In the midst of a (new) crisis in Franco-Algerian relations, Roselyne Bachelot announced on Friday
on BFMTV that it was going to open “with fifteen years in advance the archives on the judicial investigations of the gendarmerie and the police which relate to the war in Algeria”.
“I want that on this question – which is troubling, irritating, where there are falsifiers of history at work – I want us to be able to face it. We do not build a national novel on a lie, ”argued the Minister of Culture when two days earlier, Jean-Yves Le Drian was visiting Algiers.
Rebuild a relationship on the truth
“It is the falsification that brings all the wanderings, all the troubles and all the hatred. From the moment when the facts are on the table, where they are recognized, when they are analyzed, it is from that moment that we can build another story, a reconciliation ”, she said. for follow-up. “We have things to rebuild with Algeria, they can only be rebuilt on the basis of the truth,” said the Minister of Culture, who has the issue of archives in her area.
Asked about the consequences of this decision, in particular on the future confirmation of acts of torture committed by the French army in Algeria, “it is in the country’s interest to recognize it”, added Roselyne Bachelot.
One more stone for memorial reconciliation
This announcement is part of the memorial reconciliation policy initiated by the Head of State, Emmanuel Macron. On September 13, 2018, he acknowledged that the disappearance of the mathematician and communist activist Maurice Audin, in 1957 in Algiers, was the act of the French army and promised his family wide access to the archives.
On March 9, 2021, pursuing his policy of “small steps”, the Head of State announced a simplification of access to declassification procedures for classified archives over fifty years old, making it possible to shorten the waiting times associated with this procedure.