French MPs commemorate the massacres of May 8, 1945 in Algeria

As France celebrated the end of World War II, pro-independence protests in Algeria were violently suppressed by colonial forces, leaving thousands dead.

More than a dozen French left-wing MPs commemorated France's bloody repression of the May 8, 1945 independence protests in Sétif, Algeria, on Saturday, May 10, according to an AFP correspondent. "We are a group of elected officials who work hard on the issue of remembrance and the recognition of the May 8, 1945 massacres. We have asked President Macron to recognize it as a state crime," said Sabrina Sebaihi, a member of parliament from the Europe Ecology the Greens group.

The parliamentarian had just laid a wreath with other elected officials at the memorial of the first person killed in these peaceful demonstrations. This was Saâl Bouzid, an anti-colonialist activist killed by the French colonial police while waving an Algerian flag. "It's very moving" to be in Sétif, added Danielle Simonnet, a left-wing MP, adding that "it is high time that France recognized these massacres for what they were, that is, state crimes."

On May 8, 1945, as France celebrated its victory over Nazism, pro-independence demonstrations took place in Sétif, Guelma, and Kherrata, in eastern Algeria, where nationalists marched. They were repressed by colonial forces, resulting in thousands of deaths : 45,000 according to Algerians, 1,500 to 20,000 according to the French. For Algerian MP Toufik Khadim, "official France must recognize the crimes it committed and its responsibility in these massacres."

Many residents of Sétif came to see the French elected officials lay a wreath. Along the street where Saâl Bouzid fell, the Algerian emblem fluttered everywhere, and patriotic songs were broadcast over loudspeakers.

On Thursday, thousands of Algerians marched in Sétif to demand French recognition of its crimes in Algeria. Sabrina Sebaihi said that "only through dialogue can we move forward on all these issues."

A serious diplomatic dispute is currently opposing Algiers and Paris over various issues, including the expulsion from France of undesirable Algerians and the detention in Algiers, since November, of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal.