Massacre of October 17th, 1961

The Massacre of October 17th, 1961 indicates repression having struck a peaceful Manifestation in favor of the independence from Algeria in Paris. According to the estimates, between 32 and 325 Maghrebians died under the blows of the French police force, then directed by the prefect of police Maurice Papon. Tens of demonstrators were thrown in the Seine, while others died in Detention centres in which they remained locked up during four days.

Denied by more the high ranking authorities of the time, the massacre started to be the subject of research only starting from the medium of the Années 1970 and really became largely known only when Maurice Papon lost a lawsuit in slandering against a historian in 1999.

First steps

Well before the night of the October 17th, the tension between the members of FLN and it police force is already important. The many attacks aiming of the police officers poke the anger of the police force. On the whole, 22 police officers find death in the attacks of the FLN from January in October 1961, whereas there was of it only 9 for all the year 1960.

Whereas the French government tries by all the means of moderating the relations with the FLN to work out the Accords of Evian, in particular by not carrying out more any member of the FLN, the police force regards that as a sabotage of its authority. Groups of police officers are thus formed and over their spare time they practice beatings up and murders on North-Africans. A peak of 54 corpses of North-Africans will be listed by the Mortuary of 1st at October 16th, 1961.

The President of the republic, the general Charles de Gaulle, considers that all these attacks of the FLN are a means of pressure exerted on the French State. Order is thus given to Maurice Papon, then prefect of police of Paris, to prevent by all the means the members of the FLN of meeting and of expressing. The prefect of police launches series of measure increasing considerably the controls various and varied on the North-African population. It is more and more badgered and humiliated by the police force. Some disappear even mysteriously after a raid from the police force. And it ensures its men that if they open fire the first, they “will be covered”.

Massacre

It in this environment that it decides the October 5th to carry out a Couvre-feu, is fixed 20:30 at 5:30, for all the “Moslem French of Algeria” of the Paris region.

Wanting to express against this measurement, the leaders of the FLN decide to organize pacifist demonstrations the night, in full curfew. All the Algerians of the Paris region, women and children (even in very low age), “highly are then invited”, sometimes under the constraint will make state of beatings up and death for defect of care.

Close to the Bridge Saint-Michel, the demonstrators run up against the police force, of many North-Africans are then struck by the police officers, and some, unconscious or died, are then thrown in the the Seine. Witnesses describe in many districts of Paris of the scenes of execution to the firearm, mutilation to the knife and accumulation of corpses. Later in the night, the police force will launch “Ratonnade S” in the Bidonville of Nanterre (Département of the Seine). An American journalist will speak about a “modern St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre”. Police officers will evoke also a “ massacre ” in the court of the prefecture.

False messages of information are even diffused during the night, reporting exchanges of shots with the demonstrators and the advertisement of died several police officers. All these messages had one goal, to poke even more anger of the police force against the North-Africans. In addition, the assumption of an uncontrolled overflow is to be drawn aside, since Maurice Papon supervised the course of operation in person and went even on the spot to check their effectiveness.

In the press

Titles of the following day

The shortly after the demonstration, part of the newspapers begins again such as it is the official results: 3 died, 55 wounded, the police officers were defended vis-a-vis aggressive and armed demonstrators. Among most virulent against the Algerians, France-Evening , Paris-Press , the Dawn and Le Figaro are pleased with the action of the police force. Some examples of the press of October 18th : Le Figaro “ returns thanks to vigilance, with the prompt action of the police ”, Paris-Day ignites “ It is amazing! During three hours 20 000 Algerian Moslems were the absolute masters of the streets of Paris ”.

Rare are the newspapers to refute the governmental assessment immediately. Humanity and Libération will be of this number, with more or less of audacity. “ On what was this tragedy day of yesterday, we cannot all say. The censure gaullist is there. And the Humanity makes a point of avoiding the seizure so that its readers are, in any event, informed of the essentiel ” Humanity of October 18th.

Much, following the example World or of the Cross sticks to the official version accompanied by some timid doubts. Thereafter, they will give an account of the made exactions gradually and will give up their initial version of the facts.

Testimonys

Élie Kagan is the only French journalist “to cover” the manifestation of the Algerians. He is press photographer freelance worker and is elected by the newspaper Christian Témoignage , resulting from the Résistance and pioneer of the Décolonisation. The massacre will have other witnesses like Rene Dazy, journalist with Libération come to recover its scooter. Journalists of Humanity will tell also the visible scenes of carnage since the windows of the newspaper. The newspaper of extreme left Truth and freedom will also try to publish refractory testimonys of police officers but will be seized before its publication.

The only visual evidence of the massacre is the work of Élie Kagan (to have only taken photographs) and American journalists who made a film. Élie Kagan is stopped by the confiscated police force, its apparatus and its films. It passes the end of the night to the station. Georges Montaron, director of Christian Testimony , comes to seek it per first hour with the police station and the two men traverse the streets with the research of films given up by Élie Kagan (its first reel was given to Rene Dazy), which is under the shock. Georges Montaron decides to seek others Témoin S of the massacre: he will find a key witness in the person of a young person Aumônier of the department of health of the Armies.

