Controversy in France over Statue Commemorating Soldier Famous for Torturing Algerians

Statue of the paratrooper Colonel Marcel Bigeard

Asharq Al Awsat
07:16-17 March 2024

 AD ـ 07 Ramadan 1445 AH

French historians on Saturday strongly protested the decision of Toul municipality, in east France, to erect a statue of the paratrooper Colonel Marcel Bigeard, who was known for using torture in Algeria and Indochina in the 1950s.

The move come as Algeria and France seek to overcome the pain of the colonial past and build a normal relationship,

“How can we plan to erect a statue of paratrooper Marcel Bigeard, as is the case in Toul, and thus, glorify the practice of colonial torture?, questioned historians Fabrice Riceputi and Alain Ruscio in an article published on Saturday by the French website histoirecoloniale.net.

Bigeard, who fought in World War II, was parachuted into the besieged French base of Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam, and condoned torture in the unsuccessful battle to defeat Algerian nationalist fighters.

In 2010, he died in Toul, the northeastern town where he was born.

On Saturday, Riceputi and Ruscio announced that the French organization “Histoire et Mémoire dans le Respect des Droits Humains” has asked the municipality of Toul to abandon the project of installing a statue of General Bigeard in the city’s square.

They said the Toul event comes at “a time when Marseille and Paris had finally removed from public spaces the plaques honoring the memory of Marcel Bigeard, executioner of the Algerian people during the colonial conquest.”

To back their request, Riceputi and Ruscio then listed the acts of torture attributed to Bigeard during the “Battle of Algiers,” which happened in 1957, when French forces made wide use of torture in their attempt to defeat the National Liberation Front (FLN).

One of the most famous Algerian leaders tortured by Bigeard is Larbi Ben M’hidi, who was hanged for refusing to sell his fellowship in the army.

In 2021, Drifa Ben M'hidi, veteran of the Algerian War and sister of Larbi Ben M'hidi, affirmed to France 24 that French general Marcel Bigeard, who had arrested her brother in Algiers, admitted to her that “France had killed Larbi Ben M'hidi.”

He told her during a meeting in the 1980s that her brother had not committed suicide, contrary to the official French version.

During their meeting, Bigeard told Drifa, “I didn't kill him, but I sent him to General Paul Aussaresses.”

Drifa called on President Emmanuel Macron to recognize not only this assassination, but the crime committed against “the entire Algerian people.”

On March 4, on the occasion of the 67th anniversary of Ben M’hidi’s killing, 20 organizations in France wrote to the Elysée, demanding that “the French state acknowledge its responsibility for the practice of torture” during the Algerian revolution.