French President Macron recognizes: Algerian Mujahida Djamila Boupacha “was tortured, raped” by colonial army
By: Hana Saada
ALGIERS– French President Emmanuel Macron recalled and recognized another crime of the French colonial army in Algeria, in particular those committed during the country’s war of independence (1954-1962).
The recognition of the French head of state came on the occasion of a tribute paid, this Wednesday in Paris, to the activist and lawyer, Gisèle Halimi, who had saved Djamila Boupacha
Speaking on the occasion of a national tribute paid in Paris, on the occasion of International Women’s Rights Day, to the lawyer and human rights activist, Gisèle Halimi, the head of the French state underlined the commitment of the lawyer in favor of the war in Algeria and especially her defense of the activist and Mujahida Djamila Boupacha, sentenced to death in 1960.
The latter, recalled Emmanuel Macron, only survived thanks to Gisèle Halimi. She was subject to torture and rape. Djamila Boupacha had been accused of attempted murder for planting a bomb in a cafe in Algiers. She had admitted the facts under the torture and rape of French soldiers. Alongside Simone de Beauvoir, Gisèle Halimi managed to publicize the affair by bringing to light the methods of the French army at the time of the Algerian war.
Emmanuel Macron had already recognized, a few months ago, the responsibility of the French colonial army in the assassination of the lawyer, Ali Boumendjel, as well as in the disappearance of the mathematician and activist of the Algerian cause, Maurice Audin.
The story of Boupacha garnered a considerable public attention, becoming a cause célèbre that shed light on the pervasive violence and systematic torture exercised on the female combatants at the hands of the French Army which turned to torture tactics, being the only effective means of responding to the Algerian resistance.
Thanks to Halimi, a Tunisian-born human rights lawyer, Beauvoir, author of “The Second Sex” and the most prominent female French intellectual at the time, and Boupacha’s lawyer, Gisèle Halimi, Boupacha’s trial became an international event that illustrated the hypocrisy of the French colonial military establishment that undermined France’s moral and political authority.
The case of Boupacha was brought before justice to achieve individual justice for her, on one hand, and to disclose the widespread public indifference to the atrocities of the French colonizers in Algeria on the other hand. Her decision to denounce the rape, that was systematically used to terrorize and shame the Algerian community by bringing a suit against her torturers, was largely saluted with a view to shouting the truth to the rooftops.
Boupacha is a Mudjaheda, born to a resistant family involved in the nationalist cause since the 1930s. Her brothers and brother-in-law were members of the FLN (the National Liberation Front). She was a liaison agent and political militant, distributing arms, political tracts, medicine, and monetary aid to FLN families.
Since the use of torture was systematized, authorized, and routinized by the French, Boupacha experienced the brunt of the French Army’s sexual violence.
Sarah Kleinman narrated Boupacha’s sufferings, saying: “Boupacha described her thirty-three-day ordeal at the hands of French paratroopers to her lawyer Gisèle Halimi. Boupacha was stripped naked, spat on, shocked with electric nodes attached to her nipples and genitals, burned with cigarette butts, nearly drowned in a bathtub, and raped with a bottle.” (Halimi. Djamila Boupacha: The Story of the Torture of a Young Algerian Girl Which Shocked Liberal French Opinion. Translated by Peter Green. New York: Macmillan, 1962, P 39).
Boupacha also related how her father and brother-in-law were dragged into her cell and forced to watch her take beatings from French paratroopers. This act was meant to induce Boupacha’s confession as well as humiliate the two men and make them feel incompetent” (Ibid, P 36).
At the end, Boupacha bravery scandalized and eroded the French Republic, claiming to be the “defender of human rights”.
sexual violence – and specifically the rape of women – was a means of degrading the entire population and family structure, not only the individual. Rape was a common feature—and indeed arm— of war, serving as an exertion of power, forcing a nation into submission through violating women and emasculating men. However, the Algerian people did not cease up. Women played a crucial role, notably their role within the Battle of Algiers. They were directly engaged in the success of the glorious Liberation War. During this period, Algerian women participated in the nationalist resistance movement in a variety of capacities, from providing logistical and medical support, being nurses, cooks, fundraisers, to taking part in armed conflict serving in the National Liberation Army (ALN) – the combat branch of the National Liberation Front (FLN), the party of the nationalist movement.
