President Emmanuel Macron of France has now admitted that the French state committed terrible crimes in the long war (1954–1962) to prevent Algerian independence: “No crime, no atrocity committed by anyone during the War of Algeria can be excused or left hidden.”

Macron can hardly deny the war crimes, which are now a matter of public record: torture, executions on dubious grounds, the unlawful killing of prisoners. Up to half a million people — mostly Algerian Muslims but also including thousands of reluctant French conscripts — died in the course of the war.

However, what Macron cannot explain is why France persisted for so long in a war that was both deeply immoral and plainly futile. The mainstream political parties — those of the Left at least as much as those of the Right — insisted that Algeria was an integral part of French territory and that its independence was not a matter for discussion.