Maurice Audin

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Mural by Audin in Algiers

Maurice Audin (born February 14, 1932 in Béja , French Tunisia , † probably June 21, 1957 in Algiers ) was a French mathematician. He was a communist political activist against the French colonial government and one of those who forcibly " disappeared " during the Battle of Algiers .

Audin was an assistant at the University of Algiers . He was a member of the communist party and supported the FLN in the Algerian struggle for independence.

On June 11, 1957, he was arrested by French paratroopers in his home and was last seen the day later by a fellow prisoner (the newspaper editor Henri Alleg ). He was taken to the Villa des Tourelles in the upscale suburb of El Biar (the paratrooper interrogation center), where he was tortured and presumably died a little later. According to the historian Pierre Vidal-Naquet , who wrote a book about the affair ( L'Affaire Audin , 1958, reprint éditions de Minuit, 1989), he died under torture at the hand of Lieutenant André Charbonnier (died 1995).

His wife Josette (nee Sempé, 1931 - February 2, 2019), with whom he had three children, was told that he had fled by jeep during a transfer. In 1957 the newspapers picked up the case and from 1959 to 1962 a judicial investigation took place in Rennes , which ended without result. Also in 1962 there was a general amnesty for crimes committed by the army and police in France as part of the Algerian uprising. The widow's appeal against the Rennes judgment was rejected in 1966. Audin was pronounced dead in Algiers in 1963. The widow tried to get clarification from the French president in 2007. In 2012, on a visit to Algeria , President François Hollande promised to raise the issue and to investigate the archives. In 2014, he stated that although the exact circumstances of his death could not be clarified, he died in custody and had not escaped, as has been alleged on occasion. According to a book by the journalist Jean-Charles Deniau, Audin was killed on the orders of the captain of the paratroopers and later general Paul Aussaresses .

On December 2, 1957, he received his doctorate in absentia under Laurent Schwartz ( About linear equations in a vector space ). Schwartz also tried in vain to clear up the matter and wrote the foreword to Vidal-Naquet's book about the affair.

Maurice Audin with his wife Josette

His daughter Michèle Audin is also a mathematician. In 2009 she refused to accept the Legion of Honor because of the lack of clarification of her father's death .

In 2018, French President Emmanuel Macron apologized on behalf of France for the death of Maurice Audin.

A square in the center of Algiers is named after him with a stele that commemorates him. Laurent Schwartz collected for a mathematics prize endowed with 500,000 francs, named after Audin. All five winners ( Michel Lazard , Paul-André Meyer , André Néron , Jean-Pierre Kahane , Pierre Cartier ) were in the resistance against the French war in Algeria .

literature

  • Michèle Audin, Une vie brève, Paris, Gallimard, coll. “L'arbalète”, 2013, ISBN 978-2070140015
  • Pierre Vidal-Naquet, L'Affaire Audin, Paris, Éditions de Minuit, 1958
  • Pierre Vidal-Naquet, L'Affaire Audin, 1957-1978, éditions de Minuit, 1989

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Article about the affair in La Liberation (French)
  2. ^ Message du Président de la République à l'occasion de la remise du prix Maurice Audin pour les mathématiques, 2014, Web Archive
  3. Deniau, La vérité sur la mort de Maurice Audin, Des Equateurs 2014, based on Paul-Francois Paoli: Guerre d'Algérie: l'énigme Maurice Audin résolue?, Le Figaro, January 30, 2014
  4. Algerian War: France admits “system” of torture. In: ORF . September 13, 2018, accessed September 14, 2018 .