Algiers maintains its demand for repentance by France for the crimes committed during its 132 years of colonization of Algeria, declared the Algerian minister of communication and government spokesman, on the occasion of the celebration, this Saturday, for the first time, of the "
day of the Memory
".
Read also: Has France really "worked to spread illiteracy" in Algeria?
"
Algeria remains attached to the global settlement of the memorial file
" which is based on "
the official, definitive and global recognition by France of its crimes (...) repentance and fair compensation
", declared Ammar Belhimer, in a message broadcast by the official APS agency. Algeria is celebrating its first “
National Day of Remembrance
” on
Saturday
to honor the victims of the bloody repression by France of independence demonstrations on May 8, 1945.
The commemoration of the Day of Remembrance was decided a year ago by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune "
in recognition of the enormous sacrifices made by the Algerian people during the massacres of May 8, 1945 and the outbreak of the National Liberation War on the 1st November 1954
”.
Under the slogan "
A memory that refuses oblivion
", the official festivities are to take place on Saturday in Sétif, 300 km east of Algiers, the epicenter of the repression.
Nuclear tests in question
The settlement of the memorial file also involves "
taking charge of the consequences of nuclear explosions, the delivery of landfill cards for the waste of these explosions
", added the Minister. The nuclear test file is one of the main memorial disputes between Algiers and Paris. France carried out 17 nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara between 1960 and 1966, on the sites of Reggane and then of In Ekker. Eleven of them, all underground, are subsequent to the Evian Agreements of 1962, which marked the end of the Algerian War of Independence, but a clause allowed France to use the sites until 1967. of the Sahara.
If the litigation remains important, “
certainly modest gains
” but of a “
great moral value
” were obtained by Algeria, admitted the minister.
He cited in particular the recovery of the skulls, in July, of 24 nationalist fighters killed at the start of colonization and the recognition in March by French President Emmanuel Macron of the responsibility of the French army in the death of nationalist leader Ali Boumendjel in 1957.
To read also: Eric Zemmour: "Why Algeria has never wanted to be reconciled with France"
Emmanuel Macron has undertaken in recent months a series of "
symbolic acts
" in an attempt to "
reconcile memories
" between the two shores of the Mediterranean, as the 60th anniversary of Algeria's independence approaches (1962 ). But the report by historian Benjamin Stora, on which Emmanuel Macron relies for his memorial policy, does not advocate apologies or repentance and has been strongly criticized in Algeria.