Emmanuel Macron pays tribute to the Algerians killed in Paris on October 17, 1961 | EUROtoday

French President Emmanuel Macron honored Thursday October 17 the reminiscence of the Algerians killed or injured through the independence demonstrations of October 17, 1961, “inexcusable acts for the Republic”whereas calling for “draw the future” Franco-Algerian relations, nonetheless tense.

“On October 17, 1961, the Algerian demonstration was repressed under the authority of Maurice Papon. France remembers the dead, the injured, the victims. Of these inexcusable facts for the Republic »declared the head of state on his X account, at 63^e anniversary of these demonstrations in Paris.

According to historians, alongside many injured, between thirty and two hundred demonstrators were killed and their bodies thrown into the Seine, during these abuses committed under the authority of prefect Papon. These Algerians were demonstrating for the independence of their country.

Unprecedented gesture

The president’s position has not evolved since his speech in 2021, where he recognized, in a press release published by the Elysée, that “ the crimes committed that night under the authority of Maurice Papon” had been “ inexcusable for the Republic ».

In an unprecedented gesture for a French head of state, Mr. Macron also participated in a tribute on the banks of the Seine, near the Bezons bridge. If it was an undeniable step forward compared to the silence and caution of his predecessors at the Elysée; for the memory activists of October 17, 1961, the president had not gone far enough in reducing the responsibility for this “ repression » to Papon.

“With lucidity, we look History in the face, to shape the future”added the French president, in what seems to be an outstretched hand in direction of his Algerian counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune, a number of days earlier than a state go to to Morocco on the finish of October.

Because diplomatic relations between France and Algeria have turn out to be strained once more for the reason that announcement of strengthened assist from Paris for the Moroccan autonomy plan for Western Sahara. This former Spanish colony is de facto managed primarily by Morocco, however it’s claimed by the Sahrawi separatists of the Polisario Front, supported by Algiers.

On Thursday, the Human Rights League known as in an announcement “the full recognition of this dark episode of our colonial past”regretting that “its full recognition as a state crime has still not occurred”. The LDH known as for a rally at 6 p.m. “on the Saint-Michel bridge which was one of the main sites of this massacre”.