The French presidency announced that President Emmanuel Macron on Friday formally assigned historian Benjamin Stora a mission related to "the memory of colonialism and the war in Algeria", with the aim of promoting "reconciliation between the French and Algerian people", and Algerian President Abdel Majid Taboun was assigned last week to historian Abdel Majid Sheikhi to work with the side The French.

The French presidency explained that the mission of Stora, who is born in Algeria, is expected to release its results at the end of the year, and the mission is manifested in "making a fair and accurate presentation of the progress made in France regarding the memory of colonialism and the war in Algeria, as well as to look at these bets on both sides of the Mediterranean" .

In a letter commissioning Stora, Macron said, "It is important for the history of the Algerian war to be known and seen clearly. It is about the comfort and purity of those who were harmed by that war." The French president added that it is also about "giving our young people the possibility to emerge from memory-related conflicts." ".

The historian Benjamin # Stora described the steps taken by the French President, Emmanuel # Macron, to encourage the calm of memory wars, which often poisoned Algerian-French relations .. See details pic.twitter.com/5D0AvES71E

Oras Awras (@AwrasMedia) July 25, 2020

A past hindering
President Macron noted that the issue of colonialism and the Algerian war has long impeded the building of a common destiny in the Mediterranean between France and Algeria.

In an interview with Radio France International on Thursday, Stora stressed that he "is not a representative of the French state" and said, "We can never reconcile memories once and for all, but I think we must move towards a relative peace of memories, in order to meet future challenges over In particular, so as not to be prisoners of the past all the time. "

And the French historian, who was born in the Algerian city of Constantine in 1950, considered that "history in Algeria, as in France, is a history that involves bets (...) We really have to do on both sides of the Mediterranean to try to get as close as possible to a date that is the history of facts with a limit By itself, not a permanent date, or a tool that is constantly being used. "

"Between us and the French, the blood of 10 million martyrs" .. # Algeria retrieves the remains of resistance fighters kept by # France for more than 170 years, including Suleiman al-Halabi, the assassin of General "Kleiber"
details with the historian and academic Muhammad Al-Amin Balghith pic.twitter.com/7a7hTja8oJ

- Al-Jazeera (@AJArabic) July 4, 2020

In charge of my sheikh in
return, the Algerian president said last week, during the announcement of the assignment of his advisor for the National Archives and National Memory, Abdel Majid Sheikhi, that the latter would "represent Algeria in the work currently underway with the French state regarding files related to the national memory."

President Taboun said in a previous interview with the French newspaper "Le Penillon" that the two sheikhs Stora would work together under the direct guardianship of the two countries' leaders in order to reach the truth, "in an atmosphere of serenity and calm to solve these problems that poison our political relations, business climate and good understanding."

The assignment of my Sheikh and Stora comes less than a month after Paris handed over the remains of 24 of the leaders of the Algerian resistance, who fell at the beginning of the French colonization of the country, which lasted 132 years.

The remains of the martyrs
Algeria considered this French initiative a "great step", and my sheikh stated that retrieving the remains of the Algerian martyrs from France is a first step towards recovering everything related to the Algerian memory.

The Algerian historian added that it is too early to judge French intentions, and to consider handing over the skulls as a turning point in its outlook for others, especially to Algeria.

It should be noted that the file of the colonial heritage of France in Algeria disposes of four basic files that have been negotiated by France and Algeria for years, which is the archive of the colonial phase that Paris refuses to hand over and Algeria insists on retrieving,

The third file is to retrieve the remaining skulls of the leaders of the popular revolutions from a museum in Paris, and to compensate the victims of the nuclear tests conducted by France in the Algerian desert between 1960 and 1966. The fourth file is reflected in Algeria's demand for France to disclose the fate of 2200 missing during the liberation revolution.