Documents unearthed by Mediapart in France’s national archives, and never before published, reveal that the true horrific extent of the covered-up massacre by police of Algerian demonstrators in Paris on the night of October 17th 1961 was very quickly made known to then president Charles de Gaulle and his advisors. They show that de Gaulle had instructed in writing that those who perpetrated the crimes be brought to justice. But in the end, no-one would ever be prosecuted over the slaughter, which historians have estimated claimed the lives of several hundred people, many of who drowned in the River Seine. Fabrice Arfi reports.
Macron told relatives and activists on the eve of the 60th anniversary of the bloodshed that "crimes" were committed on the night of 17 October, 1961, under the command of Paris police chief Maurice Papon.
Philippe Grand, a former chief conservator at the Paris archives, was the first person to reveal evidence of the October 17, 1961 massacre of Algerians in the heart of Paris – one of the darkest chapters of postwar French history.
Karl Muenter, who was sentenced to death in absentia by a French court for his role in the massacre by his SS division of 86 male civilians in the northern French village of Ascq during World War II, and who last year appeared on German television saying he had no regrets over the events and denied the deaths of six million people in the Holocaust, has died of natural causes in Germany at the age of 96.
The attack by gunmen on the offices of Charlie Hebdo on Wednesday came almost nine years after the French satirical magazine found itself at the centre of a fierce controversy for first reproducing in France the so-called ‘Prophet Muhammad caricatures’ originally published in a Danish newspaper. Charlie Hebdo has since continued to publish cartoons that mock Islamic fundamentalism, prompting the anger of a section of Muslims in France and abroad, and which led to a devastating firebomb attack on its offices in 2011. The magazine has regularly defended its position as that of a satirical publication that is equally irreverent towards the hypocrisies of all religions. Dan Israel traces the bitter background to Wednesday’s horrific outrage.
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