At the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, where his skull was kept in a closed metal cabinet, away from visitors and controversy, it was a simple number: 5940. In Algeria, Chérif Boubaghla has hero status . In August 1851, he launched " the Kabylie revolt " against the French forces before being killed by decapitation, three years later. Less known than Emir Abdelkader, he had however been immortalized on his horse, alongside another icon of resistance to colonization, Lalla Fatma N'Soumer, by the French painter Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux.
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His skull and the remains of 23 other Algerian fighters - including another famous leader, Sheikh Bouziane, who initiated the revolt of Zaâtcha in 1849, shot and also beheaded after a siege of four months - were returned on Friday July 3, in Algeria. The Algerians were able to watch live on television the very solemn ceremony planned for the occasion, with the deployment of paratroopers in the
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