Algerian War: Bally Bagayoko criticized by Marion Maréchal for his presence at a commemoration of “Red All Saints’ Day”

The rebellious mayor of Saint-Denis, Bally Bagayoko, shared a video last Friday on his social networks showing him present in Stains for an evening celebrating the 72nd anniversary of November 1, 1954, the date considered to mark the start of the Algerian War.

The LFI elected official said he went there “invited by the Algerian consulate” and “celebrated the memory, dignity and friendship between our peoples”. In the images, we see him exchanging all smiles with many participants and even sketching a few dance steps with an elderly woman.

But his participation in the event is controversial, because November 1, 1954 is a date called in France “Red All Saints' Day” because of the dozens of attacks committed by the FLN that day and having caused numerous victims among the French in Algeria. A true birth of the FLN, these attacks targeted both French soldiers and random civilians, including a couple of teachers, the Monnerots, who were traveling on a bus.

MEP close to the RN Marion Maréchal sharply criticized the presence of Bally Bagayoko at this celebration, recalling that the date commemorated was that of a “massacre”, and naming several civilian victims killed that day: “the taxi driver Georges-Samuel Azoulay and Laurent François; French soldiers and conscripts such as soldier Pierre Audat, brigadier-chief Eugène Cochet, André Marquet and lieutenant Darneaud or even forestry agent François Braun; local state agents like Algerian police officer Haroun Ahmed Ben Amar and, of course, schoolteacher Guy Monnerot, shot dead at age 23.”

For Marion Maréchal, by going to this festive event, “Bally Bagayoko laughs and dances celebrating the death of innocents”. The mayor of Saint-Denis declared during the evening that he wanted to pay tribute to “the freedom fighters in Algeria”.