Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune described as a “positive gesture” the condemnation in the French National Assembly of the “massacre” of several dozen Algerians during a demonstration on October 17, 1961 in Paris. “The French National Assembly has made a positive gesture by recognizing the crime committed by [prefect Maurice] Papon in 1961. This is a positive step,” Tebboune said in an interview on national television, broadcast Saturday evening .
The Head of State recalled that a joint commission of historians from the two countries “is working on the issue of memory” of the colonization of Algeria by France (1830-1964), highlighting its commitment on this painful and conflicting aspect of relations between Algiers and Paris. “We have reached a stage of maturity which allows us to see things as we should see them, without emotion,” assured the Algerian president.
According to him, Algeria has embarked on “a rebuilding of relations with the former colonizer, without leaving a millimeter of [its] duty towards [its] martyrs of the resistance and the war of liberation”.
The text, adopted Thursday March 28 by the National Assembly in France, above all symbolic in scope, condemns the massacre of October 17, 1961, during which between thirty and more than two hundred Algerian demonstrators died, according to historians. The resolution, which “condemns the bloody and murderous repression of Algerians committed under the authority of the prefect of police Maurice Papon”, also requests “the inclusion of a day of commemoration” in “the agenda of national days and official ceremonies “.
A presidential election set for September 7
The text, a “vote for history” according to one of its initiators, the environmentalist deputy Sabrina Sebaihi, was approved by sixty-seven deputies from the left and from Renaissance, the party of the President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron , while eleven members of the National Rally opposed it.
An official visit by Mr. Tebboune to Paris was announced several weeks ago for “late September or early October” by both countries. In the meantime, Algiers has brought forward the presidential election by three months to September 7. The Algerian president left the suspense hanging, Saturday March 30, in an interview on national television, over his candidacy for a second term. “I’m not going to answer, because before the time it’s not the time,” he said.
The president has in any case ruled out “any conflict at the top of the hierarchy over his retention or departure” from the presidency. “Now is not the time,” he replied, when asked about how he was going to “resolve the dilemma” between calls for a second term and his “immediate entourage, [who] advises him to [go ] to rest after fifty-five years of service to the country.”
Mr. Tebboune, aged 78, had been hospitalized for several months in Germany after contracting Covid-19 at the end of 2020. The anticipation of the presidential election on September 7 was announced on March 21, without official explanations. The head of state assured that bringing the election forward by three months was “purely technical”.
“December is not the real date of elections” in Algeria, he clarified, recalling that in 2019 the presidential election was to take place much earlier, but that “the transition phase was prolonged”. According to him, “in September, citizens will be better prepared to vote after the summer holidays and everyone will have returned home.”
The last presidential election, won by Mr. Tebboune with 58% of the votes but marked by a strong abstention, took place on December 12, 2019. He succeeded Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was forced to resign in April of the same year under pressure from the army and Hirak, a popular protest movement.
