ALGERIAN, FRENCH, REFUGEES, REPATRIATES, IMMIGRANTS
Transcription
ALGERIAN, FRENCH, REFUGEES, REPATRIATES, IMMIGRANTS
The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of the Liberal Arts ALGERIAN, FRENCH, REFUGEES, REPATRIATES, IMMIGRANTS? HARKI CITIZENS IN POST-IMPERIAL FRANCE (1962-2005) A Dissertation in French by Jeannette E. Miller © 2012 Jeannette E. Miller Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2012 The dissertation of Jeannette E. Miller was reviewed and approved* by the following: Willa Z. Silverman Professor of French and Jewish Studies Dissertation Adviser Chair of Committee Jennifer A. Boittin Associate Professor of French, Francophone Studies, and History Tobias A. Brinkmann Malvin and Lea Bank Associate Professor of Jewish Studies and History Thomas A. Hale Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of African, French, and Comparative Literature Sophie de Schaepdrijver Associate Professor of History Patrick Weil Directeur de recherche, CNRS/Université de Paris-I Special Member Jean-Claude Vuillemin Professor of French Head of the Department of French and Francophone Studies *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. ii ABSTRACT Through an analysis of the national creation and the local implementation of French government policies toward the harki population, “Algerian, French, Refugees, Repatriates, Immigrants? Harki Citizens in Post-Imperial France (1962-2005)” examines this group’s post-imperial citizenship. To escape the violence in Algeria, 20,000 of these native Algerians who fought for France during the 1954-1962 Algerian War migrated to France with their family members (totaling 100,000 people) during the 1960s. The government placed half of the “repatriated” population in camps, choosing to hide from public view these reminders of the end of France’s colonial dominance. Using two local case studies—the Rivesaltes camp near Perpignan and a rural housing development in the Provencal forest—this dissertation focuses on harki citizens’ nationality, exile, integration, protests, and memorialization. The post-imperial French state, indelibly marked by colonial methods of governance and the loss of French Algeria, marginalized harki citizens from both French society and access to some rights accorded other citizens. Government officials enacted policies that prolonged the colonial Algerian practice of differentiating populations based on ethnicity and attributed to the harkis an unclear status, which questioned their belonging on French soil. Grounded in documents from twenty different national and local public archives and private archival collections, my study is balanced with interviews of harki population members and government officials, memoirs, periodical articles, and judicial texts. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi LIST OF FIGURES viii LIST OF TABLES ix ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS x Introduction Harki Citizens: Between Algeria and France, Between the Colonial and Postcolonial 1 Harki Citizens: A Contradiction Ethnic Soldiering and the Harkis Algeria, France, and Harki Citizens The Colonial, the Postcolonial, and Harki Citizens Writing about the Harki Population: From Actors to Observers A Note on Sources Overview 5 10 15 21 26 32 36 Section 1 Introduction: The Harkis’ Nationality Amidst a Franco-French War 38 Chapter 1 Algerians? The Harkis’ Deeply “Rooted” Colonial Status 44 The “Nationalité Dénaturée” of Algerian Muslims The “Nationalité Dénaturée” of the Harkis The Harkis’ Future in an “Algerian Algeria” The Harkis’ Future in Post-Imperial France Conclusion: Algerians in a Franco-French War Chapter 2 French? Movements of Post-Imperial Citizens Distancing Harki Soldiers from France Violence and “Repatriation” “Harkis” as “Rapatriés”? The OAS, the Harkis, and “Repatriating” the Franco-French War “Security” over Movements of (Post) Empire Violence and Nationality Becoming “French” Citizens Conclusion: Harki Citizens 48 52 56 61 68 70 77 81 94 104 111 118 131 141 Section 2 Introduction: Harki Citizens’ Exile in France 144 Chapter 3 Refugees? The Harkis’ “Univers Concentrationnaire” at the Rivesaltes Camp 161 A Camp for “Foreigners” Tents and Barracks The Power of Encadrement Community of Exile: An Isolated Population Social Advancement: Toward the Reclassement of the Harkis Conclusion: Leaving the Rivesaltes “Univers Concentrationnaire” iv 166 173 194 207 218 225 Chapter 4 Repatriates? The Post-Imperial Government’s Forest Hamlet “Integration” Policy The First Phase: Developing the Government’s Contradictory Forest Hamlet Policy The Second Phase: Evaluating and “Extend[ing] the Forest Hamlet Experiment” Envisioning Permanent Forest Hamlets & Ending the Ministry of Repatriates’ Mission Shifting Responsibilities and a Permanent Forest Hamlet Policy Conclusion: Failed Integration Policy for the Harki “Repatriates” Chapter 5 Immigrants? Isolation in Rural Southern France Fuveau’s “Foreigners”: From Miners to Harkis The First Decade in Fuveau: Isolation and Encadrement The First Decade in Fuveau: Isolation and Integration Chapter 6 Refugees, Repatriates, and Immigrants. The “Harki Problem” Reevaluating Government Policies Protests and Revising Government Policies The Failure of Revised Policies in Fuveau Conclusion: Refugees, Repatriates, Immigrants? Conclusion Harki Citizens. Remembering a Forgotten Population From 1975 to 1991: Protests, Status Quo, and More Protests Harki Citizens and Commemoration From Algeria to France, From the Colonial to Postcolonial 228 236 248 267 273 288 293 299 309 319 337 340 350 361 369 373 377 385 391 Appendix A Interview with Monsieur le Chancelier de l’Institut Pierrre Messmer 400 Appendix B “Annexes relatant les principales exactions connues” 407 Appendix C “Audition du nommé AA” 410 Appendix D List of Forest Hamlets in France 413 Appendix E Population of Forest Hamlets 416 Appendix F “Règlement intérieur concernant l’hébergement dans les hameaux forestiers” 417 BIBLIOGRAPHY 418 v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ACF: Archives Communales de Fuveau