Algeria Now

Jacques Panijel’s Documentary on 1961 Paris Massacre Returns to French Screens

· Source: Algeria Now

Jacques Panijel’s Documentary on 1961 Paris Massacre Returns to French Screens

The documentary "Octobre à Paris (1962)" by the late Jacques Panijel began its first French cinema screenings on Wednesday, 21 October 2026, after decades of censorship. The film, which was originally barred from public view and only released in 2011, revisits the tragic events of 17 October 1961 when around 30,000 Algerians marched in Paris and were violently repressed by police under Prefect Maurice Papon, resulting in nearly 300 deaths, more than 12,000 arrests and hundreds of demonstrators being thrown into the Seine.

Panijel, who co‑founded the anti‑colonial Comité Audin in 1959, spent four months shooting the documentary, structuring it into three chronological parts that detail the buildup, the crackdown and its aftermath. The screening is accompanied by René Vautier’s short film "Le Remords", adding further historical perspective. The original censorship required a pre‑screening preamble denouncing the event as a "crime d’État".

"The film’s return is a tribute to anti‑colonial cinema," Panijel said, underscoring the work’s symbolic importance. The renewed public showing marks a significant moment for French‑Algerian historical memory, offering audiences a rare visual account of a suppressed chapter of France’s colonial past.

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