The memory of the war still poisons relations between Paris and Algiers – Pierre Haski

If it had ended with the recall of the Algerian ambassador to France, we could have spoken of a bad mood. But the ban on flying over Algeria imposed on French military planes en route to the Sahel has turned the affair into a diplomatic crisis. On 3 October, a plane of the French general staff was forced to turn back because it was not informed of the flight ban.

The crisis was triggered by the statements of French President Emmanuel Macron reported on October 1 by Le Monde and released during a meeting with a group of young people linked in various ways to Algeria: grandchildren of French returnees, of harkis (the Algerian auxiliaries of the French army at the time of the war) but also of former independence fighters.

The French president spoke of “memory income” for the Algerian regime and of a “tired Algerian system”, weakened by thehirak, the popular revolt. Macron ventured into even more slippery ground when he wondered if an Algerian nation really existed prior to colonization.

Cold anger
The statements sparked the anger of Algiers. “Unacceptable interference”, headlines the official newspaper El Moudjahid. The Algiers regime, as it has done many times in the past, is stubborn. But what emerges from this crisis?

Macron’s words were not very diplomatic, there is no doubt about this. Although there is a broad consensus on the existence of a “memory rent” exploited by the Algerian regime or on the fact that thehirak shook the system, “a president shouldn’t say certain things”, to take up the title of a book dedicated to the five-year period by François Hollande.

Why did Macron decide to release those statements? It is difficult not to think of a link with the tightening of tones after the cancellation of the contract with Australia for the sale of submarines, with the recall of the ambassadors and the declarations of fire towards Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. To this must be added Macron’s dormant anger at the situation in Mali and its leaders with little legitimacy; now the Algerian question. Does the French president raise his tone because he wants to be respected by partners who have mistreated France? If so, one wonders if Macron has chosen the right tool.

But we must not forget the specific case of Algeria and the difficulty of a relationship that regularly collides with the theme of memory.

Macron had launched two historical investigation projects, one on the Rwandan genocide and the other on Algeria. In the case of Rwanda it was successful, but in Algeria it hit a wall. The report of the historian Benjamin Stora, which should have opened a dialogue, did not arouse reactions in Algiers, to the regret of the person concerned.

Perhaps then the answer must be sought in what a fine connoisseur of the country calls the “parallel world” of Algeria, the political-military power bubble of Algiers which has not yet recovered from the crisis of the country.hirak.

The cold is likely to last at least until the next historical anniversary, the sad sixtieth anniversary of October 17, 1961, the day of the massacre in Paris of dozens of Algerians demonstrating for independence. Will there be a French “gesture”, as the Stora report recommended? And how could this gesture be carried out without giving the impression of having succumbed to pressure from Algiers, among other things in the middle of the pre-electoral period in France? In this event of great symbolic value, Macron can no longer be wrong.

(Translation by Andrea Sparacino)