Massacre of October 17, 1961: eleven Paris mayors call for recognition as a state crime

“It's a call that I had in mind for a long time.

I'm not waiting for France to apologize or ask for forgiveness, but to recognize that the State has deliberately committed a serious crime… We are talking about 150 to 200 deaths and perhaps more.

"Azzédine Taïbi, the Communist mayor of Stains (Seine-Saint-Denis) wanted to strongly mark the sixty years of the bloody repression of Algerian demonstrators in Paris on October 17, 1961, by launching an appeal shared by eleven other left-wing mayors, including ten from Île-de-France.

The signatories are mainly PCF, but also PS and Génération.s. We find the municipalities of Bobigny, L'Île-Saint-Denis, La Courneuve, Saint-Denis, Montreuil in Seine-Saint-Denis, Grigny (Essonne), Gennevilliers and Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine), Fontenay-sous- Bois (Val-de-Marne) and Trappes (Yvelines). Added to Allonnes in the Sarthe. The appeal also proposes to include October 17 in the calendar of official ceremonies and asks to open all the archives around the Algerian War.

While he inaugurated this Sunday in Stains, a fresco in tribute to the victims, Azzédine Taïbi believes that the position taken the day before by Emmanuel Macron is "a first small step, a step forward which is not negligible".

Saturday, the President of the Republic indeed participated in a ceremony on the bridge of Bezons (Val d'Oise), above the Seine and borrowed sixty years ago by the demonstrators coming from the slum of Nanterre.

"The crimes committed that night under the authority of Maurice Papon are inexcusable for the Republic," said the Elysee in an official statement.

"Allow an action of national reconciliation"

“But we have to recognize that it was the state that authorized a prefect to act in this way.

Maurice Papon ordered the massacre in the name of the State ", insists Azzédine Taïbi, of Algerian origin and who is himself affected in his personal story:" I knew much later that my father had at that time manifested .

It is a French affair and not only Algerian, everyone is concerned.

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"It's better than nothing, but we must go to the end of this recognition, reacted in the same direction, Patrice Leclerc, the PCF mayor of Gennevilliers, about the press release from the Elysee.

We must learn to look at our history with its shadows and its lights, so that we can have a peaceful relationship with those who are part of it.

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"Today, we must know the truth", judge Philippe Rio, the Communist mayor of Grigny and signatory of the appeal.

"Archives must be made accessible so that justice is finally done," he adds.

This dark passage in our history must be brought to light, to relieve the families but also to allow an action of national reconciliation.

As was the case with Jacques Chirac who, in 1995, had assumed responsibility for the French state in the Vél d'Hiv roundup.

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