MaintenanceThe historian Emmanuel Blanchard analyzes, in an interview with “Le Monde”, the cover-up which surrounded this slaughter of Algerian demonstrators by an executive power ready to do anything so that the National Liberation Front (FLN) does not succeed in its show of force in Paris.
On October 17, 1961, as the Algerian war drew to a close, the Parisian police carried out the greatest repression against a demonstration in Europe since the Second World War. That day, at the call of the National Liberation Front (FLN), more than 20,000 Algerians demonstrate peacefully against the curfew imposed on them since October 5. If independence seems inevitable – during the referendum of January 8, 1961, more than three quarters of the French voted for self-determination for Algeria -, the executive power, which persists in qualifying as“Police operation” the conflict in Algeria, cannot tolerate that the FLN, considered as a terrorist organization, succeeds in the symbolic coup de force of a parade in the heart of Paris.
The response orchestrated by the police prefect of the Seine, Maurice Papon, is terrible. While some 12,000 “French Muslims in Algeria” are rounded up, dozens of them are beaten with butts and clubs, some are even shot dead, before being thrown into the Seine. The scenes take place under the passive gaze – with a few exceptions – of Parisians. The assessment of this debauchery of police violence has never been formally established, historians agreeing to assess it at “At least 120 killed”. The French state will endeavor to cover up this massacre. It will take more than twenty years for historians and activists to reveal its extent. Historian Emmanuel Blanchard, author of a History of Algerian immigration to France (La Découverte, 2018), explains how the justice system and the police set up a counter-narrative to screen this “State crime”.
To what extent do police and judicial records show that the State concealed the massacre of October 17, 1961?
The state lie began on October 18 with the denial of the victims of police repression and the blaming of the violence on the Algerian demonstrators. It continued at a threefold level: media (in times of censorship), judicial and then archival. In this regard, the attempt at concealment left traces which are now accessible: thus, on the site of the Paris archives, one can consult the daily burial registers of the cemetery of Thiais (Val-de-Marne). On opening these pages, we immediately see that “something” happened in the fall of 1961: there are many more Algerians buried and Algerians without a name than usual.
You have 79.72% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.