Since 2018, the Government has been working to facilitate access for all to the archives of the Algerian war. This ambition has materialized through a major amendment to the Heritage Code, which now provides that archives covered by national defense secrets are automatically declassified when they become freely communicable, by decisions to open early entire collections not freely communicable, but also by putting guides online to facilitate research in the archives. After a first guide on the disappeared from the Algerian war and a second on the Harkis, a new research tool has just been published: it concerns repatriated Algerians.
The sources on the subject being very numerous, the guide is divided into three parts:
1. A general introduction, following the usual definitions, presents the complex history of the administration responsible for repatriated persons from 1961 to the present day, then discusses the conditions for the repatriation of persons and goods.
2. A section relating to public policies presents the fonds containing individual files, and focuses on compensation and assistance policies as well as the different types of tribute paid to returnees.
3. A section relating to social policies deals with the housing and living conditions of repatriates, then work, and in particular reclassification, education, and finally the surveillance to which they have been subjected and the claims they have expressed, in particular through their associations.
Led by the Interministerial Service of the Archives of France, this extensive work is the result of close interministerial collaboration between the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs. It reports on the sources that are kept in French public archive services, both at central and territorial level; it is a broad panorama that does not aim to be exhaustive, but opens up many avenues of research.
The guide, designed to be accessible to the public unfamiliar with the functioning of archives, is intended for all those who, connoisseurs or beginners, academics or amateurs, wish to undertake research on the subject.
This work is part of the policy of recognition of memories desired by the President of the Republic and pursued by the French Government, to which the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs intend contribute fully, by allowing researchers, journalists and all interested citizens to access whole sections of the history shared between France and Algeria.
The guide is available at this link.