ACR: Archives Communales de Rivesaltes ACRA: Archives Communales de la Roque d’Antheron ACNMF: Archives du Comité national pour les Musulmans Français ADAF: Amicale des Algériens en France ADBR: Archives Départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseille) ADPO: Archives Départementales des Pyrénées-Orientales (Perpignan) ADV: Archives Départementales du Var (Draguignan) AFN: Afrique du nord ALN: Armée de Libération Nationale AN: Centre Historique des Archives Nationales (Paris) ANP: Armée nationale populaire (d’Algérie) AONACBR: Archives du Service Départemental de l’Office national des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre des Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseille) AONFBR: Archives de l’Office National des Forêts, Département des Bouches-du-Rhône (Aix-enProvence) ASRBR: Archives du Service des Rapatriés des Bouches-du-Rhône (Marseille) ASANHLMM: Archives de la Société Anonyme Nouvelle d’HLM de Marseille ASSRA: Assistante sanitaire et sociale rurale auxiliaire ATOM: Aide aux travailleurs d’Outremer BIAC: Bureaux d’information, d’aide administrative et de conseils pour les Français musulmans CAA: Corps d’Armée d’Alger CAC: Centre des Archives Contemporaines (Fontainebleau) CAC: Corps d’Armée de Constantine CAO: Corps d’Armée d’Oran CARA: Cité d’Accueil des Rapatriés Algériens (Bias) CEMJ: Centre d’Entraînement des Monitrices de la Jeunesse Algérienne (Nantes) CIC: Certificat d’Initiation de Construction CIMADE: Service œcuménique d’entraide, formerly Comité Inter-Mouvements auprès des Evacués CFMRAA: Confédération des Français musulmans rapatriés d’Algérie et leurs amis CFPA: Centre de Formation Professionnelle Accélérée (Rivesaltes) CMFP: Centre Militaire de Formation Professionnelle (Rivesaltes, Fontenay-le-Comte) CNMF: Comité nationale pour les Musulmans Français CRA: Centre de Rétention Administrative CSFA: Commandant Supérieur des Forces en Algérie EMAT: Etat-major de l’Armée de Terre EMI: Etat-major Interarmées FAFA: Forces Armées Françaises en Algérie FFFLN: Fédération française du front de libération nationale FLN: Front de libération nationale FMA: Français musulman d’Algérie FMR: Français musulman rapatrié FNRFCI: Front National des Rapatriés Français de Confession Islamique FPA: Force de police auxiliaire FSNA: Français de souche nord-africaine FSE: Français de souche européen GAD: Groupe d’autodéfense GMPR: Groupe mobile de protection rurale GMS: Groupe mobile de sécurité GPRA: Gouvernement Provisoire de la République Algérienne vi HLM: Habitation à loyer modéré IGAME: Inspecteur Général de l’Administration en Mission extraordinaire INA: Institut national de l’audiovisuel INSEE: Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques JORF: Journal Officiel de la République Française MADRMAN: Le Mouvement d’assistance et de défense des rapatriés musulmans d’Afrique du Nord MAE: Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (La Corneuve, formerly in Paris) MRP: Mouvement Républicain Populaire OAS: Organisation de l’Armée Secrète ONAC: Office national des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre ONF: Office national des forêts PCF: Parti Communiste Français PSU: Parti Socialiste Unifié RONA: Rapatriés d’origine nord-africaine RPF: Rassemblement pour la France SANHLMM: Société Anonyme Nouvelle d’HLM de Marseille SAS: Sections administratives sociales SCINA: Service de coordination et d’information nord-africaine SEAA: Secrétariat d’Etat chargé des Affaires algériennes SFIM: Service d’accueil et de reclassement des Français d’Indochine et des Français musulmans SHAT: Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre (Vincennes) SONACOTRA: Société nationale de construction pour les travailleurs SPDP: Sciences Po Dossiers de Presse (Paris) UN: United Nations vii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: “L’Algérie de demain” pamphlet 66 Figure 2: Map of northern Algeria 71 Figure 3: Refugee camps on the northern coast of Algeria 89 Figure 4: The Bourg-Lastic and Larzac transit camps located in rural southern France 108 Figure 5: Harkis arriving in Marseille on June 12, 1962 109 Figure 6: Harki families waiting in the Marseille harbor to be transported to the Bourg-Lastic camp June 23, 1962 109 Figure 7: Harki families residing in canvas military tents at the Bourg-Lastic camp in summer 1962 112 Figure 8: Makeshift courtroom set up for nationality ceremonies at the Rivesaltes camp 133 Figure 9: A harki in front of the magistrate during a nationality ceremony in summer 1963 133 Figure 10: Copy of Mohamed M.’s nationality declaration 135 Figure 11: Present-day map of Fuveau 150 Figure 12: Ferhat K. preparing kesra 152 Figure 13: Geographical location of Rivesaltes 167 Figure 14: Image of the CMFP Nº1 from a pamphlet issued by the Ministry of Labor 171 Figure 15: Harkis arriving in Rivesaltes from Bourg-Lastic on September 16, 1962 175 Figure 16: Monthly population statistics of the harkis residing at the Rivesaltes camp 178 Figure 17: Housing of harkis at the Rivesaltes camp in tents versus buildings 180 Figure 18: Sketch of the Rivesaltes camp in the fall of 1962 182 Figure 19: Hollowed out barrack at the Rivesaltes camp 187 Figure 20: The dimensions and layout of the barracks, as captured in July 1963 188 Figure 21: Outhouses with Turkish toilets on the Rivesaltes camp grounds 189 Figure 22: Carnet familial de rapatrié of M’hamed H. 205 Figure 23: Number of weekly arrivals and departures of harkis to and from the Rivesaltes camp 209 Figure 24: Percentage of reclassement by number of jobs viii 248 Figure 25: Percentage of reclassement by number of people 248 Figure 26: Number of forest hamlets per department 260 Figure 27: Number of forest hamlet inhabitants from December 15, 1962 to January 1, 1965 272 Figure 28: The town of Fuveau 295 Figure 29: Satellite image of Fuveau in 2011 301 Figure 30: Map of Fuveau in 1974 303 Figure 31: Standardized architectural drawing of the “type A” forest hamlet buildings 306 Figure 32: Officials welcoming harkis and their families to the sylvan surroundings in Fuveau 310 Figure 33: A