The opening of the archives of the Algerian war advanced by 15 years, announces Bachelot – The HuffPost

HuffPost

POLITICS – Faced with the “falsifiers of history”, the truth of the archives. The Minister of Culture Roselyne Bachelot announced this Friday, December 10 the next opening of the archives on “judicial inquiries” of the algerian war which took place from 1954 to 1962. This opening will take place almost 60 years after the events and when the Franco-Algerian relationship has been in crisis for months.

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

“You don’t build a national novel on a lie”

“I want on this question – which is disturbing, irritating, where there are falsifiers of history at work – I want us to be able to face it. 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, when they are recognized, when they are analyzed, it is from that moment that we can build another story, a reconciliation ”, continued Roselyne Bachelot.

“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 within her scope.

Recognize torture and treat wounds

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.

In January 2020, a report submitted by the historian Benjamin stora which detailed the consequences of the Algerian war on French society, 60 years later had triggered an avalanche of comments. Proof that the memory wound on this subject is far from being closed and that there is an urgent need to put words into this painful past.

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