Latest news with #AlgerianWar
LeMonde
a day ago
- Politics
- LeMonde
France and Cameroon: Telling the necessary truth
This was arguably the most glaring "memory gap" in French colonial history. Between 1955 and 1970, France waged war in Cameroon against independence and later opposition movements, resulting in the deaths of tens of thousands and helping to install an authoritarian regime loyal to Paris. The silence that surrounded this "dirty war" was both an insult to the victims and a historical failure, as well as a major unspoken issue in relations between the two countries. This is why we should welcome the move by French President Emmanuel Macron who, in a letter to his Cameroonian counterpart Paul Biya made public on August 12, acknowledged that a "war" had been waged in Cameroon by "the colonial authorities and the French army," and stated that he acknowledged "France's role and responsibility." It took many years before the reality of this brutal "pacification" carried out in secret, but long well-documented by writers, journalists and historians, was officially recognized. The "counter-revolutionary warfare" techniques first tested in Indochina and then in Algeria – destruction of villages, assaults on unarmed civilians, forced regroupment camps, torture, targeted assassinations – were used against supporters of the Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC, a pro-independence party) and to crush the uprising of the Bamileke people. By delegating repression to local actors, France turned a colonial conflict into a civil war. Macron's initiative began in 2022 with the creation of a commission of French and Cameroonian historians tasked with "shedding light" on this chapter of history. The report from this commission, delivered in January 2025, found that the violence in Cameroon "transgressed human rights and the laws of war." While President François Hollande had merely referred in 2015 to "particularly violent repression," Macron acknowledged, as the commission suggested, that France fought a true "war" in Cameroon. The president is thus continuing the necessary process of truth-telling that, from the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda to the Algerian War, must fill the gaps of amnesia – and even lies – that still weigh on French society and diplomacy, without any notion of "repentance." Of course, his gesture remains incomplete – the "violations of human rights" are not clearly defined – and ambiguous in form: It came as a letter addressed to Biya, who is himself the heir to autocrat Ahmadou Ahidjo (installed by France in 1960) and has ruled the country since 1982. This is where the particular sensitivity of Macron's attempted truth-telling operation regarding Cameroon lies. The "decolonization war" did not end with independence; Paris continued to repress opponents of the regime that had been put in place. Forgotten in France, this endless war continues to poison the political and social climate in Cameroon. As the end of Biya's reign approaches – despite being 92 years old, he plans to seek an eighth presidential term in October – and as the demand for historical truth is stirring throughout Francophone Africa, it is time to put an end to the unspoken truths between France and Cameroon.
LeMonde
18-06-2025
- Business
- LeMonde
France to host 2026 G7 summit in Evian
Next year's summit of the Group of Seven powers will take place in Evian, the French spa town known for its eponymous mineral water, President Emmanuel Macron announced Tuesday, June 18. Macron made the announcement with a social media video as he took part in the 2025 summit in the Canadian Rockies resort of Kananaskis. Speaking afterward to reporters, Macron said that Evian and its surrounding region "have shown a real willingness and real commitment to hold this major international gathering." Evian-les-Bains, in the Alps near the border with Switzerland, gained fame starting in the 19 th century for its natural spring water and became a high-end resort that drew royalty and celebrities. It will not be Evian's first time at the center of international diplomacy. In 1962, the Evian Accords ended the Algerian War and established the way for the northern African country's independence from France. The G7 summit rotates each year among one member of the club of major industrial democracies – Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States. France last hosted the G7 in 2019 when the summit took place in the southwestern beach resort of Biarritz. The US will be the host in 2027, offering President Donald Trump an opportunity to hold a major international summit in a locale of his choosing. The 2025 summit focused in part on Trump-related trade tensions and support for Ukraine, with President Volodymyr Zelensky among the invited guests, but was overshadowed by Israel's military campaign against Iran.
