France’s President Emmanuel Macron is fond of grandiose language. After Russia’s
invasion of Ukraine, he declared Europe had entered a new era. After he became
president, he declared a new era in Franco-African relations, with the
country’s former colonies. And in Algeria last week, he declared another new
era, one with an “irreversible dynamic of progress” in relations between the
two countries.
اضافة اعلان
The trouble with a new era is it requires the
conclusion of the previous one. And when it comes to Algeria, France has still
not fully reckoned with the ghosts of its empire.
Sixty years after Algeria wrested independence from
Paris, a true accounting of what happened has yet to be agreed. While in the
city of Oran, Macron did not even try, refusing to offer an official apology
for historical crimes, and saying instead that he wanted “truth and
recognition”. But whose truth? Far from opening a new era, Macron is only
offering multiple versions of what happened during the previous one.
Macron is the first French president born after the
independence of Algeria, and as such the traumatic events have less hold over
him. He does, however, have to contend with the political ramifications of what
he says and does.
For the French, Algeria still retains an outsize
influence in the political imagination, equivalent perhaps to the place of
India and Pakistan in the UK or Ireland in the US. The war of independence was
brutal and cost hundreds of thousands of lives by the time it ended in 1962.
France was unwilling to let Algeria become independent, seeing the country as
part of France — which, legally, it was, as much part of the country as Lyon or
Bordeaux.
The independence of Algeria brought seismic
repercussions, the consequences of which endure to this day. Most obvious was
immigration, as Algerians and their descendants have made a home in France. But
most controversial were the pieds-noirs, the French and European settlers who
had lived in Algeria. By the time of the outbreak of the war in 1954, there
were more than a million of them, over 10 percent of Algeria’s population, and
after independence they returned home.
But the France they returned to did not want them,
seeing in them either the beneficiaries of a now-crumbling colonial empire or
unwanted refugees. For decades, their resentment has simmered and become part
of the body politic. This is the background to Macron’s careful balancing act.
The pieds-noirs form a political constituency unknown in most of the West — a
group of people who benefited from colonialism and who still, decades later,
vocally maintain they were victims.
The defeat of France in Algeria remains a live
political memory. Nostalgia for that period has animated many voters on the
far-right. At the start of this year, in the run-up to the French election,
Macron tried to court their votes by acknowledging their suffering, in the
process irritating French-Algerians.
What is missing is an honest reckoning with historic crimes, something that is currently too politically toxic to handle.
But this is the problem with Macron’s approach. It
assumes multiple truths are possible about that period and that delivering
palatable messages piecemeal to these groups will somehow draw a line under the
history.
To the pieds-noirs, he acknowledges their suffering;
to French-Algerians, he apologizes for police brutality; to Algerians last
week, he speaks of reconciliation and hopes to turn the page. That sort of
messaging is only plausible for a short period. What is missing is an honest
reckoning with historic crimes, something that is currently too politically
toxic to handle.
Indeed, it may be impossible to reconcile these
multiple histories.
In other countries that have reckoned with the long
shadow of colonialism, the public conversation is usually about how to deal
with the legacy, not whether that legacy is indeed a negative one. Those public
conversations — in Britain, in Belgium, and elsewhere — also overlap with a
wider conversation, driven by the experiences of African-Americans, about the
legacy of slavery.
In France, meanwhile, decades of political tussles
have not resulted in a narrative that all groups can at least live with. The
Algerian and Muslim population in France, the pieds-noirs, and those in Algeria
itself have very divergent views of the war of independence. Macron is hoping
his delicate political dance will put the issue to rest, so a new relationship
with Algeria can begin.
The trouble is that Algeria may not wait. Like many
former French colonies and protectorates, it has been steadily moving away from
France’s orbit.
Earlier this summer, the Algerian president
announced English would be taught in primary schools from this autumn. The
teaching of English, rather than French, to children is hugely controversial,
with a similar attempt 30 years ago dropped after an outcry.
But times are very different now, and English is
both the lingua franca of global business and the language of instruction at
Algerian universities for medicine and engineering.
That is what makes France’s tussles with its history
and Macron’s piecemeal approach so difficult. By the time the long, slow
reckoning arrives and a French leader is finally able to apologize, there may
not be many in Algeria willing to listen.
Faisal Al Yafai is currently writing a book on the Middle East and is a frequent commentator
on international TV news networks. He has worked for news outlets such as The
Guardian and the BBC, and reported on the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Asia and
Africa. Twitter: FaisalAlYafai. Syndication Bureau.
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