harki and his family walking to their new home in the Fuveau forest hamlet 321 Figure 34: Children of harkis blocking the entrance to the Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camp in 1975 355 Figure 35: Masked harki sons bearing rifles and dynamite on the balcony of the Saint-Laurentdes-Arbres town hall 356 Figure 36: Riot police outside of the Bias camp on August 18, 1975 358 Figure 37: Blueprint of the Fuveau forest hamlet 362 Figure 38: Ali H. pictured in front of one of the original forest hamlet buildings in 1996 with a former GMS soldier who resides in Fuveau 364 Figure 39: Row of four reconstructed residences at the Fuveau forest hamlet 366 Figure 40: Protest at the Fuveau forest hamlet, July 1, 1991 382 Figure 41: Peaceful march led by harkis and their families on July 13, 1991 385 Figure 42: Aissa B. and Abdelkader B. in front of le monument aux morts in Fuveau on September 398 25, 2009 ix LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Number of auxiliary soldiers serving in the French Army (January 1957-March 1962) 14 Table 2: Population of European descent in Algeria from 1833 to 1926 95 Table 3: Harkis age eighteen and older requesting, granted, and refused French nationality from 130 1962 to 1970 Table 4: List of forest hamlets in France 252 Table 5: Forest hamlets and forestry worksites open from December 1962 to December 1975 267 Table 6: Population of the Fuveau forest hamlet from 1964 to 1976 335 Table 7: Size and number of the thirty-one new houses in the Fuveau forest hamlet 364 x ACKNOWLEDGMENTS While studying for my comprehensive exams I came across the first time that I heard the word “harkis.” I wrote in my October 10, 2002 notes from Emmanuelle Saada’s “Colonization, Immigration, and National Identity” class: les harkis (indigènes who sided w/ Fr Army) – who were massacred, or if they moved to Fr they were treated horribly – refugee camps in last couple of yrs they have been recognized The same day Emmanuelle instructed us to begin thinking about a topic for our final papers. My first final paper in graduate school, “The Recognition of the Harkis,” set me off on a quest to understand the contradiction exposed in the two lines of my class notes. Over nine years later, having conducted research in twenty different national, departmental, local, and personal archives as well as having and interviewed dozens of harkis, civil servants, local and national politicians who oversaw harki citizens during the last 50 years, I submit this dissertation. To begin my journey, faculty, courses, colleagues, and speakers at New York University’s Institute of French Studies instilled in me an intellectual curiosity about France’s largely occulted immigration history and the workings of the French Fifth Republic. The encouragement that I continue to receive from Ed Berenson, Herrick Chapman, and Françoise Gramet is precious to me. During my PhD training at Penn State University, I was grateful to the Department of French and Francophone Studies for offering me many occasions to present my work. Each time, I received thoughtprovoking feedback from fellow graduate students and professors. My dissertation was enriched by the good fortune to work with two fabulous directors. Willa Silverman’s perceptive reading of many drafts of my work helped me to become a more critical thinker and a better writer. Your support and compassionate belief in me are greatly cherished. Patrick Weil encouraged me to pursue my final paper for his Fifth Republic France class as my dissertation topic under his co-direction. I thank you for pushing me to leave no archival or interview stone unturned and for our many probing conversations over the years. My committee members—Jennifer Boittin, Tobias Brinkmann, Thomas Hale, and Sophie de Schaepdrijver—made valuable contributions to my development as a scholar and were devoted advocates in my academic pursuits. Tobias, I particularly appreciate your astute reading of chapters in draft form and our invaluable conversations about migration. The intellectual support I received extended outside of my departments and universities. From my first semester of graduate school through the end of the dissertation project, I benefited from many stimulating discussions on both sides of the Atlantic. I particularly wish to acknowledge Françoise de Barros, Vincent Crapanzano, Greg Eghigian, Claire Eldridge, François-Xavier Hautreux, JeanJacques Jordi, Abderahmen Moumen, Ed Naylor, Denis Peschanski, Stéphanie Ponsavady, Todd Shepard, Alexis Spire, Benjamin Stora, and Sylvie Thénault. I extend heartfelt appreciation to my dear friends and colleagues Melissa K Byrnes and Yann Scioldo-Zürcher for providing me with excellent comments on my work and seeing me through the ups and downs of research, writing, and life as a graduate student. I am extremely grateful to the following organizations and institutions for the financial support that made my schooling and research possible. The Penn State University College of Liberal Arts and the xi New York University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences funded my graduate training and travel to conferences. A pre-dissertation grant from the Florence J. Gould Foundation allowed me to explore the French archives for the first time. The generous support of the William J. Fulbright Foundation, la Société des professeurs français et francophones d’Amérique, the Society for French Historical Studies, the Western Society for French History, and l’Institut français de Washington made possible my eighteen months of research in France, without which this dissertation could not have been written. The Africana Research Center at Penn State University provided me with a teaching release to begin writing. The Camargo Foundation in Cassis offered me ideal and picturesque conditions for my work. And the CNRS/NYU Transitions Research Center welcomed me as a fellow to participate in its seminars, which strengthened my foundation in memory studies. In France, I wish to thank the many archivists, librarians, and individuals who facilitated my