Jean-Michel Aphatie stands by comments he made on broadcaster RTL

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/26982927

On 25 February he said on air: “Every year in France, we commemorate what happened in Oradour-sur-Glane – the massacre of an entire village. But we have committed hundreds of these, in Algeria. Are we aware of this?”

He was referring to the village where an SS unit returning to the front in Normandy massacred 642 residents on 10 June 1944. Leaving a chilling memorial for future generations, the village was never rebuilt.

Challenged by the anchor over whether “we [the French] behaved like the Nazis”, Aphatie said: “The Nazis behaved like us.”

On X, he acknowledged his comments had created a “debate” but said it was of great importance to understand the full story over France’s 1830-1962 presence in Algeria, saying he was “horrified” by what he had read in history books.

After being suspended for a week by the channel it means that “if I come back to RTL I validate this and admit to making a mistake”.

  • Aidenwill@jlai.luEnglish
    0·
    2 months ago

    He definitely right, I always sided against Apathie because he was always pro-Macron and such but on many case recently, I’m siding with him. I can’t understand why his comments are “controversials”, everyone in France know that during the colonisation and decolonisation, our military has done a ton of hateful things, from Indochina to West Africa and Maghreb.

    Apathie is too center-sided for me, but when everyone goes to the far-right bootlicking, he stands his ground, so I cannot give him anything but uttermost respect.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness@fedia.io
      1·
      2 months ago

      I can’t understand why his comments are “controversials”, everyone in France know that during the colonisation and decolonisation, our military has done a ton of hateful things, from Indochina to West Africa and Maghreb.

      My perspective as someone not from the West is: Westerners claim they’ve accepted the atrocities their countries committed (and sometimes are still committing), but they really haven’t. They routinely downplay and whitewash the more recent of these atrocities, or claim they’re only the responsibility of a sinister cabal of politicians and billionaires, while claiming that the ones mostly out of living memory are ancient past that everyone needs to get over. Turn that up to eleven because France is one of the most nationalist places in the world and this outcome is not surprising. If anything I’m surprised a French journalist had the courage to say something like this in public.