Mural honoring massacre of Algerians in 1961 vandalized in France

By Al Mayadeen Net
Source: Agencies
26 Dec 2021 19:17

Amid the surge of right-wing extremism in France, a mural dedicated to Algerians killed in the massacre in 1961 was defaced with red paint.

The vandals added inappropriate drawings after removing the phrase “thrown into the Seine to drown.”

Unidentified persons in France vandalized a mural honoring the victims of the 1961 massacre.

The vandals sprayed the mural with red paint and added inappropriate drawings after removing the phrase "thrown into the Seine to drown” that had been written over a picture of one of the massacre's victims.

As the Algerian War of Independence was coming to a close, on October 17, 1961, the French police brutally repressed a peaceful demonstration of French Algerians in the heart of Paris.

That night, and over the next few days, hundreds of Algerians were brutally beaten, killed, or thrown into the Seine to drown.

Mural honoring massacre of Algerians in 1961 vandalized in France (Social Media)

Earlier, France's Ministry of Culture announced the opening of public archives related to legal cases and police investigations about the Algerian war, according to the French Official Gazette.

The Ministry's decree allows access to all "public archives produced in the context of cases relating to acts committed in connection with the Algerian war between 1 November 1954 and 31 December 1966."

For 75 years, access to these documents was prohibited without a special permit.

On his account, French President Emmanuel Macron had promised to help historians unravel the hidden aspects of the French colonization of Algeria from the beginning of the Algerian revolution in 1954 until independence in 1962.

Early December, the French Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, announced the imminent declassification of the archive of the Algerian War's judicial investigations 15 years before the legal time limit.

In the same context, a group of deputies in the French General Assembly announced introducing a bill under which the French authorities would recognize responsibility for the massacres of October 17, 1961, in which dozens of Algerians in Paris were martyred for protesting against a discriminatory curfew targeting Algerians in the French capital.

In October, a diplomatic crisis erupted between France and Algeria after French President Emmanuel Macron made several controversial, shocking, and unprecedented statements toward Algeria and its president, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, whom he accused of being influenced by those around him despite the good relations Macron said he has with the Algerian president.