PLACE DES MARTYRS (FORMER GOVERNMENT SQUARE)
The Place de Martyrs resembled a cosmopolitan forum, where Algerians, Jews and soldiers met..
After many years of work of all kinds (for the metro, for archaeological excavations...), the Martyrs Square has finally been given a facelift and was inaugurated with its new face in 2018. Clear, the vast square is open to the port and the sea. It is bordered by arcaded buildings to the west and south, by the El-Djedid mosque to the east and extended by the place of May 8, 1945 (former place of the Regency) to the north. Very airy and pleasant, it brings a breath of fresh air in the urban landscape of Algiers.
History. When the French occupy Algiers, the creation of a place of arms becomes necessary. The Es-Saïda mosque, the Djenina palace, the streets of the dyers, jewelers and gunsmiths and no less than 420 old houses were destroyed to allow the Government Square to be built in 1841. Soon planted with bellombras, orange trees and plane trees, the square became the center of the new colonial city. As a meeting point for Algerians, Jews, soldiers, sailors, settlers, etc., it took on the appearance of a cosmopolitan forum. It was the scene of banquets, processions and parades. On October 28, 1845, the bronze equestrian statue of the Duke of Orleans, the work of Marchetti, was inaugurated. It is 5 meters high and weighs 8 tons. The square remains the heart of Algiers until the displacement of the city towards the south at the beginning of the XXth century. It was renamed "Place des Martyrs" at Independence to pay tribute to the victims of the war.
