were terribly repressed by the French Police under the authority of Maurice Papon.”
They added that “by acknowledging the bloody nature of this repression on 17 October 2012, President François Hollande opened the way for the recognition of those massacres, by the French Parliament.”
“This is why, 55 years later, I today call on the National Assembly to seize the opportunity of this draft law so that France, through its Parliament, admits, lucidly, this extremely dark episode of its history,” a French deputy said.
For the MPs who introduced the bill, “Algeria and France have common destiny to face the future challenges and Algeria’s assistance in our struggle against terrorism reflects those ties,” underlining that “this recognition is likely to allow building up of a stable and united EU-Mediterranean space.”
