Recognize and repair the Harkie tragedy, sixty years following the end of the Algerian war. Parliament definitively adopted this Tuesday, by a final very broad vote of the Senate, a bill to ask for “pardon” and try to “repair” the damage suffered by the harkis and their families. The text recognizes “the conditions unworthy of the reception” reserved for the 90,000 harkis, recruited as auxiliaries of the French army during the conflict between 1954 and 1962, and their families who fled Algeria following independence in 1962 .
This bill is “that of the recognition by the Nation of a deep tear and a French tragedy, of a dark page in our History”, commented the Minister in charge of Memory and Veterans Affairs, Geneviève Darrieussecq. . “We are moving forward on the path of reconciliation and memory which, we know, will still be long,” said Les Républicains rapporteur for the Senate, Marie-Pierre Richer.
Up to 15,000 euros in repairs
Nearly half of the harkis were relegated to camps and “foresting hamlets” following the war. “These places were places of banishment that bruised, traumatized and sometimes killed,” according to the minister. For these, the bill provides for “reparation” of the damage with, as a result, a lump sum which takes into account the duration of the stay in these structures, from 2,000 to 15,000 euros. The number of potential beneficiaries is estimated by the government at 50,000, for an overall cost of 310 million euros over approximately six years.
While the level of compensation was deemed “low” or even “ridiculous” by some, disappointment crystallized with the approximately 40,000 returnees excluded from compensation because they had stayed in “urban estates” where they were not deprived of freedom of movement, even though they experienced precarious living conditions.
Sixty years following the end of the Algerian war, this text materializes a commitment made by Emmanuel Macron on September 20. The Head of State had asked “forgiveness” to these Algerians who fought alongside the French army, but who were “abandoned” by France following the signing of the Evian agreements on March 18, 1962.
