Sarkozy said in the interview with the French-language El-Watan and the Arabic El Khabar newspapers that the younger generations on both sides of the Mediterranean are looking to the future and not fixated on the past, adding "They do not want their leaders to put everything on hold and engage in self-flagellation for the mistakes or missteps of the past,"

Accepting that "sufferings and injustices in Algeria during the colonial era, Sarkozy stated," "I am for a recognition of facts, not for repentance, which is a religious notion and has no place in state-to-state relations,"

Approximately 1.5 million people died in the Algerian independence war against France during 1954-1962. Algeria demands France to apologize for the crimes during the colonial era which lasted for 132 years.

Here we present Ahmet Insel's article "France, Algeria, and Genocide," published on May 15, 2005 by Radikal, a Turkish daily.

"During the Algeria's independence war, French soldiers interrogated everyone for no reason. Among those interrogated were women. In France there are those in denial who say "They did, we did not" and the pragmatic French who say "We should look at the Future instead of digging up the past." Also there are those who stress the need for a multilateral facing of the past, saying "The repressed memories of the past acts as the nightmare of today,"

May 8 was the 60th anniversary of Nazi Germany's signing an agreement to surrounded without any condition and the end of the Second World War. This anniversary coincides with the beginning of serial and painful events for Algeria. On May 8, 1945 French forces suppressed a demonstration in Setif, where for the first time an Algerian flag had been showed in the country's French colonial era. The youth who was holding the Algerian flag was killed and later about one hundred Frenchmen lost their lives in the consequent events. Perceiving it as a rebellion, the French army launched a bloody crackdown by its regular troups and organized militias. The crackdown was not limited to Setif, but it covered a wide area extending to the Tunisian borders. This turned into mass massacres. The death toll on "the Whites" side was 102 but the number of deaths of Algerian Arab or Berber was never precisely known because the French army incinerated many bodies in lime kilns, that is why, the number never would be known. French historians who are of Algerian descent assume that about 20 thousands people lost their lives.

Shame Kilns…

Historians generally agree that the national independence movement in Algeria turned into a people movement after these events. In a speech marking the 60th anniversary of the May 8 massacres the President of Algeria, Abdulaziz Buteflika, demand at the University of Ferhat Abbas in Setif, that France needs to clear its conscience, formally claiming for the first time that the French colonial administration had carried out genocide.

Buteflika's speech, including severe accusations and comments regarding France, was broadcasted by the official Algerian News agency a few days after the day he made the speech. According to different sources "The death squads killed, between 15 and 45 thousands people," Buteflika reminded in his speech, asking, "who today remembers the shame kilns which were established by the invading forces in the Gelma region." The president also made comparisons between these kilns and the Nazi's gas chambers. Reminding that the massacres carried out by the French army in the second half of the19th century, he said "The French invasion chose the way of demolishment and genocide in its cursed hegemony, transgressing human honor and violating human rights."

After Setif, a colloquium under the name "The Genocide of May 1945, Algeria, and France" will be carried out in Gelma, where the mass massacres were committed On the eve of the French-Algerian treaty of amity, Buteflika aims to pave the way for the French State to apologize from the Algerian people for all the activities. But France has no preparation for such a apology. It passed last year a law envisioning acknowledgement of the positive effect of colonialism in the offshore land, especially in the North Africa. (See www.gazetem.net, "Image Making of the Colonial History in France"). It seems that France tends to slur over it, putting in the mouth of their ambassador in Algeria a sentence, such as "the May 8 massacres is an irremissible tragedy." The Minister of Foreign Affairs indicated that France has no intention to apologize, saying "the treaty of amity is on our agenda." What lies in the heart of Algerian is that the French-Algerian treaty of amity is signed after a initiative similar to that of De Gaulle and Adenauer marking the peace between France and Germany. However, it seems neither the French state has such an intention nor the overwhelming sentiment among the French society is suitable for an apology.

Insulting France…

The reaction to Buteflika's words didn’t come late from the French organizations which left Algeria after the independence: "It is not acceptable that loosing his coolness the President of Algeria insult France, "said in a communiqué, expressing "their displeasure against fouling the memories of France's effort to bring civilizations to the off shores." Some of these association did not hesitate to state "the real genocide was carried out by Arabs, who killed 800 thousands people in ten years."

The human rights organization in France states that the constant repressing of the past to come back to conscience causes de facto reproduction of discrimination and inequality, bringing the attention to the point that the Republic did not get rid of the colonial mentality because France did not face its dark colonial history. In another words, In France there are those in denial who say "They did, we did not" and the pragmatic French who say "We should look at the Future instead of digging up the past" and also there are those who stress the need for a multilateral facing of the past, saying "The repressed memories of the past acts as the nightmare of today"

Claude Liauzu, one of the historians who launched a campaign for the annulment of the law requiring the positive dimension of the colonialism to be tought at schools, said in her article in Le Monde Diplomatique on February 23, 2005, the ghosts disturbing the French society today are mainly going back to the past. According Liauzu, the horrors reflected and triggered by expression in media, such as, "Suburbs: the home for all the threats," "the Islamization of France," "the Conflict of civilizations," and "Racism against the whites," gain strength from the suppressed memory of the near past." No matter how much it is suppressed, refraining to face up what has been done in the past keeps alive the fear that it will pop up under another danger.

It might be difficult to define what the French army and its militias have done as genocide. However, could we claim that they are not crimes against humanity, that they are confrontation between sides, repressing measures a rebellion and measures against the safety of the behind frond-lines, or that the Algerian band indeed committed massacres in that era? Liauzu states that it is unacceptable to make a balance between the May 8 massacres and the painful memories of people who were subjected to violence in the summer months after Algeria gained its independence in 1962; moreover, she called this move a shameful move."

Actually it is not much significant that France says "Right, I committed genocide; I am guilty." As a matter of fact, it would be fine if it makes peace with its history. But the graves in Algeria and modern history reveal everything.