LeMonde
05-06-2025
- Politics
- LeMonde
When racism escalates to far-right terrorism
Since the Algerian War, murders targeting individuals perceived as North African have punctuated the grim history of racism in France, to the extent that the term "Arabicide" was coined by the author of a book on the subject. Certain political rhetoric has inspired such crimes, including the murder of Ibrahim Ali, a young Frenchman of Comorian descent who was killed in 1995 in Marseille by a member of the Front National (now the Rassemblement National, RN) far-right party while posting campaign posters. However, never before had a racist murderer's intent to incite others to follow their example – thereby "disturbing public order through intimidation or terror," to use the French penal code's wording – led to a classification of "terrorism." After the murder of Hichem Miraoui, age 45, on Saturday, May 31, in the southern town of Puget-sur-Argens, the decision to involve France's national anti-terrorism prosecutor's office was based notably on the suspect's call to "go get them [foreigners] where they are," posted on social media. Christophe B., age 53, is now under investigation for "premeditated murder in connection with a terrorist undertaking, committed because of race or religion." This classification, which is appropriate, marks a first in cases of racist or anti-Muslim homicides. It reflects the emergence of a troubling threat: far-right terrorism. By combining calls for racist murder with appeals to vote for the RN in messages broadcast without any filter on Facebook and X, Christophe B. has highlighted the ambiguity, and even perversity, of the RN's rhetoric. The image of respectability crafted by party leader Marine Le Pen masks barely subliminal messages of hate from her supporters. The depiction of immigration as a "flood" responsible for all the country's ills, the conflation of Muslims with terrorists and the labeling of perpetrators of urban violence as "savages" have for years fostered a hostility toward foreigners that far-right groups or lone individuals are encouraged to translate into action. But this "ambient racism," in the words of Socialist leader Olivier Faure, has also been fueled by a growing portion of the political spectrum adopting the language of the RN. By denouncing "barbarians" after the incidents that occurred during the Paris Saint-Germain football victory celebrations, and by constantly placing Islam, Muslim and Algeria at the center of political debate, conservative Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau, like other political leaders, fueled the hate machine. His condemnation of the "racist" crime in southern France and his description of racism as a "poison that kills" are therefore all the more commendable. Still, the frequent tendency to substitute a religious lens in lieu of an analysis of the racism and social relations underlying these crimes represents a regrettable step backward. Admittedly, the repeated shocks inflicted on French society by Islamist attacks are echoed in the hateful writings of Christophe B. However, his language, which includes racial slurs, seems primarily inspired by classic racism and xenophobia. By viewing the tragedy in Puget-sur-Argens solely through a religious lens before even knowing Miraoui's relationship to Islam, there is a risk of reducing him to a single trait and favoring the perspective preferred by all extremists. This murder should first and foremost prompt condemnation of any rhetoric that equates a religion, skin color, culture, nationality or foreign origin with a threat.
The Guardian
28-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, first Arab and African director to win Cannes Palme d'Or, dies aged 95
Mohammed Lakhdar-Hamina, the first Arab and African director to win the coveted Palme d'Or at the Cannes film festival, has died aged 91, his family said Friday. The film-maker was awarded the prize in 1975 for Chronicle of the Years of Fire, a historical drama about the Algerian war of independence. His children said he passed away at his home in Algiers. Hamina – who was the oldest living recipient of the Palme d'Or – competed four times in the festival. His 1967 film The Winds of the Aurès won the best first work award. The struggle for Algeria's independence was at the heart of Chronicle of the Years of Fire, which in six chapters from 1939 to 1954 tells the story of a nation through its people, culminating in the uprising against French colonisation. Born on 26 February 1934 in M'Sila in the mountainous Aurès region of north-east Algeria, Hamina was the son of modest peasants from the high plains. He attended agricultural school, then studied in the southern French town of Antibes, just along the Mediterranean coast from Cannes, where he met his future wife. The couple had four sons together. During the Algerian war, his father was kidnapped, tortured and killed by the French army. He was called up to the French army in 1958 but deserted to join the Algerian resistance in Tunis. He learned film-making through an internship working on Tunisian newsreels before venturing into short films.
