“The colonial crimes committed in Algeria are not individual ones but State crimes”
“The colonial crimes committed in Algeria are not individual ones but State crimes”
El Khabar, 8 december 2007
Olivier Besancenot candidate to the last presidential elections won over by Nicolas Sarkozy stressed that the acting French president has nothing to give to Algerians. Sarkozy is the mere trade representative of the French companies. He further called the French president to apologize for the colonial crimes committed in Algeria because they are State crimes.
El Khabar: How do you see Sarkozy visit to Algeria?
Besancenot: Sarkozy in Algeria is not but continuity to Sarkozy in Libya or in China: the trade representative of the French companies together with his prestigious assembly of ministers, billionaires, will advertise Airbus, nuclear power plants, tramway and the TGV. He doesn’t represent the French workers and will not bring much to Algerians facing day after day joblessness, housing crisis, and all the draw backs of the liberalization policies brought by President Bouteflika. Sarkozy supports Bouteflika ultra-liberal policy dictated by the IMF, Camdessus, and Strauss Kahn.
El Khabar: Algeria and France tried to sign the Friendship treaty but it has fallen into water, why does this initiative failed?
Besancenot: Algiers declaration signed on March 2nd 2003 by J. Chirac and A. Bouteflika was a mere hollow intention declaration. A declaration frankly hypocrite as far as the French party is concerned.
El Khabar: Are you optimistic regarding the future of Algeria France relations?
Besancenot: Leaders like Sarkozy have nothing to bring to the Algerian people. But the French-Algerian relations are not restricted in the ties bounding the leaders who are representing at both banks of the Mediterranean the interests of a privileged minority.
El Khabar: Sarkozy has always refused to recognise the crimes committed during Algeria war saying that descendents shall not pay for their ascendants, do you agree with him?
Besancenot: I was not already born during the independence war. However I condemn firmly, without any reserve, the crimes committed by the French colonial army. The colonial crimes committed in Algeria are not individual ones but State crimes. I claim to follow a French political tradition firmly against the colonial crime, the very one that organized the solidarity with the Algerian people liberation war
El Khabar: The acting French president is more interested in the Algerian oil and gas rather than solid relations, and seeks to turn the page without clarifying things…
Besancenot: Sarkozy strives to implant that great French companies in Algeria, he coverts the Algerian oil and gas. A fraternal policy is rather likely to boost Algeria development, a peer-to-peer relations as well as the condemnation of the colonial crimes.
08-12-2007
Interviewed by Kamel Zait/ Translation by N. K
