“Sixty years after this tragedy, I pay tribute to the memory of the victims and their families. “The statement is brief, but the message is important. Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday saluted the memory of the nine victims who died at the Charonne metro station in Paris during a demonstration for peace in Algeria on February 8, 1962, violently suppressed by the police under the authority of Prefect Maurice Papon. He is the first president to pay tribute to these victims.
Paris police prefect Didier Lallement laid a wreath on behalf of the president at a ceremony at the Père Lachaise cemetery on Tuesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the protest. “On February 8, 1962, a unitary demonstration was organized in Paris for peace and independence in Algeria and against the OAS attacks. It was violently repressed by the police: 9 people lost their lives, several hundred were injured,” recalls Emmanuel Macron in his statement.
A long-awaited tribute
This tribute to the victims killed during the demonstration, organized then by the left-wing parties, in particular the French Communist Party, was long overdue. It “is part of a global approach to recognizing all the memories related to the Algerian war and which aims to build this common memory,” says the entourage of the Head of State.
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Already on October 16, Emmanuel Macron had made a memorial gesture for the 60th anniversary of another tragedy, the massacre of several dozen Algerian protesters in Paris on October 17, 1961. He then declared that these “crimes” committed “under the authority of Maurice Papon” are “inexcusable for the Republic”. Since his accession to power in 2017, Emmanuel Macron has multiplied memorial gestures to try to “reconcile memories” between French and Algerians, but without “repentance”.