French forces "tortured and murdered" Algerian freedom fighter Ali Boumendjel during his country's war for independence, President Emmanuel Macron admitted Tuesday, officially reappraising a death that was covered up as a suicide, reports FRANCE 24.
Macron made the admission "in the name of France" during a meeting with Boumendjel's grandchildren.
The move comes after Macron stoked outrage in January when he refused to issue an official apology for abuses committed during the occupation of Algeria.
Instead, he agreed to form a "truth commission" as recommended by a report commissioned by the government to shed light on France's colonial past.
France is home to millions of people with links to Algeria — including descendants of former French colonists — and the brutal eight-year Algerian War of Independence has been a deeply divisive issue between France and her former colony as well as within France's large Muslim population.
Torture, disappearances and deaths in custody as well as during security operations marked the war, but successive French presidents have steered clear of a conflict associated with national humiliation and brutality.
Boumendjel, a nationalist and lawyer, was arrested during the battle of Algiers by the French army, "placed incommunicado, tortured, and then killed on 23 March 1957," the Elysée Palace said in a statement.
"Ali Boumendjel did not commit suicide. He was tortured and then killed," Macron told Boumendjel's grandchildren, according to the statement.