France's reappraisal of the Algerian war: The downfall of Emmanuel Macron

It was a natural gesture for a German Chancellor: Angela Merkel laid a wreath on her memorial to the dead of the War of Independence on Monday during her visit to the Algerian capital of Algiers. This is appropriate for a western state guest in Algeria. After all, even the American President John F. Kennedy had supported the Algerian independence fighters in their desire for freedom against France.

So far, though, one would have officially shaken his head at Merkel's most important German ally in Paris. Finally, from 1954 to 1962, the French colonialists fought a bloody war against the Algerian independence movement. Thousands of French and Algerian people died. For many, the Algerian war is still a laboriously healed wound of her life. After all, a broad examination of the past did not take place regarding the Algerian war in France. In the French public schools, the subject is taught until now rather incidentally under the main theme of colonialism.

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Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) at the Monument to the Dead of the Independence Battle in Algiers

Last week, however, France's President Emmanuel Macron dared to be the first French head of government to name his country's unprecedented crimes during the Algerian war.

Macron visited Michele Josette on Thursday AudinMacron visited on Thursday Michele Josette Audin, the 87-year-old widow of a French torture victim in Algeria. The mathematician Maurice Audin joined the resistance against the colonial regime in the 1950s as a young communist. For this he was tortured to death in 1957 in Algiers by French soldiers. "It was time for the French nation to face the truth," it said in an official statement from the Elysée Palace.

Macron had previously denounced in a public letter to the widow Audin not only the individual case, but a "legal system that made the torture possible". At the same time he called all the French to "memory work" regarding torture and crimes in the Algerian war. "Recognition does not heal, but it can symbolically facilitate those who are still suffering from the weight of the past," wrote Macron.

"Waited for 60 years"

The reactions in Algeria were not long in coming. "I can barely hold back my tears, I've been waiting for it for 60 years and maybe I can start mourning now," said 82-year-old former Algerian resistance fighter Louisette Ighilahriz in Algiers to French radio station RFI. Ighilahriz was reportedly tortured and raped by the French army on 1 October and 16 December 1957.

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Torture victim Maurice Audin (photo from 1950)

The Algerian government and the broadly controlled media have also responded positively: "France finally recognizes its responsibility for past state crimes," wrote the leading Algerian newspaper El Watan, stressing that the French torture victim Audin has long been a symbol of all torture victims, also the Algerian, has become. Responding Algerian Minister for War Victims, Tayeb Zitouri, spoke of a "commendable step forward" that would also strengthen future archival work. Macron had previously called on the French to pass on testimonies and documents of the war to the French National Archives.

However, what looks like a purely Franco-Algerian affair is also important for the German Chancellor's policy on Africa. For just as Macron advocates that there is no longer any French policy in Africa, but only a European one, Merkel campaigned on Monday for more understanding of European refugee policy in Algeria. So far, however, it has been customary for the Algerian side to divide Europe apart, praising the German past work, only to expose the French.

Although a spokesman for the Federal Press Office told the SPIEGEL that Merkel and her Algerian interlocutors did not mention the French gestures on Monday. But there is hardly any doubt that Germany and France have come a great deal closer to the processing of the wars of the 20th century, in the view of many North Africans in recent days.

Editor's note: Macron visited on Thursday Josette Audin, the 87-year-old widow of a French torture victim in Algeria. In an earlier version, the widow was referred to as Michele Audin. But that's the name of the daughter. We corrected the mistake.