Decades pass, but nothing has happened. This confused and tormented memory continues to consume thoughts, generation after generation, since the end of the Algerian war in 1962. Seventy years ago, on 1Ahem In November 1954, a date known as “All the Red Saints”, this armed conflict began between France, a colonial power, and the National Liberation Front (FLN), an Algerian movement that led the fight for the independence of its territory, later divided. in three departments (Oran, Algiers, Constantine).
Since their victory, the relationship between these two nations has been volatile. Algeria is a regular object of diplomatic discord and, for several years – even more so in recent months – it has been presented in France as “a scarecrow of identity”proclaims historian Naïma Huber-Yahi, a specialist in Algerian immigration.
This North African country is a recurring topic in political and media debates driven mainly by the French right, where news, migratory crisis, Islamism, obligations to leave French territory, nostalgia for French Algeria and conspiracy theory of the “great relief.” , electoralism, colonial past and even expansion. “Algeria constantly returns to these types of issues and is seen as a perpetual enemy”protests Badis Khenissa, president of the international cooperation commission of the National Community Abroad – an organization attached to the Head of State, Abdelmadjid Tebboune –, who denounces a “attack on Algeria”.
“A ghost member of France”
Without a doubt, no other country occupies such a special place. in the public and intimate sphere of so many people. Is it so surprising? “Historically and demographically very present, Algerians have become our first immigration, supplanting the Italians or the Portuguese”indicates Didier Leschi, director general of the French Office for Immigration and Integration (OFII).
In 2023, according to data published at the end of June by the National Institute of Statistics and Economic Studies (Insee), 892,000 immigrants living in France – out of a total of 7.3 million, or 12% of the total – were born in Algeria . And, as historian Benjamin Stora has repeatedly recalled, “Today, in France, more than seven million inhabitants are still affected by (…) the memory of Algeria »which affects soldiers, repatriates (blackfoot and Jews), recruits, harkis, immigrants or people with dual nationality.
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