On this anniversary of its independence, Algeria proceeded on Sunday 5 July to the burial of the remains of 24 Algerian combatants killed at the start of French colonization and handed over by France.
The 24 skulls were buried in the morning during a solemn funeral in the cemetery of El Alia, the largest in Algeria, in the presence of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
Located in the eastern suburbs of Algiers, it shelters the "square of the martyrs of the Algerian Revolution", where rest the emir Abdelkader, hero of the first anti-French resistance and the great figures of the war of independence (1954-1962) . The 24 coffins, covered with the national flag, were buried in a square of four rows out of six, near the graves of the former Algerian heads of state. A company of the Republican Guard, an elite body, presented the arms. Officer cadets slowly performed a funeral walk.
Since their arrival on Friday, on Algerian soil, the coffins had remained exposed at the Palace of Culture, where a large crowd moved throughout the day on Saturday, to pay a last tribute to these first resistant returnees after 170 years.
These mortuary remains had been stored since the 19th century in the collections of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. Among the most illustrious rebel heads of early colonization are those of Sheikh Bouziane, the leader of the Ziban insurrection in eastern Algeria in 1849, and his comrades in arms. Captured by the French, they were shot and then beheaded. Skulls were considered "war trophies" by the French military.
Colonized for 132 years (1830-1962), Algeria officially requested the handing over of skulls - several dozen - and colonial archives in January 2018.
"Half-excuses"
Their return by France is a strong sign of a thaw in relations between Algeria and the former colonial power, marked since 1962 by recurrent controversies and tensions. "This gesture is part of a process of friendship and lucidity on all the wounds of our history ", commented the Elysée.
In an interview broadcast on France 24 on Saturday, Abdelmadjid Tebboune welcomed the return of these remains and hopes for further gestures in this direction. After what he describes as France's "half-apologies" for the crimes committed during the colonial period, the Algerian head of state hopes that Paris will make real excuses.
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said on FRANCE 24 on Saturday that "with President Macron we can go a long way in appeasement, in solving the memory problem".
➡️https: //t.co/TCL3CkibWw #Algerie 🇩🇿 🇫🇷 pic.twitter.com/BikMlw4sDW
Algerian deputies have just adopted a "historic" law establishing a Day of Remembrance, May 8, in memory of the 1945 massacres committed by French forces in Sétif and in Constantine.
Algiers also wants to put on the table the file of the "disappeared" during the war of independence (1954-1962), more than 2 200 according to Algiers, and that of the French nuclear tests in the Algerian Sahara which "have done and continue to do the victims".
With AFP
The France 24 week summary invites you to come back to the news that marked the week
I subscribeTake international news everywhere with you! Download the France 24 app
google-play-badge_FR