The number of buildings you see dotted around the city that now carry memorial plaques listing every resident arrested and sent to concentration camps during the collaborationist Vichy regime of WW2 is indeed a sobering sight for any visitor to the city.
Documentaries about the 17 October 1961 atrocity
17 octobre 1961, un crime d'Etat (dir. Ramdane Rahmouni; 2021)
This is a recent 51 minute documentary (in French with Arabic subtitles) in which historians, activists and witnesses describe the massacre of Algerian protestors that took place in Paris, France. Conservative estimates suggest at least 200 people were thrown from the Pont Saint-Michel into the Seine. For Algerians it is regarded as a “colonial crime”, which was carried out by French police in order to silence Algerian voices during the final stages of the liberation war. It can be viewed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HquI833DNCk
Octobre à Paris (October in Paris) (dir. Jacques Panijel; France; 1962)
One of the first detailed accounts of the atrocity, the distribution of this film was suppressed by the French authorities until 1973, when it was granted a limited “visa d'exploitation”, and it would have to wait until 2011 to receive a full theatrical release. Other films have been made about this dark and bloody phase of modern French history, including:
Le silence du fleuve (The silence of the river) (dir. Mehdi Lallaoui; 1991), and
Ici on noie les Algeriens (Here we drown the Algerians) (dir. Yasmina Adi; France; 2011).
Books
Jean-Luc Einaudi was a French historian and socialist activist. He remains largely unknown in the English-speaking world (try searching for an English translation of any of his books). Much of his work was devoted to extensively researching the events of 17 October, as well as other crimes and abuses committed by the French authorities in their efforts to put down local support for the Algerian independence struggle. A couple of his books are cited below:
Einaudi, Jean-Luc La bataille de Paris, 17 octobre 1961 (Seuil, 1991)
Einaudi, Jean-Luc Le dossier Younsi. 1962 : procès secret d'un chef FLN en France (Tirésias, 2013)
This article is a draft. Let me know in the comments below how much of the history mentioned above you were aware of. Personally, I only became aware of the events of October 1961 from Arab commentators and Arabic (specifically Algerian) media, so I would be very interested to hear other peoples' experiences.
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