David Lisnard dismissed the historical significance of the October 17, 1961, police massacre of Algerians in Paris by stating he did not care about the date because he was not yet born. The Cannes mayor and presidential candidate made the remarks during an interview on LCI, where rmc.bfmtv.com reported the exchange.
The confrontation began when an audience member, identified by rmc.bfmtv.com as a student close to La France Insoumise, challenged Lisnard over Algerian war history and the presence of Algerian flags in protests. Lisnard responded that he did not understand why those flags appeared in demonstrations before the student asked him about the events of October 17, 1961. Lisnard grew frustrated, stated je m’en fous,
and added that he was not yet born and that Algeria had since gained independence, according to rmc.bfmtv.com.
Maurice Papon Ordered the 1961 Paris Curfew
The date referenced by the student marks one of the deadliest repressions of a protest in modern French history. Amid escalating tensions in mainland France during the Algerian War, Paris Police Prefect Maurice Papon ordered a strict curfew on October 5, 1961, targeting Algerian Muslims in the capital starting at 8:30 p.m., alongside daytime travel restrictions.
At the time, Algerian residents in France faced intense surveillance, including monitoring by a specialized police unit known as the Brigade des agressions et violences (BAV). On October 17, approximately 20,000 Algerians from the Paris suburbs converged on the city to protest both the discriminatory curfew and the war for Algerian independence. Police units intervened with extreme violence, using batons and firearms against the demonstrators and arresting roughly 12,000 people.
French Presidents Recognize Past State Crimes
While official police reports at the time claimed only three deaths, historians and subsequent government statements established that the actual death toll was far higher. Dozens of protesters were killed, and some bodies were thrown into the Seine River. The event remained largely taboo for decades before state responsibility began to be acknowledged in the late 1990s.
Successive French presidents have since addressed the historical trauma. François Hollande officially acknowledged the bloody repression in 2012, and Emmanuel Macron followed in 2021 by describing the events as inexcusable crimes for the Republic.
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