access to the thousands of documents that I consulted. In particular, Claudie Le Cossec at the Archives Nationales persistently hunted down officials at numerous ministries to help me acquire derogations and François Gasnault and Géraldine Gall at the Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône were particularly helpful as I searched for documents that had not been deposited into the archives. A special thank you to the following people who allowed me to consult their personal archives and interview them: Slimane Djera, Marie-Joseph Haupte, Saïd Merabti, Prime Minister Pierre Messmer, Senator Roger Romani, and André Wormser. My thanks as well as to the following associations and public offices for granting me access to their papers: the Office National des Forêts departmental office in Aix-en-Provence, the Direction de la Cohésion Sociale et Emploi (successor to the Service des Rapatriés) in the Marseille Prefecture, the Mission Interministérielle aux Rapatriés in Paris, the Société Anonyme Nouvelle d’HLM de Marseille, the Office National des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre departmental office in Marseille, and the ADOMA (successor to the SONACOTRA) in Marseille. Municipal officials and civil servants in Fuveau, la Roque d’Anthéron, and Rivesaltes shared with me their experiences interacting with the harki population living in their towns. I particularly wish to recognize la Roque d’Anthéron mayor, Dr. Jean-Louis Turcan; former social counselor in la Roque d’Anthéron forest hamlet, Raymonde Guillet; Fuveau town councilman and former GMS soldier, Maklouf Habbaz (who also served as a translator); and especially former Fuveau town councilman, Michel Tholomier, whose dedication to the harki population at the Cité Brogilum was touching. Full library privileges at Sciences Po in Paris greatly facilitated my access to its rich press dossiers, its collection of books and periodicals, and French dissertations from across the country as well as provided me with a tranquil library workspace. The Génériques Association, with the permission of André Wormser’s brother, Marcel Wormser, generously allowed me to consult the archives of the Comité National pour les Musulmans Français just after its archivist, Quentin Dupuis, finished cataloguing them. I am grateful for the subsidized housing provided by the Fondation Paul-Albert Février in Aix-en-Provence. My thanks to Amy Tondu at the Fulbright Commission in Paris, the équipe at NYU in Paris, and the staff and directors at the Camargo Foundation for their enthusiastic support of my work and administrative help. Sharing the most delicate, difficult parts of one’s past is challenging. This project would have been much less meaningful, and much less interesting, without the opportunity to meet members of the harki population in Fuveau, Jouques, Marseille, Paris, Perpignan, Rivesaltes, and la Roque d’Anthéron. I profusely thank all those—harkis, harki wives, harki children, and the harkette I met in Marseille on a sunny June afternoon—who shared their past and present with me and entrusted me with their histories. I am particularly grateful to Aïcha, the first member of the harki population whom I met in November 2006, her husband André, her brother Bouziane, her mother Ferhat xii whose melodious voice and humor enlightened our interviews, and her father Mohammed who served ten years in the French Army during the wars of decolonization. Some magnificent friends made France feel like home. David Bonnaffé and Yann Scioldo-Zürcher gave me a home base in Paris and welcomed me into their family to experience my first Noël français. Patrick, Pascale, and “le petit” Rémi Bosch housed me during my research in Perpignan and spoiled me each time I returned to visit them. Françoise, Elliott, and Gaspard Murphy provided me with a home on the rue Beauregard since my first year of graduate school. Dinners chez Scott Gunther and Enrique Avila were a lovely way to spend many Sunday evenings in Paris during my first year of research. Yamina Boudellal was helpful each time I returned to Aix-en-Provence since first studying abroad there in 1995. The story of her father, a former FLN leader in France who, unbeknownst to his family, made it a mission at the end of his life to visit hospitalized harkis with few visitors poignantly contradicted the myth that all Algerians believe that the harkis were “traitors.” Paul and the late Lucy Schwartz generously lent me their apartment in Aix multiple times during the last phase of my dissertation research. The camaraderie of the “glamoisie”—Chris Dietz, Eddie Kolla, and Libby Murphy—at Camargo (et après) was a beautiful gift of laughter, friendship, and hours in the library capped off with Mediterranean dips. Graduate school is an odyssey. During this time some wonderful people laughed with me in the silly moments, walked with me during the difficult times, and always believed in me. Alan Baehr, Amy Blanch, Keren Baltzer, Connie Blackburn, Amanda Dalola, Wendy Moran, Leslie Ray, Erin Sorenson, Russell Spinney, Barbara Thompson, Aurélie Van de Wiele, and Amy Wendholt: your love and support played an invaluable role in helping me to accomplish things great and small. For this and your many other gifts, I thank you de tout cœur. xiii In appreciation of the love and support of my parents, Doug and Joyce Miller, who made it with me to the end of this journey. Dedicated to the memory of my “big sister” Jill E. Hungerford, whose words and example continue to inspire me each day. xiv The historian’s task is not to disrupt for the sake of it, but it is to tell what is almost always an uncomfortable story and explain why the discomfort is part of the truth we need to live well and live properly.1 ~Tony Judt Donald A. Yerxa, “Postwar: An Interview with Tony Judt,” Historically Speaking VII no. 3 (Jan.