Algeria celebrated its National Day of memory in May for the first time in 76 years.
In the city of Setif in 1945, French soldiers slaughtered an estimated 45,000 civilians. This was not the start of the French atrocities in occupied Algeria, which continued until the country’s hard-won independence in 1962, crimes for which France still refuses to apologize.
Pro-independence demonstrations erupted in occupied Eastern Algeria on May 8, 1945, as France celebrated its victory over Nazi Germany. Algerian nationalists took control of the cities of Setif, Guelma, and Kherrata, demanding independence after 132 years of cruel French domination.
On retaliation for Algerian nationalists, France slaughtered tens of thousands of people in a single day, with estimates ranging from 15 to 45 thousand.
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Algerians were massacred in 1954, sparking a campaign for independence from French authority, which resulted in the foundation of an independent Algeria eight years later.
In 2005, France claimed responsibility for the massacre in 1945, but it has yet to properly apologize for its actions in Algeria.
Between November 1, 1954, and March 1962, France slaughtered 1.5 million Algerians, and the actual figure might be far higher if we consider the 132 years of French control in Algeria. According to the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, about 10 million Algerians were slaughtered under France’s reign in the nation.
Algerians accuse Paris of erasing Algerian identity during colonial control via theft, torture, murder, and nuclear testing.
During fierce battles against Algeria’s National Liberation Army (ALN), which was fighting for their motherland’s independence, France utilized people as human shields.
On October 17, 1961, as tens of thousands of Algerians marched against the French colonization of their nation, French soldiers murdered 345 protestors in Paris.
Given the growing number of French citizens of Algerian descent, the occupation of Algeria continues to impact French politics. Rather than embrace them, Emanuel Macron’s government has demonized and terrorized them, and they have continued to do so by refusing to recognise and come to grips with previous atrocities committed by France.
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