Stora, a specialist in the Algerian War, argues that the apparent unwillingness of France to work on this is not helping the credibility of France’s expressions of its regrets.
A second issue is that restitution of objects and documents from the independence struggles and of the colonial times would help the historical conscience of the younger generations not only in Algeria, but in the whole of post-colonial Africa.
“Archives, objects, symbols – nothing has been returned to Algeria.”
Benjamin Stora insists on the importance of returning objects looted during colonization to repair the shared memory.