Evolution

The extent of violences in Paris region, in particular in Paris and Nanterre, made impossible a complete smothering of the business. Gradually the majority of the press, and even Le Figaro , publishes articles on the exactions made by the police force, evoking for example “ cold scenes of violence ” in the centers of internment. Le Monde , in spite of an ambiguous position, will also give an account of these execrable detention conditions and the improbability of the official announcements.

The testimony of Élie Kagan will be published in the following number of Christian Témoignage (dated from the October 27th). This edition will devote complete records to the massacre of the Algerians, with a leading article of Herve Bourges, which has just been promoted editor association. It is a photograph full page of Élie Kagan which makes the a Christian newspaper: one sees there a demonstrator in blood supported by an American journalist. Inside, other photographs of Élie Kagan like this touched Algerian of one ball at the subway station Solférino. Other photographs of him will appear in the newspaper of left France Observer . Curiously if Christian Témoignage is often seized by Maurice Papon, and Georges Montaron continued in front of the courts, this number will not be seized.

The radio, on the other hand, does not reveal the events. French television scoffs the American press, marked to have affirmed that “the Seine carted Algerian corpses”.

The October 26th, Georges Montaron, director of Christian Testimony , Claude Bourdet, director of France Observer , Emmanuel d' Astier of Vigerie, director of Release , RP April, director of Télérama , the Pasteur Lochard, Jean-Marie Domenach, director of the review Spirit , Jean Schaeffert and Andre Souquière, organizes with Reciprocity, a meeting “to protest against police violences and the repression of the manifestation of October 17th, 61 in Paris”.

Thereafter, the censure will prevent the publication of many reviews, of books and vidéos devoted to these violences. Nevertheless, through the large press, direct testimonys (the facts had often taken place in full street) and the publications under the coat, the French were overall informed that exactions without precedent had been made. However, the facts were quickly relegated to the second plan, and Le Monde did not hesitate to titrate a few months later that the died 8 of the subway Charonne was “ the most violent repression that Paris knew since 1934 ”.

Media dumbness

The shortly after the 17 October, certain political officials and journalists were indignant at violence of the police force. Thus Claude Bourdet, elected official of PSU, challenged Maurice Papon at the time of the municipal council of Paris of October 27th, 1961 to know if it confirmed the assertions of the Parisian press according to which 150 bodies were fished out in the Seine in 10 days.

The State, during several years, got busy to make retention of information. The creation of a parliamentary board of inquiry, required by socialist members of Parliament and Communists, is blocked, the prohibited publication of several pounds, the bands of documentary were seized by the police force (always under the orders of Maurice Papon). Until 1981, the radio and television, controlled by the State, did not tackle the subject.

If the French line parties are shown to have supported these violences, the parties of the left are shown to have also taken part in this lapse of memory. The French Communist party would have made pass the event of Charonne like the most violent answer of the police force on peaceful demonstrators. In Charonne, February 8th, 1962 , the historian Alain Dewerpe quotes several remarks made by politicians or journalists of left, in particular Communists, during the years 1970 and 1980, evoking the massacres of October. He judges that on the contrary, during the Années 1990, it is on October 17th which occulted Charonne, while letting foresee the possibility that cease this competition of the victims.

Recognition

It is only in the medium of the Années 1970 and the beginning of the Années 1980 that one can see appearing books reporting the massacre of October 17th.

The writer Didier Daeninckx publishes in 1984 the novel Meurtres for memory , which evokes without naming it Maurice Papon, by binding old a collaborator to the massacre of 1961.

The true mediatization of the massacre of the Algerians in Paris will come curiously with a lawsuit in slandering that Maurice Papon brings with the Historien Jean-Luc Einaudi. This last published in 1991 a book in which he very accurately reports the events of October 17th. Its work is based on many testimonys (as well of Algerians as of police officers present) and documents of the FLN. It cannot consult the files of the police force of Paris, fault of having the authorizations necessary. But it is not for the publication of its book that Maurice Papon carries felt sorry for, but for that of a article published on May 20th, 1998, in Le Monde , where Jean-Luc Einaudi written: “ I persist and sign. In October 1961, there was in Paris a massacre perpetrated by police force acting under the orders of Maurice Papon ”. The former prefect of police loses his lawsuit in March 1999 and it is with the latter that the massacre of October 17th reconsiders truly the front of the media scene.

It is necessary to await the October 17th 2001, forty years day for day after the facts, so that an elected official recognizes officially the massacre of the Algerians in Paris. It is the Maire of Paris, the socialist Bertrand Delanoë, which inaugurates the commemorative plaque on the Saint-Michel bridge. No municipal line representative wished to take part in the celebration.

The very same day in the afternoon with the National Assembly, the Secretary of State to Defense charged with the war veterans Jacques Floch evoked in particular in connection with the events of the October 17th “a curfew applied on the basis of facies”. The majority of the deputies of the RPR and liberal Démocratie then left the National Assembly, criticizing the “political recovery” of such an event.

Responsibility for the French State

The responsibility for the French State does not stop in Maurice Papon, it goes well beyond. Tacitly, more the political high ranking officials places from there (mainly Michel Debré then Prime Minister and Charles de Gaulle, president of the republic) leave in Maurice Papon freedom answer by the force the problem of the Terrorisme of the FLN in France.

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