PARIS – 57 years ago, Algerians were massacred on October 17th,1961 in Paris by the French police during a peaceful demonstration for the independence of Algeria during the liberation war.
That day, the Algerians of Paris and its suburbs, men, women and children, had decided to brave the curfew applied only to people with the Maghreb facies. Prepared by the Federation of the National Liberation Front (FLN) of France, the peaceful demonstration suffered a bloody crackdown in the heart of Paris at a time when negotiations between the Provisional Government of the Republic of Algeria (GPRA) and the French government took place in Switzerland.
Thousands of Algerians, it is recalled, were killed and wounded, and a significant number was thrown to the Seine by the French police.
The commemoration of this massacre, in the capital of human rights, takes place this year in a particular context in the sense that it comes a few weeks after the official recognition, 61 years later, on the responsibility of the French army. about the disappearance and assassination of Maurice Audin, a mathematician who advocated for Algerian independence.
For the crimes of October 17, 1961, the only official reaction of successive French governments was that of President François Hollande, in 2012, who “lucidly” recognized, in the name of the Republic, the “bloody repression” during from which were killed “Algerians who were demonstrating for the right to independence”.
Continuing appeals for the recognition of this crime
In 2017, a letter addressed to President Emmanuel Macron was submitted to the Elysee Palace in which personalities, historians and members of the associative movement asked him to go in the direction of his declaration of Algiers describing the colonization of “crimes against humanity. ”
They asked him for this purpose to officially recognize the responsibility of the French state in the massacre of Algerians in Paris.
Their request has remained a dead letter and no response has been provided to them to date. In a petition launched last Saturday, several French associations, unions and political parties reiterated this request, wishing “a clear word” of the French authorities on this tragedy.
“That the President of the Republic, in the name of France, confirms, by a symbolic gesture, the recognition and condemnation of this State crime, as he just did for the assassination of Maurice Audin by the army and for the existence of a system of widespread torture “, they wrote, stressing that” it is only at this price that the most serious legacy of the Algerian war, namely the racism, the Islamophobia of which are now victims many citizens, nationals of North African origin or former colonies, including in the form of recurrent police violence, sometimes deadly “.
French historians, activists of associations, human rights and political parties maintain the pressure on the French authorities to achieve this recognition. In a recent APS interview, historian Alain Ruscio expressed his skepticism about “other advances” about the massacre of October 17, 1961, stressing that there must be “continuity in the pressure “.
Several events and rallies in Paris and its suburbs
Regarding, several events, meetings and rallies are planned Tuesday and Wednesday in Paris (Pont Saint-Michel) and its suburbs.
The “Collectif October 17, 1961” organizes Wednesday many rallies entitled “The Bridges of Memory” in several cities in Ile-de-France and film screenings and debates in Colombes, Argenteuil and Nanterre.
The filmmaker Daniel Kupferstein will offer, in this context, three of his films entitled “October 17, 1961. Concealment of a massacre”, “The bullets of July 14, 1953” and “Die Charonne why?”.
For its part, the Algerian Cultural Center in Paris will hold a debate on Wednesday with veteran and writer Djoudi Attoumi and historian and academic Kacim Zidine.
The department of Seine-Saint-Denis will inaugurate in the same day a fresco “17 together” made by the street artist Joachim Romain, along the Saint-Denis canal in Aubervilliers.
On the other hand, commemorations of the massacre will also take place in several cities, such as the Pont de Bezons (Colombes), Bezons, Pont d’Argenteuil, Pont de Clichy (Asnieres) and Clichy la Garenne, Place du 17 October in Gennevilliers and Place des droits de l’homme in Nanterre.
