This July 5 will mark the 60th anniversary of Algeria’s independence. President Emmanuel Macron took advantage of this symbolic date to call for the “strengthening of already strong ties” between France and Algeria, in a letter addressed to his counterpart Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
“The 60th anniversary of Algeria’s independence is an opportunity for the President of the Republic to send a letter to President Tebboune his best wishes to the Algerian people and to express his wish that the strengthening of already strong ties between France and Algeria”, indicated the French presidency.
A wreath will also be laid in his name on Tuesday at the National Memorial of the War in Algeria and the Combat of Morocco and Tunisia, quai Branly, in Paris in tribute to the victims of the massacre of Europeans in Oran, the same day of the independence, July 5, 1962, announced Monday evening the Elysée. “He reiterates, moreover, his commitment to continue his process of recognition of the truth and reconciliation of the memories of the Algerian and French peoples. »
On July 5, 1962, Algeria declared its independence, after 132 years of French colonization and a bloody war of liberation lasting nearly eight years. Sixty years later, the wounds are still alive on both sides despite symbolic gestures over the years of France.
Between Macron and Algeria, jagged relations
A year after his election, in September 2018, Emmanuel Macron recognizes that the young communist mathematician Maurice Audin died under torture by the French army in 1957 and asks “forgiveness” to his widow. After the publication of the report by French historian Benjamin Stora, in January 2021, he commits to “symbolic acts” to try to reconcile the two countries, but excludes “repentance” and “apologies”, which is coldly welcomed in Algiers.
In the same concern for reconciliation of memories, on January 26, 2022 he expressed France’s “gratitude” towards the returnees from Algeria and urged them to “recognize” and “look in the face” the “massacre of July 5, 1962” in Oran. , which affected “hundreds of Europeans, mainly French”.
The bilateral relationship soured in October 2021 when Emmanuel Macron affirmed that Algeria had been built after its independence on “a memorial rent”, maintained by “the politico-military system”, arousing the ire of Algiers. . But relations have gradually warmed up in recent months and the French president and his Algerian counterpart expressed their desire to “deepen” them during a telephone interview on June 18.