Torture during the Algerian War of Independence

Elements of the French Armed Forces as well as of the opposing Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) made use of torture during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), creating an ongoing public controversy. Pierre Vidal-Naquet confessed that there were "hundreds of thousands of instances of torture" by the French military in Algeria. The Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) were engaged in the use of torture against pro-French and uncommitted members of the Algerian population, to justify the use of torture (by the French).

The armed struggle of the FLN and of its armed wing, the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN) was for self-determination. The French state itself refused to see the colonial conflict as a war, as that would recognize the other party (the National Liberation Front, FLN) as a legitimate entity. Thus, until 10 August 1999, the French Republic persisted in calling the Algerian War a simple "operation of public order" against the FLN "terrorism." This was therefore a 'classic' colonial war of liberation, and it is on these different viewpoints (police action vs. war) that much of the argument about these events tends to focus.

Thus, the military did not consider themselves tied by the Geneva Conventions, ratified by France in 1951. Beside prohibiting the use of torture, the Geneva Conventions give the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to the detainees. Detainees, who included not only FLN members but also old men, women and children, were thus not granted prisoner of war (POW) status. On the contrary, they were considered as "terrorists" and deprived of the rights to which belligerents are legally entitled during a war, including cases of civil wars under Geneva Convention Protocol II.

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