The French president hopes to welcome his counterpart Abdelmajid Tebboune to France in 2023 to continue the work of memory and reconciliation between the two countries.
"I don't have to ask for forgiveness, that's not the point, the word would break all ties", he explains in a long interview with the Algerian writer Kamel Daoud to the French weekly "Le Point published Wednesday evening.
"The worst would be to conclude:
We apologize and everyone goes their own way
," he said.
"The work of memory and history is not a balance of all accounts", he continues.
“It is, on the contrary, to maintain that there is something unspeakable, something misunderstood, something undecidable perhaps, something unforgivable,” he stresses.
The issue of apologies is at the heart of the bilateral relationship and recurring tensions between the two countries.
In 2020, Algeria had freshly welcomed a report by historian Benjamin Stora advocating a series of gestures to try to reconcile the two countries, while excluding “repentance” and “apologies”.
"I also hope that President Tebboune will be able to come to France in 2023", notes Emmanuel Macron, in order to continue "an unprecedented work of friendship (..)" after the visit he himself made in Algeria in August 2022 despite a stormy walkabout in Oran on the last day.
A possible meditation on the burial of Abdelkader
Asked about the possibility of a ceremony of meditation by the Algerian president on the graves of members of Abdelkader's suite, heroes of the resistance to French colonization, buried in Amboise, he considered that it would be "a very beautiful and very strong moment" and that he "wished for it".
“I believe this will make sense in the history of the Algerian people.
For the French people, it will be an opportunity to understand realities that are often hidden,” he said again.
Abdel Kader (1808-1883) was detained in Amboise with several members of his family from 1848 to 1852.
