Via Kevin Ovenden: As the Front National comes top in some polls in France, worth remembering more vividly than usually todays anniversary. It marks 52 years since the massacre of up to 200 Algerians in Paris as police chief, and Nazi collaborator, Maurice Papon unleashed terror against a 30,000-strong demonstration in support of the independence forces in Algeria. The terms that Papon used in the run-up to the masscre and in imposing a curfew on those of Algerian decent are telling. He referred to: French Muslims of Algeria, Algerian Muslim workers and French Muslims. ... Dozens of Algerian protesters were either herded into the Seine or beaten unconscious and thrown from the Sain-Michel, Neuilly and other bridges. Others were shot. Bodies floated down the Seine - scores of bodies in plain view. The French establishment averted its eyes for decades - so too much of the French left. A blanket of silence fell upon the masscre and Papon went on to hold high office under various governments. All this in the country held up as a pinnacle of Western civilisation. All this in a country where the FN tops the polls.
Posted on: Thu, 17 Oct 2013 11:10:15 +0000
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