In March, Emmanuel Macron had already decided to “facilitate access to classified archives over fifty years”, covering the period of the conflict.
The Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, announced Friday, December 10 the next opening of the archives on “judicial inquiries” of the Algerian war (1954-1962), nearly sixty years after the end of the conflict and while the Franco-Algerian relations have been in crisis for months. A statement that comes two days after the visit to Algiers of the head of French diplomacy, Jean-Yves Le Drian.
“I open fifteen years in advance the archives on the judicial investigations of the gendarmerie and the police which relate to the Algerian war”, she announced on BFM-TV. “We have things to rebuild with Algeria, they can only be rebuilt on the basis of the truth,” said the Minister of Culture, who has the management of archives in her area.
“I want that on this question – which is troubling, irritating, where there are falsifiers of history at work – I want us to be able to face it. We do not build a national novel on a lie,” argued the minister, adding:
“It is the falsification that brings all the wanderings, all the troubles, and all the hatred. From the moment the facts are on the table, when they are recognized, when they are analyzed, it is from that moment that we can build another story, a reconciliation.”
Asked about the consequences of this decision, in particular on the future confirmation of acts of torture committed by the French army in Algeria, Ms. Bachelot declared: “It is in the country’s interest to recognize it.”
Memorial reconciliation policy
This announcement is part of the policy of memorial reconciliation initiated by the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron. On September 13, 2018, he acknowledged that the disappearance of the mathematician and communist activist Maurice Audin, in 1957 in Algiers, was the fault of the French army and promised his family wide access to the archives. “When Emmanuel Macron did justice on the Audin affair, he had thus put France in front of the truth”, recalled Bachelot, adding that “we must never be afraid of the truth, we must contextualize it. But we have to look it in the face”.
On March 9, 2021, continuing its policy of “small steps”, the Elysee Palace announced that the Head of State had “taken the decision to allow the archives to proceed with declassifications of documents covered by the secrecy of the national defense up to the files of the year 1970 inclusive”. “This decision will be likely to significantly shorten the waiting times linked to the declassification procedure, particularly with regard to documents relating to the Algerian war”, according to the text.
Shortly before, Emmanuel Macron had recognized, “in the name of France”, the torture and assassination of the lawyer and nationalist leader Ali Boumendjel by the French army during the Algerian war in 1957.
“This is an important signal that France is sending”
This decision was inspired by the Stora report on the memory issue between Algeria and France which advocates the opening and sharing of sensitive colonial archives between Algerians and French, kept at the National Archives of Overseas in Aix-en-Provence. . It also partially responded to a request from academics complaining about obstacles to the free consultation of historical documents.
“With regard to Algeria, this is an important signal that France is sending, although this memorial policy is part of a Franco-French process of establishing the facts”, declared the Franco-Algerian, Karim Amellal, interministerial delegate for the Mediterranean. “There is a very strong demand from historians regarding the declassification of documents covered by defense secrecy. And the fundamental idea is to give them the opportunity to do their job,” added this member of the “Memory and Truth” commission chaired by historian Benjamin Stora.
The same request, which remained unanswered, from the Algerian historians who in April called on the Algerian head of state in a letter to open the national archives for this period. “The demand and the demand to open the archives dates from at least ten years ago,” lamented historian Amar Mohand-Amer on TV5Monde.
Sixty years after the end of the Algerian war, the wounds are still alive on both sides despite symbolic gestures over the years of France which however excludes “repentance” or “apologies”. President Emmanuel Macron sparked the ire of Algiers in October by accusing, according to statements reported by Le Monde, the Algerian “politico-military” system of maintaining a “memorial rent” around the war of independence and of France. Algeria then recalled its ambassador to Paris and prohibited the overflight of its territory to French military planes rallying the Sahel.