-Feb. 2006): 20. President Bouteflika’s comment came in response to President Chirac’s question about granting visas to visit Algeria to former harkis who were French citizens. Algerian officials have routinely denied anyone who (or is suspected to have served) as a harki during the Algerian War for Independence entry into his former homeland. As will be discussed below, during the Algerian War for Independence the term “harki” referred to a specific type of native Algerian auxiliary soldier in the French Army. At the end of the war the Algerian and French governments applied the label to any native Algerian who had fought for France or was perceived to have been “pro-French.” Throughout this dissertation, I use “Algerian War for Independence,” a term that situates the war in a transnational space between France and Algeria. Historian Sylvie Thénault argues that “Algerian War for Independence” is a marriage of the French appellation “Algerian War” (emphasizing the French government’s fight to keep its sovereignty over Algeria) and two Algerian designations, “War 1 1 xv INTRODUCTION Harki Citizens: Between Algeria and France, Between the Colonial and Postcolonial Je crois que les conditions [ne] sont pas encore venues pour des visites de harkis [en Algérie]… C’est exactement comme si on demandait à un Français de la Résistance de toucher la main à un collabo… - President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Paris, June 16, 2000 In a live television interview with French President Jacques Chirac during his first state visit to France, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika pronounced these words about harkis—native Algerians who had fought for France during the 1954-1962 Algerian War for Independence, approximately 100,000 of whom subsequently migrated to France.1 Bouteflika’s choice of the label “collabos”—in other words, traitors complicit with a murderous regime—sparked an unprecedented questioning by the harki population about its past and present relationships to France. After all, many of these Algerian natives had supported the French cause (responsible for the death of four hundred thousand Algerians) not because of their allegiance to France, but rather owing to economic necessity or (sometimes forced) recruitment by the French Army.2 Could the harkis’ service to President Bouteflika’s comment came in response to President Chirac’s question about granting visas to visit Algeria to former harkis who were French citizens. Algerian officials have routinely denied anyone who (or is suspected to have served) as a harki during the Algerian War for Independence entry into his former homeland. As will be discussed below, during the Algerian War for Independence the term “harki” referred to a specific type of native Algerian auxiliary soldier in the French Army. At the end of the war the Algerian and French governments applied the label to any native Algerian who had fought for France or was perceived to have been “pro-French.” Throughout this dissertation, I use “Algerian War for Independence,” a term that situates the war in a transnational space between France and Algeria. Historian Sylvie Thénault argues that “Algerian War for Independence” is a marriage of the French appellation “Algerian War” (emphasizing the French government’s fight to keep its sovereignty over Algeria) and two Algerian designations, “War of Liberation” (the resurrection of an Algerian nation stifled by the French colonizer) and “Algerian Revolution” (a radical transformation of the country and its society). Sylvie Thénault, Histoire de la guerre d’indépendance algérienne (Paris: Flammarion, 2005), 14. 2 The figure of four hundred thousand Algerian deaths is cited in: Kamel Kateb, Européens, “indigènes” et juifs en Algérie (1830-1962). Représentations et réalités des populations (Paris: Éditions de l’Institut national d’études démographiques, 2001), 359. 1 1 France during the Algerian War for Independence be reduced to “collaborationism”? Considering this service, when Algeria became independent why did harkis lose their French nationality and need to formally request French nationality? Why had the state not yet publicly recognized the harkis’ contributions to France during the war and their subsequent personal sacrifices, including fleeing their homeland fearing for their lives and being placed by the government in camps exiled from the general population in France? Why had Chirac and other French presidents not defended the community against claims of treason from Algerians on both sides of the Mediterranean? Most importantly, why have successive post-imperial French governments, reminiscent at times of those in colonial Algeria, persistently treated the harki population as though they are not full French citizens? Collabos was powerful epithet in a French nation that was confronting what historian Richard Golsan has termed “Vichy’s afterlife” and had only just begun to publicly contend with the plural memories of the Algerian War for Independence.3 Five years earlier, on July 16, 1995, Chirac had symbolically chosen to dedicate his first public allocution after his election as Fifth Republic president to acknowledging the role that the French State had played in the persecution of Jews and victims of the Third Reich’s persecution of minorities and genocidal policies. On the fifty-third anniversary of the Vél d’Hiv roundup, during which over 13,000 Jews—including 3,500 children— In 1998, following a court case that had received much national and international media attention, former Vichy official Maurice Papon was convicted for crimes against humanity for his role in deporting 1,500 Jews from Bordeaux to Auschwitz during the Second World War. During the proceedings, prosecutors presented evidence concerning Papon’s role as prefect of the Paris police during the October 17, 1961 peaceful anti-war demonstrations by thirty thousand Algerians, during which as many as two hundred people were killed and over ten thousand arrested. Richard Golsan argues that incorporating this information about the Algerian War for Independence into a trial about the Second World War distorted and conflated the history of two distinct moments. Golsan, Vichy’s Afterlife: History and Counterhistory in Postwar France (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2000), 161. On the effects of plural memories of Vichy France on French society, see: Julie Fette, “The Apology Moment: Vichy Memories in 1990s France,” in Taking Wrongs Seriously: Apologies and Reconciliation, ed. Elazar Barkan and Alexander Karn (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 265310; Golsan, Vichy’s Afterlife; Tony Judt, “Epilogue. From the House of the Dead: An Essay on Modern European Memory,” in Postwar: A History of Europe Since 1945 (New York: Penguin Books, 2005), 813-31; Tony Judt, “À la recherche du temps perdu: France and Its Pasts,” in Reappraisals: Reflections on the Forgotten Twentieth Century (New York: Penguin Press, 2008), 196-218; Henry Rousso, La hantise du passé: entretien avec Philippe Petit (Paris: Textuel, 1998); and Henry Rousso, Le syndrome de Vichy: De 1944 à nos jours (Paris: Seuil, 1987). The events of October 17, 1961 will be treated on p. 117. 