RC 261017SAfm
Saturday, 17 October 2026
Saturday's Algeria-focused show centred on the 17 October 1961 Paris massacre of Algerian protesters, with the rest given to African artist profiles and listener requests.
- 03:51
Police killed Algerian protesters in Paris on the night of 17 October 1961 and threw bodies into the Seine. The French government long said two died; historians put the toll closer to 300.
- 03:54
Paris police prefect Maurice Papon imposed a curfew on 5 October 1961 barring Algerians from the streets from 8:30pm to 5:30am, a restriction applied to no other group.
- 03:58
At his 1998 Bordeaux trial, Maurice Papon was convicted of complicity in crimes against humanity for wartime deportations of Jews and sentenced to 10 years. The 1961 killings were raised publicly there for the first time.
- 03:59
Hollande in 2012 called the repression bloody but stopped short of a formal apology, and no French president has ever apologised for the 1961 killings.