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Filming for the BBC in Niger, we were told by many Nigeriens that we were the first ever to come and ask about their history
‘There must be a process where those affected can give evidence on the crimes that initiated and sustained colonialism.’ A still from African Apocalypse. Photograph: African Apocalypse
‘There must be a process where those affected can give evidence on the crimes that initiated and sustained colonialism.’ A still from African Apocalypse. Photograph: African Apocalypse
Tue 16 Feb 2021 06.31 EST
Last modified on Tue 16 Feb 2021 06.34 EST
During the French presidential campaign of 2017, Emmanuel Macron told a young Algerian that colonialism was “a crime against humanity”. His mailbox was immediately filled with angry letters from former French-Algerian settlers. A few weeks later, he retracted his remarks. “I’m sorry for wounding you, causing pain. I did not want to offend you,” he assured the colonists.
Will Macron s new commission face up to all of France s colonial atrocities? Femi Nylander and Rob Lemkin
During the French presidential campaign of 2017, Emmanuel Macron told a young Algerian that colonialism was “a crime against humanity”. His mailbox was immediately filled with angry letters from former French-Algerian settlers. A few weeks later, he retracted his remarks. “I’m sorry for wounding you, causing pain. I did not want to offend you,” he assured the colonists.
Last year, after George Floyd’s killing sparked widespread demonstrations against French police brutality, Macron commissioned the historian Benjamin Stora to compile a report on the memory of the colonisation of Algeria and the Algerian war. Stora handed in his study, France-Algeria: Painful Passions, in January, and it will be published as a book next month. It should be of interest not just to young people with an Algerian connection, said the president, but to anyone whose paren