3 2 had been arrested and held in an indoor cycling arena before being deported to extermination camps, Chirac admitted the French state’s complicity: “[L]a folie criminelle de l’occupant a été secondée par des Français, par l’État français… Pour toutes ces personnes arrêtées, commence alors le long et douloureux voyage vers l’enfer. Combien d’entre elles ne reverront jamais leur foyer? Et combien, à cet instant, se sont senties trahies?”4 Immediately following Chirac’s speech, ten children of former harki soldiers from the Marseille region traveled to Paris to meet with the new president. They asked him to recognize the role of the French government in the “deportation” of harki soldiers at the hands of members of the National Liberation Front (FLN) independence movement. In a press release, the harki children referenced the unique colonial relationship between France and Algeria, whereby the latter was incorporated into the former’s system of departments. They contended: “[M]aintenant que le président de la République a rendu responsable l’Etat français dans la déportation des juifs, nous espérons qu’il définira la même responsabilité de la France dans la déportation des Français musulmans de leur département d’Algérie.”5 The harki children’s comparison of Jewish French citizens and Muslim Algerian French citizens was not entirely accurate since the latter group never achieved full French citizenship, with rights equal to those of the settler population in Algeria. Nor was their claim of the “deportation” of harkis and their family members correct. It was instead a forced migration of individuals who feared for their lives owing to violent acts perpetrated against them because they had fought for France. Nevertheless, the harki children’s efforts to link two events did touch on a sensitive topic at a time when plural memories of the so-called guerre sans nom had begun to enter public consciousness and Vichy France was deeply entrenched in public debates. On July 16, 1995 during a ceremony in Paris commemorating the Vél d’Hiv roundup President Chirac delivered this speech, which is reprinted in: Jacques Chirac, Mon combat pour la France: textes et interventions, 1995-2007 (Paris: Odile Jacob, 2007), 31. 5 “Des enfants de harkis demandent à Chirac de reconnaître leurs droits,” Libération, July 20, 1995. Right-tilting Le Figaro and centrist Le Monde did not cover this story, which shone an arguably negative light on the new center-right president for failing to address the responsibility of the 1962 French government in the deaths of harkis by other Algerians. 4 3 The ensuing uproar in the harki community was not entirely due to these scathing remarks by the Algerian president. Despite the equation of French citizens who had been harkis with those who had collaborated with the Nazi regime during France’s “Black Years,” Chirac took four weeks to publicly denounce Bouteflika’s remarks. As French citizens since they had arrived in France during the 1960s, numerous harki population members claimed that the silence of their own president was even more injurious.6 Chirac’s delay during summer 2000 in defending the harki community—French citizens— after Bouteflika’s words reawakened its sense of abandonment and marginalization from French society as a result of both imperial and post-imperial government policies. The harki population believed its abandonment began in winter 1962 when the French Army disarmed harki soldiers, leaving them to fend for themselves against FLN insurgents who believed that the “Algerian Revolution” (the FLN appellation for the war) did not end with the March 18, 1962 Evian Accords. Despite consistent threats of retaliation from FLN members who believed the harkis were traitors to their native Algeria, this peace treaty negotiated by representatives of the French government contained no specific mention of the harkis. French government treatment of harkis as second-class citizens was not limited to the imperial era, during which this practice aligned with their French citizenship status, inferior to that of Algerian residents of European and Jewish origins. The harkis who migrated to post-imperial France felt forsaken because almost all harki repatriates—like other native Algerians—needed to undergo a thorny administrative process established by President Charles de Gaulle to regain their French nationality, thereby questioning their legal relationship with In his recent ethnographic study, Vincent Crapanzano writes about the general response to this incident of the harkis, their wives, and their descendants whom he interviewed: “The Harkis were furious at the Algerian president and, if one can compare levels of fury, even more so at the French president for not having immediately responded to Bouteflika’s insult.” Vincent Crapanzano, The Harkis: The Wound that Never Heals (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2011), 172. Several of the seventeen members of the harki community whom I interviewed brought up this event. In each case the interviewee spoke of the pain and anger he or she felt owing to President Chirac’s failure to defend the harkis. 