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The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced on Friday the posting of a guide dedicated to the archives relating to repatriates from Algeria to facilitate access to these documents.
This is the third guide of its kind following the one devoted to the disappeared from the Algerian war and another on the Harkis, he said in a press release.
“The guide, designed to be accessible to the public unfamiliar with the functioning of archives, is aimed at all those who, connoisseurs or beginners, academics or amateurs, wish to begin research on the subject”, he underlines.
The Quai d’Orsay recalls that “since 2018, the government has been working to facilitate access for all to the archives of the Algerian war”.
To do this, the Heritage Code has been modified and “now provides that archives relating to national defense secrets are automatically declassified when they become freely communicable, by decisions to open in advance entire collections that are not freely communicable, but also by putting guides online to facilitate research in the archives”, explains the Quai d’Orsay.
The third guide is divided into three parts: a general introduction, a part relating to public policies and compensation and assistance policies, and finally a part relating to social policies which notably deals with housing and the living conditions of returnees.
The question of the memory of colonization and the war in Algeria is one of the major sensitive points in the relationship between Paris and Algiers, at the heart of several disputes in recent years.