This is a military ceremony to be solemn, which was organized by the algerian authorities to receive the remains of 24 of its fighters killed in the beginning of the French colonization in the Nineteenth century. It is a gesture of appeasement important that France just asked in the framework of bilateral relations often volatile. For transporting the mortal remains – skulls – it is a C-130 Hercules, which has been chosen, accompanied by fighters of the algerian army. It has landed at the Algiers international airport a little after 13 hours (12 hours GMT). The coffins, stored for decades in the museum of Man in Paris, and were welcomed by the president of algeria Abdelmadjid Tebboune, and a guard of honor of the military.
Emotions, reverence and pride
Covered with the national flag, the 24 coffins of the "martyrs" were slowly worn down by a long guard of honour of soldiers equipped with masks health, to the sound of a 21 canon shots. The president Abdelmadjid Tebboune bowed in front of each coffin, and an imam delivered a prayer. "The sirens of the boats roar in the port of Algiers, a real moment of emotion in a city of incredible silent ", tweeted one user. The coffins will then be transferred to the palace of Culture, where they will be exposed during the whole day of Saturday. "The heroes of the Revolt are back on land for which they sacrificed their lives," said the chief of staff Said Chengriha in a speech denouncing " colonialism despicable ". The skulls must be buried on Sunday, the anniversary of Independence, in the square of the Martyrs at the cemetery of El Alia in Algiers.
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On the path of reconciliation of memories
Their restitution by France is a strong sign of a thaw in relations between Algeria and the former colonial power, marked since independence in 1962 by polemics, recurrent and contractions. "This gesture is part of a process of friendship and clarity on all the wounds of our history ", said Friday to AFP the French presidency. "It is the sense of the work that the president of the Republic has engaged with Algeria, and which will be continued, in respect of all, for the reconciliation of the memories of the peoples of france and algeria," added the French presidency. Settled for 132 years (1830-1962), Algeria was announced on Friday by the voice of Mr. Tebboune the " return of the mortal remains of 24 leaders of the popular Resistance ", of " the heroes who fought the French occupation of the brutal, between 1838 and 1865, and that the enemy wild was beheaded in retaliation before the transfer of their skulls overseas (...) ".
In fact, this is not until January 2018 that Algeria had formally asked France for the restitution of skulls – tens – and of the colonial archive. During a visit to Algiers in December 2017, the French president Emmanuel Macron was committed to return the human remains of algerians stored in the museum of Man. In the same year, but prior to his election, he had trained in Algiers, the colonization of Algeria as a " crime against humanity ".
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Lead to a number of progressive episodes of colonization
This is a historian of algeria, Ali-Farid Belkadi, which was raised in 2011, the question of the skulls, according to research at the museum. He lamented then that the skulls are " caulked in glorified cardboard boxes, reminiscent of the packaging of shoe stores ". A criticism refuted by the direction of the museum. Several petitions signed especially by historians had claimed the return of these remains in Algeria. The issue of memory remains at the heart of the relationship volatile between France and Algeria, where the perception is that France is not doing enough to end its colonial past. The deputies algerians come to adopt a law on "historical" establishing a Day of memory, on may 8, in memory of the massacres of 1945 committed by the French forces in Sétif and the Constantinois (eastern). Algiers also wants to put on the table the folder of the "disappeared" during the war of independence (1954-1962) – more than 2 200 depending on Algiers, and the French nuclear tests in the algerian Sahara, which " have made and continue to make victims ". This gesture of appeasement comes in the midst of a debate on the abuses of old colonial powers in the world after the death of George Floyd, a middle-aged black asphyxiated by a white policeman in the United States.
