As France and Europe mark 80 years since the Allied victory against Nazi Germany, Algeria is remembering another chapter of 1945 – the massacre of thousands of Algerians by French colonial forces, an event many see as the start of the Algerian independence struggle.
A group of 30 left-wing French politicians travelled to Algeria this week to take part in commemorations and call on France to acknowledge its responsibility.
“It’s important on this symbolic date to have a French delegation to show that in France there are not only enemies of Algeria, as we have seen with the heated debates of the past few months,” greens MP Sabrina Sebaï told RFI, referring to the degradation of diplomatic tensions between France and Algeria.
She said the visit aimed “to send a message also to say that there is a deep work to do on issues of memory and reconciliation”.
But for the French right, such a visit is a provocation.
“The day of 8 May, which is a day of national pride, you have French elected officials who go to Algeria to participate in self-flagellation and humiliation,” said Laurent Wauquiez, the president of the right-wing Les Republicains.
Listen to a history of what happened in Algeria on 8 May 1945 in the Spotlight on France podcast, episode 128:
The events being commemorated began on 8 May, 1945. As people gathered in the northern Algerian city of Sétif to celebrate the Allied victory, some brought out Algerian flags and banners calling for independence.
French authorities ordered the banners be removed. When some refused, troops opened fire on the crowd.
News of the shootings spread to nearby towns, including Guelma and Kherrata, where rioting broke out. Around 100 French settlers were killed.
In response, French authorities launched a brutal crackdown.
Charles de Gaulle, who led France at the time, gave the green light for “all necessary measures to repress all anti-French acts”.
Backed by army troops and the air force, colonial forces bombed villages and carried out summary executions across the region. Civilians – men, women and children – were killed throughout May and June.
France's official silence
There is still no agreed figure for how many people died. Algeria says 45,000 were killed. Historians have estimated between 15,000 and 20,000.
“Eighty years later we do not know exactly the number of people who died in May and June 1945 because there was a code of silence,” said filmmaker Mehdi Lallaoui, who made a documentary on the Sétif massacre.
“The survivors of the killings were thrown in prison, and the state wanted to hide this event.”
De Gaulle reportedly said to “bury the whole affair”, and officials referred to it only as “the events”.
But in Algeria the Sétif, Guelma and Kherrata massacres helped spur on the emerging movement for self-determination – energising, perhaps even uniting, what had been a fractured independence movement until then.
Over the next few years, resistance groups became more organised. On 1 November 1954, Algerians started their revolution against the French, who were eventually forced to grant the colony its independence in 1962.
Recognition and reconcilliation
Algeria made 8 May an official day of commemoration in 2020. Some in France want the same – a move that would involve officially acknowledging France’s role in the killings. So far, that has not happened.
“Algeria’s independence remains a trauma in the French public opinion,” historian Nils Andersson told RFI.
“There is an anti-Algerian feeling in France – the colonising country – and I think the role of political leaders is to have the courage to recognise the facts about colonialism, which is neither an act of contrition of repentance, but just a moral and truthful act."
In 2005, France’s ambassador to Algeria called the massacre an “inexcusable tragedy”. A decade later, a French minister visited the massacre's commemoration site.
This week, a group of left-wing MPs submitted a proposal to officially recognise the massacres as a “state crime perpetrated against an unarmed civilian population”.
The MPs' visit and the proposed resolution come at a time of high tension between France and Algeria. Interior Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told RTL radio on Tuesday that relations were currently “blocked”.
For the centrist Senator Raphaël Daubet, a member of the delegation, reopening dialogue with Algeria involves “the recognition of these massacres” that happened in Sétif, Guelma et Kherrata.
