France acknowledged Thursday that it instigated a "system" that facilitated torture during Algeria's independence war, a landmark admission about a conflict that remains hugely sensitive six decades on. Emmanuel Macron - the first president born after the conflict - went further than any of his predecessors in recognising the scale of abuses by French troops during the 1954-62 war.
He made the announcement as part of an admission that the French state was responsible for the torture and death of mathematician Maurice Audin, a French Communist pro-independence activist who disappeared in Algiers in 1957. Visiting Audin's widow, Macron also announced that France would open up its archives on the thousands of civilians and soldiers who went missing during the war, both French and Algerian.
Josette Audin, now in her eighties, tried to thank Macron during an emotional visit to her apartment in Bagnolet east of Paris. But he replied: "It's for me to ask your forgiveness, so don't say anything." In a statement, the presidency said the special powers given to the army to restore order in Algeria "laid the ground for some terrible acts, including torture".
During the bloody war, which claimed some 1.5 million Algerian lives and ended 130 years of colonial rule, French forces cracked down on independence fighters and sympathisers, with a French general later admitting to the use of torture. Independence fighters also mistreated prisoners during a complex conflict characterised by guerrilla warfare, which left deep scars in the national psyche.
France censored wartime newspapers, books and films that claimed it was using torture, and atrocities by its troops have remained a largely taboo subject. But on Thursday, the government declared, "There can be no liberty, equality and fraternity without the search for truth." Previous presidents of the left and right had taken cautious steps to acknowledge French wrongdoing in Algeria, without openly apologising.