Macron's new statements about the Algerian war sparked criticism in France

Comments in which French President Emmanuel Macron compared the events of the Algerian war with the admission of former President Jacques Chirac in 1995 to France’s responsibility for deporting Jews during the Second World War period have sparked a wave of criticism in France, especially from right and far-right leaders and supporters.

Macron said Thursday - on the plane that flew him from Israel, where he attended the celebration of the 75th anniversary of the "Holocaust" (Holocaust) - he was convinced that France should reconsider the memory of the Algerian war (1962-1954) "to put an end to the memory struggle that complicates matters." Inside France. "

"I am very clear about the challenges facing me as president from the perspective of memory, which are political challenges. The Algerian war is undoubtedly the most dramatic ... I know this since my presidential campaign ... It is a challenge before us and enjoys the same importance that Chirac was looking at in 1995 To the Nazi Holocaust. "

In response to Macron's statements, the leader of the far-right "National Rally" party, Marine Le Pen, said that "comparing the Holocaust to the Algerian war is obscene ... Macron is at the top of the perversion."

As for the leader of the deputies for the right-wing "Republicans" party, Bruno Gettayo, he said that Macron's statements were "insolent ... after describing the French colonization of Algeria as a crime against humanity, it is similar and confuses the Algerian war with the worst massacre in the history of humanity."

"It is a double offense, for the French soldiers who fought in North Africa who, because of these statements, have become torturers like the ugliest class, and for the victims of the Holocaust, because this unacceptable comparison underestimates the level of brutality that characterized the Nazi Holocaust."

As for the European Rep. Of the "Republicans" party, Francois Bellamy, he tweeted, saying, "It is absolute obscenity. These statements are madness for both history and memory, and they are also a time bomb for our French future."

In September 2018, President Macron acknowledged that his country was responsible for establishing a "torture system" during the colonial rule in Algeria that ended in 1962.

Official recognition
And the Elysee (French Presidency) said - in a statement - that Macron officially recognized that "the French state allowed the use of torture during the war in Algeria," according to the French newspaper "Le Monde".

The statement quoted Macron as saying that the French Communist mathematician, Maurice Odin, who had fought for the independence of Algeria, "although his death was a unilateral act by some, this occurred within the framework of a legal and legal system ... the system of arrest and detention."

The French president also promised to "open the archive related to the disappearance of French and Algerian civilians and military personnel during the war."

Macron had also caused controversy during his election campaign in 2017 when he stated that France's colonization of Algeria was a "crime against humanity", but he retracted his statements, proposing a "no denial or repentance" stance on France's colonial history, noting that "we cannot remain prisoners the past".