Paris Massacre of 1961 - Recent Events

Recent Events

The French government acknowledged in 1998 that the massacre occurred and that 40 people died in the massacre.

No one has been prosecuted for participation in the killings, because they fell under the general amnesty for crimes committed during the Algerian War. This included on one side French police and military personnel; and on the other side various French (pro-independence, often communist) and Algerian fighters, for attacks on civilian targets such as cafés, which killed 3,000 civilians.

Forty years after the massacre, in 2001, the event was officially acknowledged by the city of Paris with the placement and unveiling of a memorial plaque near the Pont Saint-Michel. This resulted from work by the Socialist Party local government. At the unveiling of the plaque, Bertrand Delanoë, the Socialist Party Mayor of Paris, cited the need for France to come to terms with this event in order to move forward with unity. Centrist and right-wing French politics, as well as the police union, objected to the plaque on various grounds (increased threat of civil unrest, alleged tolerance of terrorism, and encouragement of disrespect for the police). On the other hand, historian Olivier LeCour Grandmaison, president of the 17 October 1961 Association, declared to L'Humanité that "if a step forward had been taken with the decision of the Parisian' townhall to put a commemorative plate on the Pont Saint-Michel, deplored that the text which was chosen for it brings about neither the idea of a crime against humanity nor the responsibility of the author of the crime, the state. Under no excuse does this Parisian initiative exempts the highest national authorities of taking their responsibilities. In the same manner, if Lionel Jospin personally expressed himself last year talking about "tragic events", neither the police's responsibility in the crime nor the responsibility of the political responsibles at the time have been clearly established and much less officially condemned.". On 17th October 2012, Francois Hollande acknowledged the 1961 massacre of Algerians in Paris