6 4 the country for which they had risked their lives.7 Approximately half of the harkis who arrived in France found housing on their own, through the aid of French soldiers who had fought in Algeria or through familial or social networks. However, the other half, who relied on the French government for assistance, were placed in camps—many for months, some for over a decade—which isolated them from other French citizens. Finally, many in the harki population felt symbolically abandoned by each successive president because none had officially recognized, on the one hand, the French government’s failure during the chaos that ensued after the ceasefire to protect and rescue the tens of thousands harkis massacred by FLN members and, on the other, the harkis’ contributions to French war efforts.8 Harki Citizens: A Contradiction The paradoxical relationship between the harki population and post-imperial French governments has foremost evoked questions about its treatment as French citizens. Successive government policies and discourses concerning the harki population—bearing resemblance to those relative to native populations in colonial Algeria who possessed an inferior citizenship status and foreign immigrants in metropolitan France—have repeatedly marginalized its members from French society. Nearly all harkis and their family members who migrated to France obtained French nationality, after which they legally possessed equal rights to other French citizens. Yet in practice the government did not always treat the harki population as full French citizens. They were—and are—“harki citizens.” My dissertation seeks to unravel this contradiction. Why did the government Journal Officiel de la République Française (hereafter JORF), “Ordonnance n˚ 62-825 du 21 juillet 1962 relative à certaines dispositions concernant la nationalité française, prises en application de la loi n˚ 62-421 du 13 avril 1962,” July 22, 1962, 7230. 8 Precise figures of the number of harkis tortured and massacred remain the object of what historian Charles-Robert Ageron calls a bataille de chiffres. This debate can never be resolved since neither the French nor the Algerian governments kept such records. Estimates of the number of deaths range from tens of thousands by Ageron to 150,000 by harki association leaders, such as Abd-El-Aziz Méliani. This topic will be addressed later in this chapter and in the introduction to chapter 2. 7 5 not consider harki citizens like its other French citizens? How did the French government marginalize harki citizens from French society? What are the long-term consequences for the harki population and contemporary French society of this treatment—which began as soon as they arrived in 1962 on French soil and, more significantly, continued for decades? Decisions that the imperial French government made in the waning months of French Algeria about whether and how to include the harkis and their family members into French society differentiated them from settlers of European and Jewish descent living in Algeria, commonly known as the pieds-noirs, who retained their French nationality.9 The choices to not include the harkis into the repatriation process established for the pieds-noirs and not bestow upon them automatic French nationality set a precedent which post-imperial governments would follow for harki citizens. As Todd Shepard has contended, at this time “race and ethnicity appeared as meaningful markers” to determine who could be considered French (the one million settlers and a handful of Algerian Muslims who had renounced Sharia law) and who would not be (most of the nine million other Algerian Muslims who held an inferior citizenship status).10 Almost all harkis fell into this latter colonial category of native Algerians. Ethnicity—and more precisely, colonial citizenship status as French with local civil status (Français de statut civil de droit local) predicated on their Arab and Berber roots—indeed determined whether the harkis were granted automatic French nationality when they arrived in France. However, ethnicity alone cannot account for the postimperial French government continuing to treat the harkis as inferior citizens for decades. I argue that a complex interplay of three factors explains the French government’s marginalization of its harki citizens from society. First, government officials held onto a vision of the Throughout this dissertation to describe inhabitants of European and Jewish descent living in Algeria I use the term “pied-noir.” This generic descriptor is a cultural term that references their past or present residence in Algeria. It does not designate their legal relationship with the French state, which before Algerian independence was “Français d’Algérie” or “Français de statut civil de droit commun” and after arriving in France was “rapatriés d’Algérie” or “rapatriés français.” When referring to their legal status, I use one of the expressions listed in the previous sentence. 10 Todd Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005), 2-3. 9 6 harkis as inferior citizens and even foreigners (a legal status signifying the absence of French nationality) owing to their former colonial status as French Muslims from Algeria (Français musulmans d’Algérie or FMA). Consequently, state agents created and implemented policies that prolonged practices used in colonial Algeria of differentiating populations based on ethnicity, despite the end of the empire, and those used in metropolitan France of differentiating citizens from foreigners, despite the harkis’ French nationality. Second, government officials challenged harki citizens’ belonging in post-imperial French society by not ascribing to them a clear de facto status that matched their de jure status as French citizens and repatriates. Instead, officials’ interactions with members of the harki population sometimes implied that they were Algerians, refugees, or immigrants. Since the government did not consistently treat them as French citizens and repatriates, it placed the population in a power dynamic whereby harki citizens had to fight for the rights associated with these categorizations. 