France commemorates, on Saturday March 19, the 60th anniversary of the Évian Accords and the ceasefire in Algeria, with a ceremony at the Élysée where Emmanuel Macron will again plead for an "appeasement" of memories on the two shores of the Mediterranean.

It is in relative discretion that this anniversary is marked, in the middle of the campaign three weeks before the 1st round of the presidential election.  

Sixty years later, the date of March 19, 1962, the day of the entry into force of the ceasefire signed the day before between the French army and the Algerian separatists, continues to be controversial.

It was consecrated by law in 2012 as the "National Day of Remembrance and Meditation in memory of the civilian and military victims of the Algerian war and the fighting in Tunisia and Morocco".

>> To read, our web documentary: Algerians, French: they tell their war in Algeria

The French representatives and the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) signed, on March 18, 1962, the so-called Évian agreements, consecrating the French defeat and paving the way for the independence of Algeria after more than seven years. of war and 132 years of colonization.

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But the returnees believe that the Évian Accords do not mark the end of the Algerian war which began in 1954, because of the violence which continued until the independence of Algeria on July 5, 1962 and ended by the exodus of hundreds of thousands of them to France.

This position is supported by several candidates from the right and the extreme right.

Valérie Pécresse (LR) has thus undertaken to find "another date" than March 19 to commemorate the end of the Algerian war.

Because "80% of civilian victims fell after the Évian agreements", she said on Friday, recalling the shooting in Rue d'Isly in Algiers on March 26, 1962, or the Oran massacre of 5 July 1962.

Marine Le Pen (RN) also stressed that she had been contesting this date "for a long time" because "there were tens of thousands of harkis who were brutally murdered" after March 19, 1962.

Faced with this controversy, the Élysée presents the commemoration of March 19 as "a stage" on the path of memory "but this is not the end".

200 guests at the Élysée

Some 200 guests were invited to the Élysée village hall at 12 p.m., representing the witnesses of all the memories linked to the Algerian war: conscripts, independence fighters, harkis and returnees.

Before Emmanuel Macron's speech, the floor will be given to four people who participated in the "History and memories of the Algerian war" program, in particular by speaking in colleges and high schools.

The Minister of the Armies Florence Parly, the Chief of Staff of the Armies Thierry Burckhard as well as elected officials, including the mayor of Montpellier, Michaël Delafosse (PS), city which will host the future museum of the History of France and the Algeria, will also be present.

Algeria's ambassador to France, Mohamed-Antar Daoud, was also invited.

Relations between the two countries are marked by a certain appeasement as the elections approach, after two years of tension.

The objective of this commemoration, "reconcile" and "appease", remains the same as during the previous meetings organized since the beginning of the five-year period around the Algerian war.

Emmanuel Macron sought, through a series of memorial gestures, to "reconcile France and Algeria" as well as the "compartmentalized memories" in France, recalled the Elysée.

Following the recommendations of the historian Benjamin Stora, he recognized the responsibility of the French army in the death of the communist mathematician Maurice Audin and that of the nationalist lawyer Ali Boumendjel during the battle of Algiers in 1957.

A stele in memory of Abd el-Kader, Algerian national hero of the refusal of the French colonial presence, was erected in France in Amboise (center) and the skulls of Algerian resistance fighters of the 19th century returned to Algeria.

But Algiers, which is demanding an official apology from France for colonization, did not follow up on this work of memory.

"It's a hand that is outstretched and will remain outstretched", however underlined the Elysée.

In French society, it is a question of "constituting in the long term a common, shared, peaceful memory", explained the presidency, refuting the accusations of "memorial clientelism" against the head of state.

With AFP

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