French President Emmanuel Macron authorized the declassification of documents about the Algerian War and other archives until 1970, according to the newspaper Le Figaro.
“The President of the Republic decided to allow the archival services from tomorrow to start declassifying documents classified as national defense secrecy … until 1970,” Interfax quotes a statement from the Elysee Palace.
Last year, Macron commissioned historian Benjamin Stora to prepare a report on the French colonization of Algeria and the Algerian War, as well as how it was perceived on both sides of the Mediterranean.
Stora presented the results of his work in February, after which he was criticized both in Algeria and in France: he did not pay attention to the “apologies” of Paris, which Algeria demands.
The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962 between the French colonial administration and the rebels campaigning for the country’s independence. The conflict provoked a political crisis in France, which led to the fall of the Fourth Republic. Algeria became an independent country in 1962.