Journalist quits after comparing French actions in Algeria to Nazis
A high-profile French journalist has stepped down from his role as an analyst for broadcaster RTL after comments comparing French actions in Algeria to those of Nazi Germany, in an illustration of how controversial the topic of France’s rule in Algeria remains even today.
Veteran reporter and broadcaster Jean-Michel Aphatie stated that while he would not return to RTL, he stood by his comments made on the radio station in February equating crimes committed by France in Algeria with those of Nazi Germany in occupied France, reported The Guardian on March 9th.
“I will not return to RTL. It is my decision,” he wrote on X, after he was suspended from air for a week by the radio station.
On February 25th, he said on the station “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?”
This was in reference to the massacre of 642 residents of a village by an SS unit on June 10th 1944. The village was never rebuilt, leaving a memorial that remains there today.
When asked by the anchor whether “we [the French] behaved like the Nazis”, Aphatie said “the Nazis behaved like us.”
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