Sétif and Guelma massacre

Map of Algeria showing Sétif province

The Sétif massacre was a series of widespread disturbances and killings in and around the French Algerian market town of Sétif, west of Constantine, in 1945. Local French police fired on local demonstrators at a protest on 8 May 1945.[1]Riots in the town itself were followed by attacks on French colons (settlers) in the surrounding countryside resulting in 103 deaths. Subsequent attacks by the French authorities and European settler vigilantes caused much greater numbers of deaths amongst the Muslim population of the region: estimates ranged between 1,020 (contemporary French claim) and 45,000 (subsequent Radio Cairo claim) people killed. Both the outbreak and the indiscriminate nature of its repression are thought to have marked a turning point in Franco-Algerian relations, leading to the Algerian War of 1954-62[2]

Outbreak

Flag of the Algerian nationalists in 1945

The initial outbreak occurred on the morning of 8 May 1945, the same day that Nazi Germany surrendered in World War II. A parade by about 5,000 of the Muslim Algerian population of Sétif to celebrate the victory ended in clashes between the marchers and the local French gendarmerie, when the latter tried to seize banners attacking colonial rule.[3] There is uncertainty over who fired first but both protesters and police were shot. Armed men amongst the Muslim marchers then killed Europeans caught in the streets.[4] A smaller protest in the neighboring town of Guelma was dispersed the same evening. Attacks on pieds-noirs (French settlers) in the neighboring countryside resulted in the deaths of 103 Europeans, mostly civilians, plus another hundred wounded.[4] The historian Alistair Horne reports that there were a number of rapes and that many of the corpses were mutilated.[4]

French suppression

After five days of chaos, the French military and police suppressed the rebellion, and then carried out a series of reprisals for the attacks on settlers. The army, which included Foreign Legion, Moroccan, Algerian, Tunisian and Senegalese troops, carried out summary executions in the course of a ratissage ("raking-over") of Muslim rural communities suspected of involvement. Less accessible mechtas (Muslim villages) were bombed by French aircraft, and the cruiser Duguay-Trouin, standing off the coast in the Gulf of Bougie, shelled Kherrata. Pied-noir vigilantes lynched prisoners taken from local jails or randomly shot Muslims not wearing white arm bands (as instructed by the army) out of hand.[3] It is certain that the great majority of the Muslim victims had not been implicated in the original outbreak.[5]

These attacks killed between 1,020 (the official French figure given in the Tubert Report shortly after the massacre) and 45,000 people (as claimed by Radio Cairo at the time). Horne notes that 6,000 was the figure finally settled on by moderate historians but acknowledges that this remains only an estimate.[5] The Sétif outbreak and the repression that followed marked a turning point in the relations between France and the Muslim population under its control since 1830, when France had colonized Algeria. While the details of the Sétif killings were largely overlooked in metropolitan France, the impact on the Algerian Muslim population was traumatic, especially on the large numbers of Muslim soldiers in the French Army who were then returning from the war in Europe.[6] Nine years later, a general uprising began in Algeria, leading to independence from France in March 1962 with the signing of the Évian Accords.

Context

The anti-colonialist movement had started organizing itself before World War II, under Messali Hadj and Ferhat Abbas. Anti-French sentiment had been building across Algeria for months, leading to thousand-person protests in such cities as Mostaganem in the previous weeks. Contemporary factors other than those of the emergence of Arab nationalism included widespread drought and famine in the Constantine region.[7] With the end of World War II, 4,000 protesters took to the streets of Sétif, a town in northern Algeria, to press new demands for independence on the French administration.[8]

Impact on modern Algerian/French relations

French officials during a remembrance ceremony for victims of the Setif massacre, held in Aubervilliers on 9 May 2010

In February 2005, Hubert Colin de Verdière, France's ambassador to Algeria, formally apologized for the massacre, calling it an "inexcusable tragedy",[9] in what was described as "the most explicit comments by the French state on the massacre".[10]

The Algerian cinema, rich with war movies, depicted the massacres more than once. When Outside the Law by Rachid Bouchareb was nominated for Best Picture in the 2010 Cannes Film Festival, French pieds-noirs, harkis and war veterans demonstrated against the film being shown in French cinemas, accusing it of distorting reality.

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Témoins des massacres du 8 Mai 1945 en Algérie".
  2. ↑ Morgan, Ted. My Battle of Algiers. p. 17. ISBN 0-06-085224-0.
  3. 1 2 Morgan, p. 26.
  4. 1 2 3 Horne, Alistair (1977). A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954–1962. New York: The Viking Press. p. 26.
  5. 1 2 Horne, p. 27.
  6. ↑ Porch, Douglas. The French Foreign Legion. p. 569. ISBN 0-333-58500-3.
  7. ↑ Gunther, John (1955). Inside Africa. Hamish Hamilton Ltd. p. 121.
  8. ↑ Planche, Jean Louis. Sétif 1945, histoire d'un massacre annoncé. p. 137.
  9. ↑ "Algeria Marks WWII Anniversary with Call for French Apology". VOA News. 9 May 2005. Archived from the original on 11 May 2005. Retrieved 8 May 2016.
  10. ↑ "France urged to admit 1945 massacre".

Bibliography

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