PARIS: Although it marked the 40th anniversary of the end of its war with Algeria, March 19 came and went once again this year, with France still refusing to officially celebrate the event — and, as many hoped, apologise for the systematic use of torture against Algerian combatants, as well as recognise the existence of the Harkis, the Algerians who fought alongside French forces.

Only a few weeks ago an initiative to turn March 19 into a national holiday — and day of memory — was suddenly withdrawn by Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, although he admitted having a sufficient number of votes to pass the measure. Seems that Mr Jospin, who already had let it be known he would be running in presidential elections this year against incumbent Jacques Chirac, didn’t want to take a chance with losing too many votes in what has been for him an uphill battle for the presidency.

As for the Harkis, the Algerian nationals who fought alongside French forces during the eight years that lasted the war between France and its colony, they have always lobbied for a national day of their own.

Then too, many of them who stayed behind after March 19, 1962, were brutally murdered by the Algerian nationalists who have always considered them to be traitors. The same Harkis, allowed to settle in France, felt they were never accorded the same treatment as French combatants in the Algerian war, and to this day clamour their near abandonment by successive French governments, of the right and of the left.

Which is why they’ve decided to create a lobby, and are effectively proposing their political weight — the Harkis say they represent 350,000 votes in this year’s presidential election — in exchange for official support for their cause. President Chirac, for one, has decided to sit down and listen to the Harkis, and says he will soon meet their representatives to see what can be done to respond to the lists of demands they’ve compiled. Still, there is relatively little he can do without the acquiescence of Algeria — an important commercial partner of France — and such authorities as President Bouteflika, a close ally of Mr Chirac’s, who as recently as a year ago said he wanted nothing to do with the Harks and that he had no intention of welcoming them back on Algerian soil.

As for March 19, 1962, it marks the end of a long drawn-out war that between 1954 and 1962 saw France lose 27,500 men on the battlefield, with Algeria suffering even greater losses (it estimated its losses at the time at 140,000), a figure that would be later magnified by Algerian authorities who to this day officially claim the loss of 1.5 million men whom it characterises as martyrs.

It was on March 19, at noontime, that a ceasefire was called, although from that day the OAS (Organisation armee secrete), a clandestine paramilitary organization made up in large part of officers like General Raoul Salan decided to continue the war on their own, and very violently so, indeed to the point where they attempted to assassinate France’s then head of state, General Charles de Gaulle, considered as a traitor to their cause. One of the attempts is recounted in Fred Zinnemann’s 1973 film Day of the Jackal.

The war continued unofficially for many years, indeed made its way onto French soil where the officers who had felt betrayed by General de Gaulle, and the French political class as a whole, made a point of letting it be known that they did not accept what for them was nothing less than an embarrassing defeat.

One of De Gaulle’s closest political allies, Culture Minister Andre Malraux, saw a little girl who lived in his building in Boulogne killed outright by an OAS bomb that had been intended for him, a bomb that had been left by mistake on a neighbour’s windowsill. For another quarter-century it was not unusual in Paris to hear French drivers honk their horns to the tune of Al-ge-rie-fran-caise, the slogan of those who for many years refused to accept France’s abandonment of a colony that it had settled in the 1830s. The honking became so loud and vociferous that French authorities passed a measure which meted out stiff fines to those who dared continue the practice. Still it became a commonplace of French traffic jams for years to come.

The French political figures who hoped to turn March 19 into not only a national holiday, but also a day of memory, had not seemingly reckoned with the fact that the resistance to the signing of the Evian Accords continues to this day.

One of the deputies who voted against the measure, Jean-Pierre Meylan, a man who had taken part in the war, clamoured that for his part, “I don’t understand this desire to commemorate what is effectively a kick-in-the-arse for France. We shouldn’t fall into the Algerian camp. It’s all a big joke (une grande plaisanterie).” What is strange about Mr Jospin’s decision to withdraw the projected law is that he had the votes to pass the measure, indeed the National Assembly last week had adopted the projected holiday by a comfortable margin. But, as announced by the Socialist Party’s principal spokesman Francois Hollande, “we chose not to send the measure over to the Senate, because we thought it was best to end the procedure on a strong positive note in the National Assembly rather than on a negative vote in the Senate.” For a measure like the proposed holiday to become law, it must be voted by both of France’s legislative organs, the National Assembly and the Senate.

As for President Chirac, who himself took part in the Algerian war, he chose to adopt a low-profile stance in the debate, although he is known to have opposed the measure, indeed used discussion of the measure to let it be known that he felt that France’s military had largely been mistreated by Mr Jospin and his government.

Another apparent reason for Mr Jospin’s decision to withdraw the idea of a national holiday on March 19 was the recent publication of a White Paper on the war signed by 490 army generals who took part in the conflict during its eight-year span, and who say they are adamantly opposed to any commemoration of the event.