Relatives of French victims of the Argentine dictatorship have condemned President Emmanuel Macron’s upcoming meeting with his Argentine counterpart Javier Milei, arguing that the libertarian leader denies the crimes of the 1976-1983 dictatorship.

“Since he took office in December 2023, the far right president Javier Milei and his Vice President Victoria Villarruel, as well as several ministers and deputies of his party, have nurtured the intention to release convicted criminals,” said a communiqué published on Wednesday by the Association of the Families of French Desaparecidos in Argentina with the title “France does not forget.” 

The press release was written after a group of libertarian deputies, spearheaded by Beltrán Benedit, visited convicted repressors in the Ezeiza federal prison on July 11.

Benedit called the trip a “humanitarian visit” and described the prisoners as “veterans of the battle against Marxist subversion under the orders of a constitutional government.” The communiqué claimed it masked the government’s intention of freeing the prisoners.

“It was obviously not a humanitarian visit — it was political,” Sophie Thonon-Wesfried, a lawyer for the Association of French Desaparecidos in Argentina and Chile, told the Herald.

The military junta forcibly took power on March 24, 1976, through a coup, dissolved Congress, and put the Constitution and civil rights on stand-by. The de facto government kidnapped, tortured, murdered, and hid the bodies of 30,000 people (desaparecidos,  Spanish for “disappeared”), including French nuns Léonie Duquet and Alice Domon.

On Friday, Macron will meet with Javier Milei, who is traveling to Paris to attend the opening ceremony of the 2024 Olympics. The communiqué warned that Macron should be “reminded that an investigation is currently underway concerning the disappearance, during the Argentine dictatorship, of 20 French citizens.”

“That a President of the French Republic receives Javier Milei, who does not see that the dictatorship was one of the most tragic chapters of Argentine history, is something that cannot be tolerated,” Thonon-Wesfried told the Herald. She added that Duquet and Domon’s disappearance was an “ever-present subject” in France.

During their presidential campaign, Milei and Villarruel referred to the dictatorship “a war.” Since taking office, the government has systematically dismantled Argentina’s long-standing memory policies. However, high-ranking officials have explicitly distanced the party from the deputies’ visit. Milei said he would not have visited the repressors during an interview with the Neura streaming channel. Villarruel, who herself visited repressors before taking office, chose not to comment, a spokesperson for her told the Herald.

The Paris Court of Appeals sentenced Navy Captain Alfredo Astiz to life imprisonment in 1990. At the time, investigations into repressors for dictatorship-era human rights abuses were barred by law. In 2011, during the first trial for the crimes committed in the clandestine detention center ESMA, Astiz was convicted of a life sentence by the Argentine judiciary.

Astiz was among the repressors the deputies visited last week. The others were Carlos Suárez Mason, Raúl Guglielminetti, Antonio Pernías, and Adolfo Donda.

“Dictatorship denialism is not a new thing, but it was never the position of an [Argentine] head of state,” Thonon-Wesfried said. “Now, state terrorism seems like something that should be glorified and that saved the country. It is very shocking for the association and for me. It’s denying the pain of 30,000 people.”