\n France acknowledged Thursday that it instigated a \"system\" that facilitated torture during Algeria's independence war, a landmark admission about a conflict that remains hugely sensitive six decades on.\n<\/p>\n
\n Emmanuel Macron -- the first president born after the conflict -- went further than any of his predecessors in recognising the scale of abuses by French troops during the 1954-62 war.\n<\/p>\n
\n He made the announcement as part of an admission that the French state was responsible for the torture and death of mathematician Maurice Audin, a French Communist pro-independence activist who disappeared in Algiers in 1957.\n<\/p>\n
\n Visiting Audin's widow, Macron also announced that France would open up its archives on the thousands of civilians and soldiers who went missing during the war, both French and Algerian.\n<\/p>\n
\n Josette Audin, now in her eighties, tried to thank Macron during an emotional visit to her apartment in Bagnolet east of Paris.\n<\/p>\n
\n But he replied: \"It's for me to ask your forgiveness, so don't say anything.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n In a statement, the presidency said the special powers given to the army to restore order in Algeria \"laid the ground for some terrible acts, including torture\".\n<\/p>\n
\n During the bloody war, which claimed some 1.5 million Algerian lives and ended 130 years of colonial rule, French forces cracked down on independence fighters and sympathisers, with a French general later admitting to the use of torture.\n<\/p>\n
\n Independence fighters also mistreated prisoners during a complex conflict characterised by guerrilla warfare, which left deep scars in the national psyche.\n<\/p>\n
\n France censored wartime newspapers, books and films that claimed it was using torture, and atrocities by its troops have remained a largely taboo subject.\n<\/p>\n
\n But on Thursday, the government declared, \"There can be no liberty, equality and fraternity without the search for truth.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n - 'Recognition, not repentance' -\n<\/p>\n
\n Previous presidents of the left and right had taken cautious steps to acknowledge French wrongdoing in Algeria, without openly apologising.\n<\/p>\n
\n In 1998, Jacques Chirac acknowledged the massacre of civilians in the town of Setif in 1945, and in 2012 Francois Hollande recognised the \"suffering\" caused by the colonisation.\n<\/p>\n
\n But by acknowledging that France instituted a system that facilitated torture, and deciding to open the archives, Macron broke new ground, historian Patrick Garcia told AFP.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Beyond the symbolic case of Maurice Audin there is a much bigger and important gesture,\" he told AFP, calling it a \"milestone\".\n<\/p>\n
\n But he stressed that what Macron had announced was \"a policy of recognition, not of repentance\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"It's not about beating ourselves up about it, it's about recognising what took place.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Macron had sparked controversy on the campaign trail last year by declaring that France's colonisation of Algeria was a \"crime against humanity\".\n<\/p>\n
\n He later walked back the comments, calling for \"neither denial nor repentance\" over France's colonial history and adding: \"We cannot remain trapped in the past\".\n<\/p>\n
\n The far-right National Rally, previously known as the National Front, reacted indignantly to his latest remarks on Algeria.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"What is the point of the president opening old wounds by bringing up the Maurice Audin case?\" asked its leader Marine Le Pen, whose ex-paratrooper father Jean-Marie -- the party's founder -- served in the war.\n<\/p>\n
\n Algeria's Minister for Ex-Combattants Tayeb Zitouni, by contrast, called Macron's remarks \"a positive step\".\n<\/p>\n
\n - Secrets and lies -\n<\/p>\n
\n Audin's disappearance had long been a source of speculation in France.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"I never thought this day would come,\" his widow Josette told reporters before Macron's arrival at her home.\n<\/p>\n
\n An assistant professor at the University of Algiers, Audin was 25 when he was arrested at his home and accused of harbouring independence fighters.\n<\/p>\n
\n The father of three was tortured repeatedly in a villa in the Algiers neighbourhood of El Biar.\n<\/p>\n
\n Josette was told 10 days later that her husband had escaped while being transferred between jails.\n<\/p>\n
\n This remained the official version of events until 2014, when Macron's predecessor Francois Hollande acknowledged that Audin died in detention.\n<\/p>\n
\n While Macron acknowledged the state was responsible for his death, the exact circumstances of his disappearance remain unclear.\n<\/p>\n
\n A 2014 book by journalist Jean-Charles Deniau claimed the mathematician was killed by a French army officer on the orders of General Jacques Massu.\n<\/p>\n
\n That order was confirmed by another general, Paul Aussaresses, who died in 2013 and who admitted to torturing and killing dozens of prisoners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
France acknowledged Thursday that it instigated a \"system\" that facilitated torture during Algeria's independence war, a landmark admission about a conflict that remains hugely sensitive six decades on. Emmanuel Macron -- the first president born after the conflict -- went further than any of his predecessors in recognising the scale of abuses by French troops […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-38837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n