BY: Hana Saada

ALGIERS- Colonial French police fired on Algerian demonstrators at a protest on May 8th, 1945, causing the deaths of about 45,000 people. 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. On May 8, 1945, the repression by colonial France of Algerian demonstrators demanding their right to independence was bloody. A genocide was committed there. Here is a sneak peek into these abominable massacres!

The event’s outbreak occurred on the morning of May 8th, 1945, after Germany surrendered in World War II. 78 years ago. While France celebrated the victory of the Allies against Nazism, its army massacred, in Sétif, Guelma, and Kherrata, as well as other cities, thousands of Algerians who came out to demonstrate for a free and independent Algeria, a crime against humanity that still goes unpunished.

It all started when a parade of about 5,000 of the Algerian population of Sétif to celebrate the victory, as France had promised to grant Algeria independence in case of the victory, ended in oppression by the local French gendarmerie.

This was followed by a smaller protest in the neighboring town of Guelma. In this aspect, the historian Alistair Horne reported that there were a number of rapes and that many of the corpses were mutilated. For several weeks, the colonial forces and their militias carried out mass killings, sparing neither children, women, nor the elderly.

Unarmed people were shot at close range; others were transported in trucks to be pushed down into ravines or taken out of cities and executed, before their bodies were burned and then buried in mass graves.

Lime kilns were also used by the French army to get rid of the victims’ bodies.

In this vein, the historian Jean-Pierre Peyroulou noted: “Military operations went beyond simple repressive activity. There was therefore, in this region, a real war against very weakly armed civilians that lasted until May 24”.

According to historians, the repression was blind, it was a great massacre. The French army and numerous colonial militias made up of civilians of European origin caused the deaths of tens of thousands of victims who were arrested, tortured, and summarily executed.

Historical documents and surviving testimonies reveal that the mass murders continued for several weeks and spread to other regions of the country, and they show the suffering endured by the citizens during these terrible massacres, which made Sétif, Guelma, and Kherrata an unimaginable mass grave.

According to Article 212-1 of the French Penal Code, crimes against humanity include “deportation (…) or massive and systemic practice of summary executions; abductions of persons followed by their disappearance; torture or inhumane acts inspired by political motives (…) organized according to a concerted plan against a civilian population.”

French officials do not use this legal classification while it is “perfectly appropriate” to the practices of the French army during the Algerian War (1954–1962) and to the crimes committed before May 8, 1945, in Setif, Guelma, and Kherrata, according to French historians.

Back to these massacres, they were, in fact, an expression of the maturity of national thinking and bore the character of a peaceful uprising, translated on the ground by demonstrations held in different regions of the country, according to historians who agree that the Algerians were overwhelmed by the accumulation of complex and endless crises linked mainly to the pangs of colonization.

The repression was despicable and savage against peaceful demonstrators whose “only mistake” is to go out to demonstrate in the streets to demand their independence from over-armed colonial forces.

History to preserve

Hannouz Bridge. For some, this place says absolutely nothing. Yet the gorges, Chaâbet Lakhra (Kherrata), were, on May 8, 1945, the scene of incredible massacres, perpetrated by enraged and obsessed soldiers who had no other orders than to kill as many people as possible.

Men and women were thrown alive into the depths of the eponymous ravine, which, when evening came, had taken on purple colors, tinged with the viscous liquid of a number of bodies, shredded and drained of their blood.

Arab Hannouz, whose name is attributed to this place, still haunts the rocky foothills. Atrocious and macabre scenes were committed then, and he was the first, followed by his two children, to open the funeral and collective ball. His mistake, “having refused to say long live France as his executioners demanded of him”.

The three martyrs had been tied up with barbed wire before being thrown into the void. A PPA/MTLD activist, Hanouz Arab, also chaired an association of Medersas in the region and took care of the Kherrata medical dispensary.

It is for this historical importance that the Algerian State has decided to build a new bridge without destroying the old one, which is indeed a historical heritage.

A giant stele, six meters high and four meters wide, representing a huge flame placed on a pedestal and a scene of martyrs spread out at its feet, materializing the sacrifices made to reach the light, was inaugurated on May 8 on the occasion of the commemoration of the 73rd anniversary of the massacres by the French colonial army committed in Kherrata, Sétif, and Guelma.

A day for memory

Proclaimed by the President of the Republic, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, as a national day of memory three years ago, May 8, 1945, constitutes, in the opinion of researchers in history, another indelible historical halt in view of the crimes committed by the abject colonizers in Sétif, Guelma, and Kherrata, whose history is associated with atrocity and barbarism.

On this file, the President of the Republic was categorical in affirming, during his last periodic interview with representatives of the national media, that Algeria will never give up the memory file and will not compromise with any country on this issue.

Impact on modern Algerian-French relations

In February 2005, Hubert Colin de Verdière, France’s ambassador to Algeria, formally apologized for the massacre, calling it an “inexcusable tragedy.”

Algeria will commemorate, each year, the massacres of May 8, 1945. These crimes against humanity will remain forever etched in our memories as an indelible stain in the history of colonial France, and they were able to develop Algerians’ awareness and conviction that only armed struggle could shake off the colonial yoke, which allowed them to snatch their independence and recover their dignity.

The commemoration of the 78th anniversary of the massacres—not subject to any statute of limitations under international law—comes at a time when the issue of France’s recognition of these crimes, apart from a few isolated statements, is still pending.