Macron brings Algeria war and Shoah closer: the right rebels, the Elysée nuances his words

"Obscene", "irresponsible": the right and the extreme right denounced Saturday the words of Emmanuel Macron establishing a parallel between the war in Algeria and the recognition by Jacques Chirac in 1995 of the responsibility of France in the deportation of Jews during the Second World War.

In the plane that brought him back Thursday from Israel, where he participated in the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp, the head of state said he was convinced that France should revisit the memory of the Algerian War (1954-1962) to put an end to the "memory conflict" which "makes it very hard in France".

“I am very lucid about the challenges that I have before me from a memory point of view, and which are political. The Algerian war is undoubtedly the most dramatic. I know this from my campaign. He is there, and I think he has about the same status as the Shoah for Chirac in 1995, "he added, before three journalists from Le Monde, Le Figaro and Radio J. The candidate Macron had created controversy during his 2017 presidential campaign by calling colonization a "crime against humanity".

"Absolute indecency"

“It's indecency. After describing colonization as a crime against humanity , he blends the Algerian war with the worst genocide in human history! ", Moved Saturday the leader of the senators LR, Bruno Retailleau, in the Figaro, denouncing a" double offense ": for" the French soldiers who fought in North Africa and who are assimilated to the executioners of the worst kind "and for" the victims of the Shoah since this unbearable rapprochement amounts to putting into perspective the monstrosity that was the Holocaust ".

Repeating the expression "crime against humanity", Emmanuel Macron now brings the Algerian war closer to the Holocaust. Absolute indecency. These words are both madness for history and memory, and a time bomb for our future. https://t.co/uI3NFoSD0C

"Absolute indecency. These words are both madness for history and memory, and a time bomb for our future, "said MEP LR François-Xavier Bellamy on Twitter.

To compare the Holocaust to the Algerian war is obscene. Emmanuel #Macron is in full swing ... MLPhttps: //t.co/YajNNtoJrn

“Comparing the Holocaust to the Algerian war is obscene. Emmanuel Macron is in full swing, “said the president of the National Rally Marine Le Pen.

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The Elysee Palace, in the process, wanted to clarify his words, saying that the Holocaust was "the absolute crime that cannot be compared to any other," reports Le Figaro. "The president has reaffirmed the uniqueness of the Holocaust: it is indisputable," also added one of the president's advisers, quoted by the newspaper. Emmanuel Macron explains that he made this link because these two "memorial subjects" "are at the heart of the life of nations".

Since the start of his five-year term, the head of state, born well after the end of the Algerian war, has already undertaken several forays into this sensitive historical land, honoring the harkis or recognizing that Maurice Audin, mathematician pro-independence disappeared in 1957, was "died under torture because of the system then established in Algeria by France".

In the plane bringing him back from Israel, Emmanuel Macron regretted that only historians have been able to work on the subject to date. "We didn't talk about it, we crashed. […] There was no memorial political work ”, he said, while admitting that he did not have“ the answer ”to achieve it, admitting“ to turn around ”.