Former French Colony Marks Break with Brutal Past

Marking their 50th anniversary of independence, Algerians have been looking back at the triumphs and tragedies that finally led to their pyrrhic victory.

In the uprising against French rule that began in 1954, some 150,000 Algerians and 18,000  French troops died.

But one thing kept the Algerian nationalists going.

They  received funding  from families and social networks abroad – particularly in Paris.

In a special report for France 24, I met Algerians who were caught up in it then, and who have been seeking some sort of peace ever since – not least within themselves.

THE UNDECLARED WAR IN FRANCE

Sprawling throughout Paris in the 1950s were strong support networks for Algeria’s uprising against the French.  Authorities kept a close eye on Algerian men, and it often fell to women and children to deliver documents and collect money for the National Liberation Front or FLN.

Ahmed Boudjellal was nine years old when members asked his parents to have him start making deliveries.

“We would leave it in the letter box, we would wait in this or that alley or street, he passed, saying ‘you have something for me?’ And he took it. Then he would turn down a side street, and that was it.”

As a boy, Boudjellal wasn’t told what he was carrying. They were likely pro-FLN leaflets, personal messages and plans for secret meetings.

VIOLNCE INTENSIFIES

Apart from the constant, clandestine activity, clashes began to erupt as the war in Algeria dragged on.  Tit-for-tat violence between the Paris police and FLN reached a crescendo in 1961, when some two dozen officers were killed.

In October Said Abtout was among the thousands of FLN members and sympathisers taking part in a peaceful march in central Paris. They protested against a curfew that prevented Algerian activists from meeting after dark.

French police cracked down on the demonstrators with merciless brutality.

“Over there where there’s a bike lane now, that’s where they beat us with their truncheons,” recalls Abtout. “When I saw the number of officers begin to surround us, I ran away. I saw people on the ground, being beaten with batons and being kicked in the head. It was horrible to see.”

Estimates of the number of demonstrators beaten to death by police that day range from 30, to more than fives as many. The event crowned a particularly bloody month in the capital, during which a number of police officers were shot dead.  Activists were rounded up, beaten and thrown into the river Seine to drown.

But the death toll in the capital paled in comparison with the number of Algerian nationalists who died on their own soil – 150,000 – were killed by the French and in factional fighting.  About 18,000 French soldiers and conscripts died.

THE FATEFUL DAY

Even as the violence intensified, peace negotiations between France and Algeria’s provisional government were under way, finally leading to the cease fire on March 19, 1962.

The same day, Georges Morin – whose youth was overshadowed by war – celebrated his 20th birthday.  News of the accord was a gift, of a sort.

“Peace – at last! We didn’t know what was going to happen but at least the massacres would come to an end. Thank God, it’s stopping. But then came the fear.”

LEFT BEHIND IN A LIBERATED COLONY

Fear that is, of the reprisals and the violence that would follow. Born in Algeria of French parents, Morin was torn. He was among the million or so Europeans – known as Pieds Noirs, (literally, ‘black feet’) who lived in Algeria for generations. The war had officially ended, but random attacks on the Pieds Noirs continued.

Thousands of men, women and children were returning to France every week.

“To see eight friends out of 10 just leave was traumatic. I took them to my airport,” says Morin.

“It was a real rupture of two worlds. Until then, France and Algeria were one country for me. My country. Not only did it break my heart, it was a dream that was being torn apart.”

And it marked the end of 132 years of French colonial rule in Algeria, now being highlighted at the Military Museum in Paris.

FIFTY YEARS LATER: STILL HEALING

Georges Morin and Said Abtout stroll through the exhibition, passing photos and war-time paintings, to gaze at French troops training in a propaganda film of the time.

“Since 1962, I’ve spent time trying to sew this fabric back together,” says Morin. “I did it by teaching in Algeria, by working on partnerships between towns in France and in Algeria, by volunteering my time.”

For his part, Abtout has found in Communism a way of transcending the ethnic and political divisions that continue to linger in an independent Algeria. “Being a Communist is above all an opportunity, because for us, it’s not about this one is European, this one belongs to that group,” he says.

“When you’re a Communist, we are one. We work for everyone’s well-being.”

The new Algeria is perhaps not what either man had dreamed of. In the tumultuous half century since independence, Abtout and Morin have visited family there, and done what they can to help a country that is still healing, fifty years on.

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