Asked by “CheckNews”, the researcher Paul Max Morin, author of the forum indicates that it was discussed and validated with the management of the evening daily, then withdrawn after the anger of the Elysée.
Question asked by Stefan on September 2
Hello,
You asked us about the depublication, by Le Monde, of a column by the researcher Paul Max Morin this Thursday, September 1st. Entitled “Reducing colonization in Algeria to a ‘love story’ completes Macron’s right-wing on the memory issue”, the text was deleted from the site the same afternoon, sparking strong reactions and accusations of censorship.
In this forum, Paul Max Morin analyzed Emmanuel Macron’s visit through the prism of the memorial question. The author of Young People and the Algerian War (PUF, 2022) is severe with the President’s policy, believing that “the question of memories […] has once again served as a showcase to simulate advancements towards a “reconciliation”. The researcher diagnoses, as the title indicates, a “right-winging” of the Elysée, which he illustrates in particular by an evolution of presidential semantics: “In five years, colonization will have passed, in the presidential verb, from a “crime against humanity” (2017) to “a love story that has its share of tragedy” (2022).
This last sentence was pronounced during the visit to the Saint-Eugène cemetery in Algiers, on August 26. To a journalist reminding the President of his former outings which had angered Algiers, Emmanuel Macron replied: “You know, it’s a love story that has its share of tragedy. You have to know how to be angry in order to be reconciled. I have tried, since I became president, to look our past in the face. I do it without complacency. Basically, on the question of memory, on the Franco-Algerian question, we are constantly summoned to choose. And it should say, “Choose pride or repentance.” I want truth and recognition.”
“Whether it was pronounced spontaneously or not, the reduction of colonization to a ‘love story’ completes Emmanuel Macron’s right-wing on the question of memory,” writes Paul Max Morin in his text.
Note that Emmanuel Macron spoke of the Franco-Algerian “love story” another time that same day, this time in front of the French community in Algiers. With Algeria, it’s “a story that has never been simple. But which is and will remain, because we want it, a story of respect, friendship and, dare I say it, love,” he said.
A platform ordered, “before the trip” from Macron
In the short text justifying this (rare) depublication, Le Monde believes that the terms denounced by the researcher did not relate only to colonization, as the forum suggests, but to Franco-Algerian relations in a broader sense. “This text was based on excerpts from quotations which do not correspond to the substance of the declarations of the Head of State. If it can be subject to various interpretations, the sentence “a love story which has its share of tragedy” pronounced by Mr. Macron during the press conference did not specifically evoke colonization, as it was written in the tribune, but the long Franco-Algerian relations. The world apologizes to its readers, as well as to the President of the Republic.
Contacted by CheckNews, Paul Max Morin explains that the platform had been ordered from him by Le Monde, and that the angle had been debated and validated. He says: “This platform, the Worldasked me before Emmanuel Macron’s trip to Algeria. It had to be about his memorial policy. I initially refused because I could not predict what the President would do or say in Algeria. They then contacted me again on Monday, after the trip. After a few exchanges with them, I finally accepted because I consider that the President’s announcements and declarations provided material for analysis. We agreed on the angle of the paper: the “right-winging” of the discourse on the one hand and a critical look at the announcements made in Algeria. I then wrote a forum, which was reread, modified, and validated by them.
“The Elysée was pissed”
“Following its publication, I received the first call yesterday morning [Thursday, September 1] from the newspaper informing me that “the Elysée was pissed” and that changes had to be made. I accepted these changes because the wording did not call into question the substance of the analysis. But that could not be changed because half an hour later I received a second call telling me that the platform was withdrawn because I had misinterpreted or overinterpreted the President’s remarks and that this analysis was shared by the special envoys in Algeria who opposed its publication. I then proposed a new version recontextualizing the words of the President but this latest version was refused.
The anger of the Elysée is explained by the fact that the services of the presidency had sent, a few hours after the declaration of Emmanuel Macron, a clarification concerning the latter. In a message sent via a WhatsApp loop to the journalists present during the press trip, it was indicated: “Hello, I allow myself to draw your attention to the quote below from the President earlier during the microphone tense, where he spoke well of the current relationship with Algeria, and not of colonization. A clarification addressed to the press which Paul Max Morin says he was not aware of while adding that this would not have changed the spirit of his analysis. ” The World could have published these precisions and not withdrawn the text by attributing the responsibility to me. The Elysée plays with words. The problem is no longer who understood what but rather why everyone understood the same thing.
“Withdrawing a text is an abnormal and incomprehensible practice”, denounces the researcher, who also deplores the content of the message of apology published by the evening daily. “This text suggests that my interpretation was erroneous and justified an apology to the readers and to the President of the Republic. This undermines my credibility as a researcher. My analysis is the result of long research work. I published a thesis on the memoirs of the Algerian war, interviewed 3,000 young people, and conducted hundreds of interviews. I have been analyzing Emmanuel Macron’s gestures and speeches for years and the broader memory policy on the subject. In my opinion, the right-wing of Emmanuel Macron, observed on other subjects by my colleagues, also concerns the question of Algerian memory, which was however until now the left leg of the president. I take a critical look at the creation of this commission of historians as others have done on Cameroon. Finally, the comments on the “love story” had already been the subject of criticism from other people. If people do not agree with my interpretation, if there is ambiguity, we can hold a scientific debate. The President may also specify his remarks. He did not do it. It maintains this ambiguity.
“If we put colonization aside, what are we talking about? From Boumediene?”
In fact, Emmanuel Macron’s remarks aroused the reactions of several left-wing political figures, also considering that they related to colonization. In a tweet, the national secretary of the Communist Party, Fabien Roussel noted as follows: “Presenting colonization as a “love story which has its share of tragedy” is an aberration. Colonization is a crime that must be recognized as such.” The first secretary of the Socialist Party, Olivier Faure, and the ecofeminist deputy Sandrine Rousseau had deplored, like Paul Max Morin in his tribune, that the President went in 2017 from a declaration qualifying colonization as a “crime against humanity” to this statement calling it a “love story”.
“This Friday affirms Paul Max Morin, the World finally offered me to republish my column but without speaking of “love story”. So there is an impossibility to debate the president’s remarks. If the latter does not explicitly refer to colonization, he qualifies the Franco-Algerian story as a love story. What remains of this history, if we set aside colonization? What are we talking about? From Boumediene [independence activist, second head of state of independent Algeria, editor’s note] ?”
As requested by CheckNews, the deputy editor of the ideas-debates pages at Le Monde, who reread and processed the researcher’s text (according to Paul Max Morin) did not respond to our requests.
Friday, at the end of the afternoon, Le Monde published and announced a second explanatory text in which it considers that the forum was validated “too quickly”: “after it was put online, several interlocutors, including a head of the Elysée press service, informed us that the platform contained an error which led to a misinterpretation of the remarks made in Algiers by the Head of State during the impromptu press conference he had held, on August 26, at the exit of the Saint-Eugene Christian cemetery in Algiers. “ Believing that the platform was based on ” a factual error “ and not having succeeded in ”modify the content of the forum so as to make it factually accurate”, the daily therefore justifies having withdrawn it.
