Approximately 1.5 million Algerian Muslim Arabs were tortured and massacred under the French rule according to the Algerian sources 1.5 million dead, while French officials estimated it at 350,000. [http://www.onwar.com/aced/data/alpha/algeria1954.htm Algeria Independence France 1954-1962] Algerians argue that the massacres should be named as genocide and France must apologise from the Algerians. However the French do not accept the claims. Algeria's President Abdelaziz Bouteflika says that French colonization of his country Algeria was a form of genocide. In memoirs, some French officers have described torture of Algerians during the war, however France has never accepted its responsibility in tortures and massacres in Algeria. Paris says that the past should be left to historians. French President Jacques Chirac, upon harsh reactions to the law encouraging the good sides of the French colonial history, made the statement, "Writing history is the job of the historians, not of the laws." Writing history is the job of the historians" According to Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, "speaking about the past or writing history is not the job of the parliament."[http://www.zaman.com/?bl=international&alt=&trh=20051210&hn=27378 France in Favor of So-Called Genocide Resorts to Historians]
The Algerian president [[Bouteflika]] said in a speech in Paris on [[17 April]] 2006 "We no longer know whether we are Berbers (indigenous North Africans), Arabs, Europeans or French. France committed a genocide of Algerian identity during the colonial era. Colonisation brought the genocide of our identity, of our history, of our language, of our traditions."[http://news.scotsman.com/international.cfm?id=583792006 Algerian leader calls colonisation 'genocide', Scotsman]
[[Algeria]] first became a colony of France in 1830. After a war which ended in Algeria's independence in 1962, eight million Algerian residents were deprived of French nationality and hundreds of thousands of 'pieds noir' (French who settled in Algeria and were re-patriated at the end of the war) were forced home to a place which was not home.
[[Algeria]] called on [[France]] to apologise in 2005 for crimes committed during the colonial era. Bouteflika also urged Paris to admit its part in the massacres of 45,000 Algerians who took to the streets to demand independence as Europe celebrated victory over Nazi Germany in 1945. French authorities then responded by playing down the comments, urging "mutual respect".
Source: Wikipedia, April 2006
Remembering The Orly Attack
