FRANCE: Presidential candidate was a torturer
01 May 2002
Fresh allegations of torture were levelled against presidential candidate and far-right Front National (FN) leader, Jean-Marie Le Pen, in the run up to the French parliamentary elections in June. Evidence gathered in Algiers by the French daily Le Monde, who interviewed new witnesses, and reported in the Guardian, confirmed previous reports that the anti-immigrant politician engaged in a torture campaign involving electrocution, rape and beatings during the Algerian war of independence. Le Pen had won several court cases against those accusing him of torture, before losing to the historian, Pierre Vidal-Naquest in a case last year. It was revealed that as long ago as 1962 that he had boasted of his involvement in torture.
In a 1962 interview with Combat magazine, Le Pen said: "When someone is brought to you who has planted 20 bombs that could explode at any moment and who will not talk, you use all the methods at your disposal to make him talk." Despite admitting in the same interview, that he "tortured when necessary", the new charges have been denied by Le Pen who has threatened to sue Le Monde. The French paper has found four new witnesses, now in their 60s or 70s, who were supporters of Algeria's National Liberation Front in their war against the French colonial regime.
One of the men, Abdelkar Ammour, a retired teacher identified Le Pen as one of a group of 20 soldiers who "interrogated" him. He was stripped and forced to the floor where:
they connected up electric wires...and moved them all over my body. I was screaming. They took dirty water from the toilet and made me swallow it through a floor cloth held over my face. Le Pen was sitting on me. He held the cloth while someone else poured the water
Ammour's description was backed-up by other eye-witnesses; Ghaniya Merouane described to the Guardian Le Pen's enthusiasm for his job, urging his men to carry out increasingly violent acts. The Merouane family, whose father Mohamed was a resistance leader, said Le Pen was in charge when the French tortured members of their family:
The electricity was put on their chests and on their ear lobes. Mr Le Pen and the others brought a metal jerry can of water. They poured water on them. It made them shake. My father did not cry. But Mustapha was so young [then aged 18] that he cried. He suffered
Le Pen's party, the Front National, has based its political philosophy on racist principles - in particular scapegoating France's Algerian and Muslim citizens. This popularist and extremist rhetoric took him to the run-offs of the presidential election in May, leading to massive demonstrations across France. Le Pen attracted around 5.5 million voters making the FN Europe's most successful extremist movement.
Le Monde 3, 4.6.02; Guardian 4.6.02ste.mobi/b.js>
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