“Electoral ulterior motives”, “right words” … Reactions to Emmanuel Macron’s announcements on harkis – Le Monde

From “Right words” tinted “Of an electoral ulterior motive”. Seven months before the presidential election, while the harkis, and their descendants, represent a community estimated at nearly 500,000 people and an electorate traditionally courted by the right and the far right, the reactions to Emmanuel Macron’s speech , Monday, September 20, were numerous on this side of the political spectrum. Senator Les Républicains (LR) of Bouches-du-Rhône Valérie Boyer welcomed on Twitter “Just words from the President of the Republic” after the head of state asked ” sorry “ to the harkis in the name of France and announced a bill of “Recognition and repair”.

“Too bad we have to wait until he is an undeclared candidate for the presidential election to wait to see proposals that have yet been rejected in recent years when they came from the right”, however, she regretted. While also lambasting “The obvious electoral ulterior motive” by M. Macron, Senator LR from Vendée Bruno Retailleau greeted “The recognition of the responsibility of the French State in the abandonment of the harkis”. “Their fate was atrocious and it is right that France bow to their memory”, he added. For his part, the LR deputy for Vaucluse, Julien Aubert also welcomed“A strong and expected gesture” from Mr. Macron. In an open letter addressed to the Head of State in July, this elected official and 32 LR deputies had demanded that France do “A strong gesture of gratitude to the descendants of those who gave their lives or who are committed to it” and asked so “A real repair”.

” New page “

Marine Le Pen, who tweeted his reaction before the head of state’s announcements has, above all, denounced “Emmanuel Macron’s electoral generosity” who “Will not repair decades of contempt as well as the outrage committed by the president to the memory of these fighters of France accused, in 2017, with others, of” crime against humanity “”. A reference to the words of the one who was then a candidate for En Marche! in the presidential election and who had qualified colonization in Algeria as a “crime against humanity” and “real barbarism”, causing an uproar on the right and the far right.

On the side of the majority, the president of the group of La République en Marche (LRM) in the National Assembly, Christophe Castaner, greeted on Twitter “The words, strong and just” of the Head of State. “Emmanuel Macron opens a new page of the work of memory and reparation for the harkis: the LRM deputies will be at the rendezvous “, He assured while the President of the Republic announced Monday that the project of” recognition and reparation “will be presented ” before the end of the year ” and must be voted on before the end of the parliamentary session in February 2022. On the left, reactions to Mr. Macron’s announcements on harkis have been few, if not non-existent.

Until this speech on Monday by Mr. Macron, no President of the Republic had gone so far on the subject of the harkis. It was not until the turn of the century that successive governments decided to celebrate the harkis – a national day of homage was instituted in 2003 – and to recognize the suffering endured by these Algerian veterans recruited as auxiliaries to the French army. during the conflict which opposed from 1954 to 1962 the Algerian separatists to France. In 2001, President Jacques Chirac declared that the “Massacres committed in 1962, hitting soldiers as well as civilians, women as well as children, will forever leave the imprint of barbarism. They must be recognized ”. In 2016, it was the turn of Socialist President François Hollande to recognize the “Responsibilities of the French governments in the abandonment of the harkis, the massacres of those who remained in Algeria and the inhuman reception conditions of the families transferred to the camps in France”.