Josette Audin spent more than 60 years asking French leaders to admit responsibility for her husband's death in Algeria. Finally, last year, Emmanuel Macron acknowledged that he had been tortured and killed in custody, reports BBC News. At the same time, he said the archives would be opened to researchers - was this an empty promise?
"This is the university where we were studying in Algiers," says Josette Audin, pointing at a photograph of a grand building with classical columns on a tree-lined square.
The 87-year-old is telling me about her life with Maurice Audin, a fellow maths student at the University of Algiers in the 1950s.
They met during a lecture, fell in love and got married. Both were of European descent - as were one in 10 of Algeria's population after 120 years of French rule - and both were communists who supported the fight for Algerian independence.
"My parents were not fighting with arms," says Josette's daughter, Michèle, "My father was doing propaganda."
In 1957, Maurice was teaching maths at the university and working on his doctoral dissertation, while Josette was bringing up their three young children.
By this point the Battle of Algiers was raging. Pro-independence groups were carrying out violent attacks and the authorities were struggling to keep control.
When it became known that the Audins had given shelter in their home to a wanted communist leader, soldiers arrived one night and took 25-year-old Maurice away.
"My mother asked them, 'When will he be back?'" says Michèle.
"'If everything goes well,' they said, 'he will come back in half an hour.'"
But he never returned. A close friend who was arrested the next day said he saw Maurice strapped to a table, being tortured.
"After two or three weeks they told her, 'We have good news for you. Your husband has escaped,'" Michèle says.
Her mother instantly knew they were lying, Michèle says, and realised why. "She knew that he was dead."
But Josette wanted the truth from the authorities.
"She tried to publicise the case. She made a campaign but she had no means to do anything. She was just writing letters with a pen and paper."
Josette wrote to anyone she could think of who could help her cause - journalists and academics.
"I couldn't do anything else. I had no choice," she says.
In 1962, Algeria was granted independence. A few years later, Josette and her children moved to Paris. Over the years more evidence emerged that indicated Maurice had been tortured and killed. Books and many articles were written. One theory was that he was strangled by an interrogator, another that he was mistaken for someone else. A senior intelligence officer boasted in old age that he had given the order for Audin to be killed.
But despite Josette's campaign, officially there was silence.
Every time a new president was elected, Josette would write to him.
"Some answered her, some didn't even answer," says Michèle.
"She was not asking for apologies but she was asking to know the truth and some recognition of the responsibility of the (French) Republic."
Finally, in 2014, President François Hollande admitted Maurice died in custody. But the next president, Emmanuel Macron, surprised even the family.
He contacted Josette before she had even sent him a letter. Then, last September, he issued a declaration making clear the French state's responsibility for Maurice Audin's death.