The unprecedented dialogue between Emmanuel Macron and the “grandchildren” of the Algerian war – archyde

A guest imposed himself silently at this presidential lunch: suffering. The suffering of belonging to a forgetful history, made up of unspoken words, denials, silences, misunderstandings. And lies too. The suffering of carrying a distant memory that burns souls, generation after generation, since the end of the Algerian war in 1962.

Even Emmanuel Macron concedes it: “I was struck, during these last years, to see to what extent the history and the memories of the war in Algeria were the matrix of a large part of our traumas. There are sufferings which have been silenced, and which have been constructed as irreconcilable. However, I think quite the opposite. “

Thursday, September 30, the Head of State invited to the Elysee Palace, for two hours, eighteen young people – French of Algerian origin, binational and for some Algerians – to discuss “Freely” on this conflict. With one goal: to appease “This memory wound”, as the historian Benjamin Stora, also present, reminds us.

Why address these young people in particular? Because Nour, Amine, Lina, Gauthier, Lucie and Yoann are the grandchildren of these crumpled memories between the two Mediterranean countries. Indeed, their grandparents were fighters of the National Liberation Front (FLN), French soldiers, conscripts, harkis or repatriates (black feet and Jews). One of them is even the great-grandson of General Salan, former head of the Organization of the Secret Army (OAS).

Since June, in a room at Sciences Po Paris, these young people, mostly students, see each other and think about how to bring together all these memories to which they are the heirs. They did not know each other before, they were brought together by Cécile Renault, responsible for implementing the recommendations of Benjamin Stora’s report on “the memory of colonization and the Algerian war”, submitted in January. They have made it their mission to present, by the end of October, ten messages to the President of the Republic, supposed to nourish his reflection around “Reconciliation between the French and Algerian peoples”.

“We haven’t solved the problem”

Lunch at the Elysee Palace is in a way a staging post, and an opportunity for the Head of State to confront this “third generation” so precious in his eyes.

“You carry a part of history and also a burden, he tells them. A burden because we have not solved the problem. Our generations have not lived through this war, it frees us from many things. You are a projection of France, your identity is an addition to French citizenship. It is a chance for France, an incredible chance. And for me, it’s not a problem, we made it live too much as such. “

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