The Memorial to the Liberation of Algeria is a brutalist monument on Boulevard Mohamed-Khemisti in Algiers. It was designed in 1978 by Algerian visual artist M'hamed Issiakhem, as Algiers was preparing to host the 1978 All-Africa Games. The memorial incorporates an earlier sculpted group from the French colonial era, formerly known as the monument aux morts or Le Pavois (referring to a shield used to carry somebody on high), no longer visible but still extant beneath a concrete casing.
Le Pavois was designed by architects Maurice Gras et Édouard Monestès and sculptors Paul Landowski and Charles Bigonet , winners of the public design competition in 1920, and inaugurated on 11 November 1928. [1] It featured a winged Victory evoking Marianne between a French poilu and an Algerian spahi, all three on horseback and together holding a shield (French : pavois) on which rests the body of a fallen World War I combatant. [2] Additional figures included two women and two old men on the monument's back, intended to symbolize the emotional ties between the diverse communities of French Algeria. [3]
Issiakhem's design was a conscious endeavor to preserve the French colonial monument, which also honored the suffering of Algerian fighters, while removing it from public view. [2]
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The Organisation armée secrète was a far-right French dissident paramilitary and terrorist organisation during the Algerian War. The OAS carried out terrorist attacks, including bombings and assassinations, in an attempt to prevent Algeria's independence from French colonial rule. Its motto was L’Algérie est française et le restera.
The Algerian War was a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) from 1954 to 1962, which led to Algeria winning its independence from France. An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare and war crimes. The conflict also became a civil war between the different communities and within the communities. The war took place mainly on the territory of Algeria, with repercussions in metropolitan France.
Paul Bigot was a French architect.
Paul Maximilien Landowski was a French monument sculptor of Polish descent. His best-known work is Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Pierre Lagaillarde was a French politician, and a founder of the Organisation armée secrète (OAS).
Elements from the French Armed Forces used deliberate torture during the Algerian War (1954–1962), creating an ongoing public controversy. Pierre Vidal-Naquet, a renowned French historian, estimated that there were "hundreds of thousands of instances of torture" by the French military in Algeria.
Oulchy-le-Château is a commune in the Aisne department in Hauts-de-France in northern France.
Paul Moreau-Vauthier was a French sculptor.
The War memorials (Oise) or Monuments aux Morts of Oise are French war memorials commemorating those men of the region who died in World War I.
Charles Desvergnes (1860–1928) was a French sculptor.
Malek Haddad was an Algerian poet and writer in the French language.
Victor Edmond Nicolas was a French sculptor.
M'hamed Issiakhem is one of the founders of the modern Algerian painting.
Albert Pommier was a French sculptor.
Mohammed V Square is a public square of historical and symbolic significance located in central Casablanca, Morocco. It was established in 1916 at the beginning of the French protectorate in Morocco under Resident-general Hubert Lyautey, on a design by architects Henri Prost and Joseph Marrast.
Captain Antoine Dominique Biancamaria was a French colonial infantry officer.
Ahmed Mahsas was an Algerian militant in the nationalist movement against French Algeria.
The Government Palace, known before 1962 as Gouvernement général, is the office of the Prime Minister of Algeria and a major public building in Algiers. At the time of its inauguration in 1933, with a surface of 33,000 m2, it was the largest administrative building of the entire French state.
The Boufarik colonization monument was a monument celebrating French colonization in Boufarik, Algeria. It was erected in 1930 and demolished in 1962.
