The Paris massacre of 1961 occurred on 17 October 1961, during the Algerian War(1954–62). Under orders from the head of the Parisian police, Maurice Papon, the French National Police attacked a demonstration of some 30,000 pro-National Liberation Front (FLN) Algerians. After 37 years of denial and censorship of the press, in 1998 the French government finally acknowledged 40 deaths, although there are estimates of 100 to 300 victims.[1] Death was due to heavy-handed beating by the police, as well as massive drownings, as police officers threw demonstrators in the river Seine.
The massacre appears to have been intentional, as has been demonstrated by historian Jean-Luc Einaudi (fr), who won a trial against Maurice Papon in 1999 (the very same Papon who had been convicted in 1998 on charges of crimes against humanity for his role under the Vichy collaborationist regime during World War II). Official documentation and eyewitnesses within the Paris police department indeed suggest that the 1961 massacre was directed by Papon himself. Police records show that Papon called for officers in one station to be “subversive” in quelling the demonstrations, and assured them protection from prosecution if they participated.[2]
Forty years after the massacre, on 17 October 2001, Bertrand Delanoë, the SocialistMayor of Paris, put up a plaque in remembrance of the massacre on the Saint-Michel bridge.[3][4] How many demonstrators were killed is still unclear. In the absence of official estimates, the placard which commemorates the massacre stated: “In memory of the many Algerians killed during the bloody repression of the peaceful demonstration of 17 October 1961”. On 18 February 2007 (the day after Papon’s death), calls were made for a Paris Métro station under construction in Gennevilliers to be named “17 Octobre 1961” in commemoration of the massacre.[5][6]
The events were documented by a number of photographs, many of them graphic.[7]
Tagged on the Saint-Michel Bridge in 1961: “Ici on noie les Algériens” (“Here we drown Algerians”). Dozens of bodies were later pulled from the River Seine
[SOURCE: en.wikipedia.org ]
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