President Emmanuel Macron of France has expressed his intention to keep pursuing peace with his counterpart, Abdelmajid Tebboune, even though he said he will not “beg forgiveness” from Algeria for French colonization.
He said in an interview for Le Point magazine, published late on Wednesday, “It’s not up to me to ask forgiveness, that’s not what this is about, that word would break all of our ties.
“The worst thing would be to decide: ‘We apologise and each go our own way,’ Macron said.
“Work on memory and history isn’t a settling of all accounts,” he added.
In order to continue their “unprecedented work of friendship,” he expressed hope that Tebboune “will be able to come to France in 2023,” in response to Macron’s own journey to Algiers last year.
Social media users, however, criticized the French president’s choice.
A PhD candidate from France, Rim-Salah Alouane, stated on Twitter: “On step forward, 10 steps backwards. I don’t wanna tell you that I told you so,but I told you so.
“Macron won’t ask Algeria for ‘forgiveness’ over colonization” because according to him, “‘The word would break all the bonds”. No further comment needed.”
Macron has poked and comforted these wounds throughout his political career as a result of France’s 100-year colonization of Algeria and the bloody 1954–1962 battle for independence.
The French occupation was referred to as a “crime against humanity” by then-presidential candidate Macron in 2017.
While precluding “repentance” and “apologies,” a study he commissioned from historian Benjamin Stora suggested more steps toward reconciliation between the two nations in 2020.
In the most recent admission by Paris of its colonial-era misdeeds, Macron acknowledged in 2021 for the first time that French soldiers killed a prominent person in Algerian independence and then covered up his death.
However, the French president has also questioned whether Algeria was a nation before being colonized, which has sparked a backlash in Algiers.
In the Le Point interview, with Algerian writer, Kamel Daoud, Macron said, “These moments of tension teach us.
“You have to be able to reach out your hand again and engage, which President Tebboune and I have been able to do,” he added.
He agreed that Tebboune should pay a visit to the graves of the anti-colonialist hero Abdelkader and his companions at Amboise, central France.
“That would make sense for the history of the Algerian people. For the French people, it would be an opportunity to understand realities that are often hidden,” Macron said.
Through immigration, involvement in the struggle for Algeria’s independence, and the post-war repatriation of French settlers, Algeria and France have maintained longstanding relationships that have impacted more than 10 million people who currently live in France.
