March 19 is celebrated in Algeria as “Victory Day”. It corresponds to the day of the ceasefire, the day after the Evian agreements that put an end to more than 7 years of war of independence, 60 years ago. As of Friday, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune addressed Algeria in a press release. He considered it necessary to address the “act of remembrance”, an allusion to the initiative of France, but that the “colonization crimes” will not be forgotten for all this.
“The act of remembrance must be handled responsibly and fairly, in a climate of sincerity and trust.” But Abdelmadjid Tebboune insists. : “the heinous crime of colonization cannot be barred”.
While his counterpart Emmanuel Macron will celebrate the end of the Algerian war by receiving, to reconcile memories, representatives of the various protagonists of the conflict: separatist, conscript, harkis, repatriated, intervening together in French schools, the Algerian president recalls that there are still questions to be asked.
Algae “always demands, insists Abdelmadjid Tebboune, the colonial-era archives, information about those who disappeared from the war of liberation and compensation to the victims of French nuclear tests in Algeria’s Sahara”.
The war in Algeria continues to fuel the debate in France as the presidential election approaches. The Republican candidate Valérie Pécresse has promised to find a date other than March 19, 1962, chosen by François Hollande to celebrate the end of the conflict, many civilian victims have, she explains, fallen after the ceasefire. It is a date also contested by French returnees from Algeria and by National Front candidate Marine Le Pen.
