3 replies to this topic

[Ithri]

17 October 1961

As you may know the Algerians living in France played an important role during our revolution. The FLN Federation of France not only supported the ALN/FLN inside Algeria but also participated actively to the

The conditions in 1961 were the following:
- The FLN killed 22 policemen in France.
- The Algerian authorities (GPRA) made a new proposal to the French and negotiations in Evian had more chances to succeed.

The first point led some French policemen to commit punitive actions, randomly beating Algerians in France as a revenge for their dead colleagues. These beatings led to more than 54 deaths among the Algerian community.

And the two points combined led De Gaulle and his minister Roger Frey to order new measures against the Algerians in France. These measures were supposed to prevent the FLN from acting freely and killing more policemen. They were also supposed to weaken the FLN during the Evian negotiations.

Maurice Papon, police commander in Paris, was in charge. He was so happy with this order and declared "Pour un coup reçu, nous en porterons dix".
In October 6th, he decided to install a curfew against Algerians making it impossible for them to leave their houses between 8:30pm and 5:30am. He also ordered the Algerians who owned cafes and bars to close them at 7pm.

The FLN Federation of France called the Algerians (men, women and children) on a strike and a peaceful demonstration by night on October 17th.
On this night, 50000 Algerians left their houses and started their march.
Maurice Papon gave the order to arrest all the Algerians so that they don't join in the demonstration and 11000 to 15000 (according to the French police) of our nationals were jailed.
During this night, the French police didn't just arrest the Algerians, it also beat them, and put many of them in bags and threw them in the Seine river. The result of this hateful attitude was the killing of 200 to 400 Algerians.

The French government kept on denying these massacres till the 70s, and it was only in 1999 (when Papon was judged for his collaboration with the Vichy government and the killing of French Jews during WWII) that the French people remembered the atrocity of the events of October, yet putting everything on Papon's back.

Here can be seen a list of some of the Algerians killed on that night

[Beebo]

thanks Ithri, I was waiting for you to write something about this yesterday... and seeing you didn't i tried to start looking for some sources so I can post something about it... thanks a lot for this. You know I knew that the Algerians in France contributed to the war but I had no idea that they had such a big influence on it. Allah yer7emhum msaken dying for their country and in the brutal of all ways

ya3tik essa7a kho

[writersfreedom]

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yeah I didnt kno algerians who lived in france had such influence either....I mean its amazing though they didnt live in algeria they also never stopped loving their country
may they rest in peace & set example for all the algerians living in & out of

[Ithri]

writersfreedom, on 05 December 2008 - 11:27 PM, said:

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yeah I didnt kno algerians who lived in france had such influence either....I mean its amazing though they didnt live in algeria they also never stopped loving their country

Most Algerians who worked (not lived) in France back then did it to improve the lives of their families back home; and not to get a better life for themselves in France.
They didn't intend to stay there and most of them returned home (we all have in our families people who spent 1, 2 or 10 years in France but then came back home). They never forgot who they were and couldn't anyways since the life conditions there made sure to remind them.
They all suffered as workers after they suffered in DZ as fellahs. Many of them united in social organizations and then nationalist ones. The North African Star and its successors had the biggest support from them.

Now it is interesting that a big part of our immigrants who went to France before the 80s never applied to get French citizenship. This is a sign.