Redeeming the Past: The 2001 Commemoration of the Paris Massacre of 17 October 1961 Öffentlichkeit
White, Rachel (2010)
Abstract
Abstract
Redeeming the Past:
The 2001 Commemoration of the Paris Massacre of 17 October
1961
By Rachel White
On the night of 17 October 1961, 30,000 Algerians, including
families dressed in
their Sunday best, poured into central Paris from the suburbs to
protest the discriminatory
curfew imposed upon them several days before. Alarmed by the large
numbers of
protesters and incited to brutality by Paris police prefect Maurice
Papon, the Paris police
opened fire on the demonstrators. It is still unknown today how
many people lost their
lives that evening and in the following days, but historians'
current estimations range
from 32 to 200 deaths. The massacre was an act of police vengeance
and retribution for
the FLN assassinations of 29 police officers in the preceding
months. Most importantly,
the French state directly contributed to the cover-up following 17
October 1961. In the
first chapter, I present the massacre in the context of the
Algerian War (1954-1962) and
the turbulent history of colonization and de-colonization in
Algeria. The second chapter
addresses the media reaction in the months immediately following
the massacre and the
reasons for the supposed "occultation" of the massacre from French
memory. In the third
chapter, I examine the process by which this event returned to the
public scene during the
1980s and 1990s.
In the final chapter, I demonstrate the extent to which the 2001
commemoration
for the 40th anniversary of the massacre of 17 October 1961
reflects non-Algerian French
society's attempt to rewrite or revise its own history. The
commemoration represented a
step towards an official recognition of the massacre but stopped
short of acknowledging
state responsibility or of offering an official apology; president
Jacques Chirac made no
official statement for the commemoration. Through a study of the
press from the period
immediately following 17 October 1961 and the week surrounding the
2001
commemoration, concentrating on the newspapers La Croix,
Libération, and L'Humanité,
I explain how the respective newspapers attempted to justify their
actions in 1961 and
redeem their shortcomings through their coverage of the
commemoration. Finally, I
frame the discussion of the commemoration in the context of
questions of memory and
the limitations of commemorative projects.
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Introduction
Page 1
Chapter 1
A prelude to 17 October 1961: the FLN, the French Police, and a
nameless "war"
Page 10
Chapter 2
Immediate Reaction and Eventual Occultation
Page 21
Chapter 3
Anamnesis and the Path to Commemoration
Page 33
Chapter 4
The 2001 Commemoration and Its Implications
Page 41
Conclusion
Page 63
Bibliography
Page 77
Appendix of Acronyms and Abbreviations
Page 80
About this Honors Thesis
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