Wednesday, Nov 03, 2004
The days of France's bloody colonial war in Algeria may well be long past, but its reverberations continue to have a profound impact on French society. The flood of media coverage given to this week's 50th anniversary of the start of the Algerian nationalist uprising reveals not only how history is being written and rewritten but also how raw memories remain. Arguably, no event over the past 50 years continues to mark France so deeply - politically and psychologically - as the Algerian struggle for independence and the loss of "l'Algerie Francaise".
The most obvious political consequence has been institutional, with the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958, halfway through the war. General Charles de Gaulle was recalled to restore national morale and end the conflict. The presidential system in place today was tailor-made for de Gaulle's authoritarian temperament and the needs of a national emergency. Remarkably, the only substantive change has been to cut the presidential term to five years from seven, which has taken effect only since Jacques Chirac was re-elected in 2002.
Less obvious, yet just as profound, has been the cumulative effect on society of the war and the removal of Algeria from the colonial map - an infinitely more traumatic experience for France than surrendering other colonial possessions or defeat in Indochina at the hands of the Viet Minh. After almost 130 years when Algeria was an integral part of France, few accepted that it could, or should, be part of the worldwide process of de colonisation. When independence came in 1962 there was an enforced exodus of 1m colonists, the so-called pieds noirs,most of whom felt betrayed by their mother country.
The loss of Algeria continues to exercise France's extreme right. The formative experience for Jean-Marie Le Pen, the ageing leader of the National Front, was serving as a paratrooper in Algeria. The Front's xenophobic creed still reflects a defensive posture of protecting France and French values from immigrants and an immigrant culture of essentially North African and Muslim origin.
The French military still refuses to accept that the widespread use of torture and abuse of human rights was anything other than a necessary means of fighting a just war. Until the late 1990s, the conflict was not even formally classified as a war but blandly referred to as the "events in Algeria". Not long ago a retired general stated in his memoirs that he had been party to systematic torture tolerated by the authorities. He found himself prosecuted and stripped of his military honours. Such is the official silence on torture that when news of US abuse of prisoners in Iraq emerged this year, several commentators warned that France could scarcely criticise the US because there had been no apology for the shame of torture in Algeria.
Then there is the unresolved identity crisis of the harkis - Algerians who worked in the French colonial administration or security apparatus - and their families. Despite guarantees of safety from the Algerian and French governments, these people were persecuted as collaborators. Some say as many as 100,000 were murdered. Many fled to France where they have lived in limbo: denied the right to be Algerian yet not feeling fully French.
Prolonged instability in post-independence Algeria has created a further influx of Algerians seeking shelter and jobs - particularly during the past decade of virtual civil war, with the military-led government pitted against Islamic militants. Algerians form by far the largest immigrant community in France and the most confused about its roots. The identity crisis is especially acute among the young, whose marginalisation often finds solace in radical Islam.
The prickly attitude of successive Algerian governments towards their former colonial masters has not helped matters. France has been instinctively blamed for all the new state's ills. Rather than be magnanimous, French administrations have treated Algeria with mistrust, if not outright hostility and vindictiveness. De Gaulle, who realised military victory was illusory, prolonged the conflict for two years in the hope of keeping newly discovered Saharan oilfields and atomic testing facilities. The loss of the Sahara was a bitter blow to France's dreams of oil independence.
Only since Mr Chirac visited Algiers last year have signs of a genuine rapprochement begun to emerge. But there is a long way to go. The Algerians will have to open their archives on the darker episodes of the war and confront the post-independence failings that have permitted a military clique to maintain power at the cost of bloody and costly civil strife. France needs to make a public act of reconciliation with Algeria and reach out more to its own Algerian immigrant population - most of whom now possess French citizenship - to remind them that they are welcome, not stigmatised.
The writer is the FT's former Paris bureau chief
Robert Graham
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