Algerian War: France will open certain archives “15 years in advance”

Published on : 12/10/2021 – 09:27

A new gesture of appeasement after months of tension between Algiers and Paris? The Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, announced Friday, December 10 the next opening of the archives on “judicial inquiries” of the war in Algeria (1954-1962).

“I am opening the archives 15 years in advance on the judicial investigations of the gendarmerie and the police which relate to the Algerian war”, she announced on the BFMTV platform. A statement that comes two days after the visit to Algiers of the head of French diplomacy, Jean-Yves Le Drian.

“Look the question in the face”

“I want on this question – which is disturbing, irritating, where there are falsifiers of history at work – that we can look it in the face. We do not build a national novel on a lie”, argued the minister. “It is the falsification that brings all the wanderings, all the troubles and all the hatred. From the moment the facts are on the table, where they are recognized, where they are analyzed, it is from then on – where we can build another story, a reconciliation, ”she continued.

“We have things to rebuild with Algeria, they can only be rebuilt on the basis of the truth,” said the Minister of Culture, who has the issue of archives in her area. Asked about the consequences of this decision, in particular on the future confirmation of acts of torture committed by the French army in Algeria, “it is in the country’s interest to recognize it”, added Roselyne Bachelot.

This announcement is part of the policy of memorial reconciliation initiated by the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron. On September 13, 2018, he acknowledged that the disappearance of the mathematician and communist activist Maurice Audin, in 1957 in Algiers, was the act of the French army and promised his family wide access to the archives.

On March 9, 2021, pursuing his policy of “small steps”, the Head of State announced a simplification of access to declassification procedures for classified archives over 50 years old, making it possible to shorten the waiting times associated with this procedure.

With AFP