Did the French commit genocide in Algeria?

Eddie Dane

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Eddie Dane
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France has made it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide.
Turkey is deeply offended about the French calling the genocide a genocide despite the genocide actually being a genocide.

Now the Turks "retaliate" by calling the French colonial war in Algeria a genocide.

I did read up on the dirty war in Algeria and watched a couple of documentaries on the subject.
The facts are pretty goddamn shocking, I can tell you

But the war is not in the list of genocides on wiki.
Even though some of the listed massacres don't seem to qualify (but are still horrible, shocking and despicable).

So, did the French commit genocide?
Or does their happy regime of torture, repression, forced relocation an indiscriminate killing not qualify as such?
 
There were definitely crimes against humanity but nothing that indicates the French wanted to exterminate an entire ethnic group.
 
Eddie Dane said:
France has made it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide.
Turkey is deeply offended about the French calling the genocide a genocide despite the genocide actually being a genocide.

Now the Turks "retaliate" by calling the French colonial war in Algeria a genocide.

I did read up on the dirty war in Algeria and watched a couple of documentaries on the subject
The facts are pretty goddamn shocking, I can tell you

But the war is not in the list of genocides on wiki.
Even though some of the listed massacres don't seem to qualify (but are still horrible, shocking and despicable).

So, did the French commit genocide?
Or does their happy regime of torture, repression, forced relocation an indiscriminate killing not qualify as such?
Click to expand...
I don't think the Algerian war qualifies as genocide: there was no intent on killing indiscriminately large numbers of native Algerians. The French merely ruthlessly persecuted FLN activists, with a lot of collateral damage.

It does qualify, without a doubt, as one big war crime. And the French are indeed very hypocritical in that they don't own up to this fact. In a sense, it already backfired once on them, at the trial of SS Hauptsturmführer Klaus Barbie, the "butcher of Lyon":
Vergès had a reputation for attacking the French political system, particularly in the French colonial empire. His strategy at the trial was to use it to expose war crimes committed by France since 1945. Indeed, many of the charges against Barbie were dropped, thanks to the legislation that had protected people accused of crimes under the Vichy regime and in French Algeria.
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Vergès, Barbie's lawyer, was married to a former client of his, Djamila Bouhired, who was a member of the FLN and was tortured after she was captured.
 
funk de fino said:
French and the English had a bloody good go in St Kitts.
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Were they in fact all English, or is it acceptable to use 'English' for British when it's a bad thing they're doing? It may actually be the former; I genuinely don't know.
 
Eddie Dane said:
France has made it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide.
Turkey is deeply offended about the French calling the genocide a genocide despite the genocide actually being a genocide.

Now the Turks "retaliate" by calling the French colonial war in Algeria a genocide.

I did read up on the dirty war in Algeria and watched a couple of documentaries on the subject.
The facts are pretty goddamn shocking, I can tell you

But the war is not in the list of genocides on wiki.
Even though some of the listed massacres don't seem to qualify (but are still horrible, shocking and despicable).

So, did the French commit genocide?
Or does their happy regime of torture, repression, forced relocation an indiscriminate killing not qualify as such?
Click to expand...

Given that there were a couple dozen thousand Algerian muslims fighting for French forces that weren't set for elimination (but were still exterminated by the 'liberators'), the answer would have to be that this is an incredibly lame defense by the Turks.

War crimes? Certainly. Crimes against humanity? Probably. Genocide? Nope.

Notice how the Turks maintain the Armenian genocide wasn't a genocide because there were many civilian dead on both sides. This is also quite true for Algeria. Que?

McHrozni
 
Eddie Dane said:
But the war is not in the list of genocides on wiki.
Click to expand...

That list is pretty poor. Wikipedia lacks enough genocide nerds to knock it into shape.

I tend to feel that the term genocide gets overused to a fair extent and this is one of those cases. There was no real attempt to wipe out the algerians and the death toll wasn't really high enough to move us into acidental genocide territory.
 
Rat said:
Were they in fact all English, or is it acceptable to use 'English' for British when it's a bad thing they're doing? It may actually be the former; I genuinely don't know.
Click to expand...

Pre act of union so technicaly english and welsh.
 
geni said:
Pre act of union so technicaly english and welsh.
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Yes, I realized that about a day after I asked, and have been waiting to have it pointed out since. Welsh people of the time would of course still have been from the Kingdom of England. That said, there were, I think, Scottish troops fighting for the Scottish/English king before the Act of Union, but not as early as that.
 
Rat said:
Were they in fact all English, or is it acceptable to use 'English' for British when it's a bad thing they're doing? It may actually be the former; I genuinely don't know.
Click to expand...

Before the act of union.
 
Djamila Boupacha


and http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=32480

technically not genocide but an excellent reason for why the french slime invading Armenia were no better than SS slime.

Just a note, I did not need to look up Djamila. I will always remember that name and a few others: Kitty Genovese, Lee Ying...................
 
I spent part of my childhood living in Algeria and I've can't recall anyone I know or knew considered the terrible atrocities an attempt at genocide, and they certainly never held back at giving a less than glowing account of the French occupation!
 
Gazpacho said:
It is also illegal in France to deny French war crimes in Algeria.
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Is it basically illegal to lie or express unpopular opinions in France? Can I deny that Germany started WWI? Can I either assert or deny that anyone specific started WWI?
 
It's illegal to deny or justify war crimes that have been recognized by the state. France has possibly the most sweeping laws on this in the world and they have led to some rather silly prosecutions. On the other hand, I admire French society for developing the kind of self-criticism that can produce such a law.
 
Gazpacho said:
It's illegal to deny or justify war crimes that have been recognized by the state. France has possibly the most sweeping laws on this in the world and they have led to some rather silly prosecutions. On the other hand, I admire French society for developing the kind of self-criticism that can produce such a law.
Click to expand...

Could you expand on that, and maybe give examples of such rather silly prosecutions? The wiki article I quoted on the Barbie trial mentioned that, on the contrary, legislation had been enacted that protected against acts we normally consider as war crimes.
 
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