N° 24 mai 2022 The Évian agreements(1) were signed on March 18, 1962 between the government of the French Republic and the Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic.
These agreements provided for a ceasefire applicable throughout the territory of Algeria on the next day, March 19 at 12:00. On the French side, they were ratified by the referendum of April 8, 1962 which, by 91% of the votes, gave full powers to the French government to apply them, and on the Algerian side, by the self-determination referendum of July 1, 1962. The text thus worded: "Do you want Algeria to become an independent state cooperating with France under the conditions defined by the declarations of March 19, 1962" and the massive result (2) in favor of the ‘yes’ left no doubt on the fact that this referendum opened the way to the declaration of independence which was proclaimed on July 5, 1962(3). The Evian Accords put an end to 132 years of colonization fully assumed. The French colonial power tried to maintain the situation until the end, including in the very last period when it tried to maneuver and exclude the Sahara and certain regions of Algeria; through this secession it intended to concentrate the population of European origin thus giving itself a right to the mineral wealth of the Sahara while maintaining a presence in Algeria and therefore a right to intervene in its policy.
This victory of the Algerian people for complete independence had a great worldwide impact as it followed both the 1954 victory of the Vietnamese people who had militarily brought French imperialism to its knees and the process of independence of the peoples of Africa.
Algiers was then the center of the anti-imperialist struggle and recognized as such by tens of millions of independence and freedom fighters throughout the world. Let us recall that this victory was the fruit of an incessant struggle which started right at the beginning of the colonization process and that this process as well as its durability were ensured by violent and murderous repression on the part of France. That is why, immediately after the Évian agreements which provided for an amnesty for FLN combatants, the French government hastened, by decree, to grant amnesty to the action of the French forces in Algeria, including acts of torture and then quickly the killers of the OAS were granted amnesty and their leaders, responsible for violent crimes, had their rights restored. For French imperialism, it was a matter of putting up a wall of silence to escape judgments that would shed light on the assumed atrocity of colonization and therefore on the responsibilities and the very nature of colonial power.
In the coming editions we will return to the questions of the national liberation struggle. But it does not escape our notice that today, under the pretext of an "appeased and shared" memory, Emmanuel Macron wants to "collect all memories", which means, by confusing the colonized and the colonizers, to put them both on an equal footing.
That is the political operation that is underway aiming to absolve capitalism and its colonial and imperialist form, preventing it from being judged for what it is: a criminal regime whose sole purpose is the exploitation of man by man. For our part as internationalist militants, we salute the Algerian people’s victory and we assure them of our solidarity in the current struggles for a democratic sovereign Algeria at the service of popular interests.
(1) https://www.axl.cefan.ulaval.ca/afrique/algerie-accords_d'Evian.htm
(2) "Do you want Algeria to become an independent State cooperating with France under the conditions defined by the declarations of March 19, 1962". For 5,975,581 (99.72% of the votes cast).
(3) On this subject, see Malika Rahal's book: Algérie 1962, Une histoire populaire, La Découverte, 2022.