Today is the 60th anniversary of the Paris massacre of October 17, 1961, when dozens of peaceful Algerian demonstrators were murdered by the police in Paris and surrounding banlieues, and with many thousands more brutalized and tortured. It was one of the darkest days in postwar French history. According to the British historians Jim House & Neil MacMaster—authors of the most important academic book on the subject (which happens to be in English mais traduit en français)—up to two hundred unarmed Algerians were killed by the Paris police—who were at the time under the command of the notorious Prefect of Police for Paris and the inner banlieue, Maurice Papon—on October 17 and in the preceding weeks, though the exact number—which could have been more—will likely never be known (for a short backgrounder, see the Twitter thread by University of Cambridge historian Arthur Asseraf; also the article by Laurel Berger in the LARB, “How to forget a massacre: What happened in Paris on October 17, 1961″). During the Algerian war and the decade the followed it, books and films on the event were subject to censorship, so what happened on the night of October 17, 1961, was hushed up and largely ignored by the French public, including the educated classes and those who were old enough to remember at the time. This situation has changed considerably over the past three decades, with the proliferation of books and films on the subject, including this first-rate feature-length film from 2005 and two documentaries released shortly after the 50th anniversary, which I discussed here at the time. Emmanuel Macron commemorated the event yesterday—though stopped short of accepting responsibility in the name of the French state for the extrajudicial killings committed by the Paris police—as did Paris mayor—and Socialist party presidential candidate—Anne Hidalgo and the current Paris prefect today.
There was naturally a march to commemorate the anniversary as well, endorsed by dozens of associations and parties, on the left or Algeria-related, i.e. the usual suspects.

I naturally attended, as did my wife and several friends. There were maybe 2 or 3,000 marchers; not a huge demo but it was spirited. Here are a few photos I took.


























The NPA is the one party of the extreme left that has young people.





