Reacting to a recent message from the French foreign minister, Iran’s top diplomat in his X account wrote, “One and a half million Algerians were massacred by France during that country's war of independence."
“1.5mn Algerians were slaughtered by France in their War of Independence. Less than 1/10 of them have been recorded by Paris, which refuses any apology for its colonial crimes,” he emphasized.
“Stop your crocodile tears @inbarrot. Your silence when the US massacred our schoolkids said it all,” he added.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused France of hypocrisy over its colonial history in Algeria, telling French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot to “stop the crocodile tears” and criticizing his silence over the killing of Iranian schoolchildren by the United States, Araghchi underlined.
France invaded Algeria in 1830 and ruled the Muslim country as a colony until Algeria won independence in 1962. The eight-year Algerian War of Independence, from 1954 to 1962, involved extensive fighting, mass displacement and the use of torture by French forces.
Estimates of Algerian deaths vary considerably: Algerian historians and the National Liberation Front (FLN) put the figure at about 1.5 million, while other historical estimates are lower. More than 2 million Algerians were also forcibly relocated or displaced during the conflict.
MA/ 6951139
