FRANCE/ALGERIA: Much was swept under the red carpet of the President's visit, writes Lara Marlowe in Paris
The President of France will complete an extraordinary three-day state visit to Algeria today, 47 years after 2nd Lieut Jacques Chirac fought rebels as a platoon leader near the Moroccan border.
The most poignant moment of his stay was undoubtedly the laying of a wreath in homage to the men Mr Chirac once fought, at sunset beneath the Martyrs' Memorial on the heights of Algiers.
It has taken four decades for the wounds of the Franco-Algerian war to begin to heal, and the journey - the first of its kind since Algeria gained independence in 1962 - was meant "to lay the foundation for a strong, new relationship, resolutely turned towards the future."
In a speech to the Algerian parliament yesterday, Mr Chirac said: "Yes, our two peoples have a shared history, with its shadows and its wounds, but also with its pages of life and harmony. We must not forget nor deny this complex, painful past."
In one of many symbolic gestures, Mr Chirac returned the silver seal of the Ottoman Dey of Algiers to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
It had been stolen by the French expeditionary force that invaded Algeria in 1830. Mr Chirac also gave Mr Bouteflika, who celebrated his 66th birthday on Sunday, three volumes of Gen Charles de Gaulle's War Memoirs, bound in red leather.
Could there be greater historical irony than for a French President and veteran of the Algerian war to be greeted in the capital by a delirious crowd cheering "raïs ouna" ("our president")?
Mr Chirac is far more popular than his host, Mr Bouteflika, who hopes the state visit will help convince the generals who run the country that he is a valuable bridge to the outside world, and should be "re-elected" when his five-year term ends next year.
Mr Chirac's immense popularity in Algeria is due to his stand in the Iraq crisis. "All against Bush" was another slogan chanted by the crowds who welcomed Mr Chirac.
The Arab world has experienced the disarmament of Iraq as the latest in a long series of humiliations.
Mr Chirac's visit might even protect the world "from the dangers of American globalisation that threatens mankind," the moderate Islamist newspaper, Errai, reported.
Algerian officials claimed 1.5 million people lined the highway from the airport and the streets of the capital, but several hundred thousand is more realistic.
As with everything in Franco-Algerian relations, the acclamation of Mr Chirac as the champion of their fellow Arabs in Iraq was based on a misunderstanding - that Mr Chirac is anti-Bush, anti-American and a supporter of Saddam Hussein - all things he denies.
Mr Chirac's script on Iraq did not vary, even in Algeria. "The use of force must always be the last resort," he said at the state dinner on Sunday night.
"France is pursuing one goal only," he continued before the parliament yesterday, "disarming Iraq, in conformity with the will of the international community, to the greatest possible extent by peaceful means. . ."
The French President noted that ties between the two countries "are also those of Islam, which is the second religion in France."
He wanted to send "a message of friendship, esteem and respect to all these women and men who live their faith through an Islam that is open to the world."
The triumphant welcome given to Mr Chirac was also a disavowal by Algerians of the men who have ruled them since independence.
Seventy per cent of the population are under the age of 30, and unemployment exceeds 50 per cent in that age group. One slogan was heard even more than chants against President Bush: "Chi-rac, Chi-rac, vi-sas, vi-sas."
The prosperity of France is a beacon to young Algerians, but since the war between security forces and Islamist rebels started 11 years ago, the number of visas given to Algerians has dropped from 800,000 to 183,000 annually.
The "Algiers Declaration" signed by Mr Chirac and Mr Bouteflika commits both countries "to promoting the free movement of Algerians in France and of French citizens in Algeria".
The statement contradicts the French Interior Minister's stated policy of fighting illegal immigration by decreasing the number of visas issued.
Between 150,000 and 200,000 Algerians have been killed in the past decade.
And the blood-letting continues. Only a week ago 12 people were murdered at a checkpoint set up by rebels at Tipaza, near Algiers.
But at a time when Paris is eager to block US inroads into the Algerian gas and petroleum market, much was swept under the red carpet of Mr Chirac's visit.
Photographs held up by the mothers of the "disappeared" - estimated by Human Rights Watch to number at least 7,000 - were probably not even glimpsed by Mr Chirac amid the huge posters of himself and Mr Bouteflika.
Forgotten, too, is evidence that Algerian military intelligence may have been involved in the kidnapping of seven French monks who were murdered in May 1996, or the explosion that killed the French-born Bishop of Oran two months later.
Two of the men who greeted Mr Chirac at Algiers airport, Mr Bouteflika's chief-of-staff, Gen Larbi Belkheir, and the Minister of Defence, Gen Mohamed Lamari, are among those who hold real power in Algeria. That has not changed.
Now there is talk of a "general amnesty" for the crimes of the past decade.
In the words of an open letter signed by 14 prominent Algerian and French intellectuals in Le Monde, "the main obsession of the Algiers generals is to protect themselves from pursuit by international or foreign courts for the atrocities they organised - torture on an industrial scale, the summary execution of tens of thousands of civilians, the manipulation of Islamist violence to an extent that is beyond understanding, systematic disinformation to hide their crimes, even as they committed them."