La Guerre d'Algérie: Une histoire apaisée?

The Algerian War: a peaceful history? Algerian War here, War of National Liberation there, whatever the way in which we name it, this conflict has been, since its beginning, the object of diverging interpretations. Politicians constructed the war with words when others denied it. Algerian and French societies inherited these confrontations. Since 1962, historians have had to work in the middle of contradictory emotions, tensions, and desires expressed with regard to this complex and sensitive past. The analysis of the fifty years that have passed since the outbreak of the insurgency also highlights the weight of politics on the conditions of the writing of history, whether it is a question of controlling the narrative on the past, of monitoring it, prohibiting it, encouraging it, or facilitating it. Thus, access to archives remains, even today, a crucial question on both sides of the Mediterranean. The study of French and foreign historiography reveals, however, that research is progressing. But one thing is also clear: the paths for a peaceful history of war are only emerging slowly.