11 This played out notably through the responsibility for managing issues concerning harki citizens continually being shifted between various ministries, most of which usually handled immigrant affairs. Finally, harki citizens were inextricably linked with the Algerian War for Independence in a nation whose government sought to immediately forget—and continued to suppress the memory of—the war. Even the recent fiftieth anniversary of the ceasefire, in March 2012, was not officially celebrated in France. Harki citizens on French soil were visible reminders of the end of France’s nineteenth and twentieth-century colonial empire, whose memorialization the French government is still grappling with. Once harkis migrated to French soil and even after they became French citizens in a country did not legally have different classes of French citizenship (as existed in French Algeria), French government policies continued to differentiate them from the pieds-noirs and other French citizens. As Gérard Noiriel maintains about the politics of naming, “les enjeux de nomination sont des enjeux de pouvoir.” Gérard Noiriel, “Introduction: De l’histoire sociale du politique à la socio-histoire des relations de pouvoir,” in Etat, nation et immigration. Vers une histoire du pouvoir (Paris: Belin, 2001), 10. 11 7 First, whereas the government housed French repatriates requesting its assistance upon their migration to France in emergency shelters and requisitioned hotels, it hid harki repatriates from view in former refugee and prisoner camps located in sparsely populated corners of France.12 In total, nearly half of the 100,000 harkis and their family members repatriated to France resided, at least briefly, in two transit camps (camps de transit) open between June and October 1962 and two housing camps (camps d’hébergement) open from September 1962 to December 1964 under military surveillance.13 Indeed, the government treated them like refugees and not the repatriates that they were. Through a series of circulars concerning more permanent lodging, the government mandated that French repatriates had priority access over harki citizens to integrated public housing buildings (HLM).14 To rehouse the harkis after the camps closed, the state provided two arrival centers (cités d’accueil) for those it deemed “unhouseables,” two thousand residences in seventy-two forest hamlets (hameaux de forestage) in rural France, and two thousand HLM apartments in cités urbaines.15 All of these options—originally intended to be transitional spaces—contained exclusively harki families except for the social counselors and camp directors, most of whom had supervised FMAs in the colony and metropole, charged with their oversight. This impeded harki citizens’ social interactions with other French citizens. The government subsequently confirmed its exclusion of harki citizens who remained under state supervision from French society by enacting policies that made these For an analysis of the French repatriates’ emergency housing situation, see: Yann Scioldo-Zürcher, Devenir métropolitain: Politique d’intégration et parcours de rapatriés d’Algérie en métropole (1954-2005) (Paris: Éditions EHESS, 2010), 197-215. 13 The transit camps comprised Larzac (Aveyron) and Bourg-Lastic (Puy-de-Dôme) and the housing camps included Rivesaltes (Pyrénées-Orientales) and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise (Gard). 14 See, for example, Archives du Comité National pour les Musulmans Français (hereafter ACNMF), 15/13, Circular from the Ministry of Repatriates to Departmental Prefects and Regional Delegates of the Ministry of Repatriates, “Objet: Attribution de logements H.L.M. aux anciens harkis,” 1, Nº 64/19, Jan. 31, 1964. 15 The two arrival centers were Bias (Lot-et-Garonne) and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise (Gard). By July 1965, the state had built 2,043 residences in forest hamlets. Archives Nationales (hereafter AN), 5 AG 1/22 (Archives of President Charles de Gaulle), Minister of the Interior, “Rapport sur l’application de la loi du 26 décembre 1961 transmis au Secrétaire général de la Présidence de la République,” 119, July 26, 1965. After this time, it constructed an additional five additional forest hamlets containing approximately two hundred residences. At the end of 1966 the government housed 2,089 families in cités urbaines (also called ensembles immobiliers) built under a special project, “Le Programme ‘Harki.’” Archives Départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône (hereafter ADBR), 1451 W 115, ONASEC, “Français Musulmans Rapatriés Information. 1962-1981: La Politique d’Accueil,” 3, Apr. 18, 1985. 12 8 temporary housing solutions into permanent ones. The last so-called arrival center remained open until 2000, twenty forest hamlets still existed in 1980, and several cités urbaines continue to house harki families today, though now mixed with foreign migrants. Meanwhile, the last boarding house for the pieds-noirs, one located in Paris and lodging approximately twenty individuals, had disappeared in 1979. Finally, the laws the French government passed before and after Algerian independence for all repatriates to provide social welfare assistance, furnish indemnities for lost property and goods in Algeria, and commemorate their sacrifices marginalized harki citizens in one way or another. In some cases, they encountered difficulties accessing the rights outlined by the legislation.16 In the recent February 23, 2005 law, under political pressure from the forceful pied-noir lobby, commemoration of this repatriate community overshadowed that of harki repatriates, much like the pieds-noirs’ interests obscured those of the harkis in 1962.17 To dissect the complicated relationship between the post-imperial French state and its harki citizens this dissertation analyzes the creation and implementation of the French government’s nationality, repatriation, housing, integration, and commemoration policies concerning the harki population. My examination begins with exchanges during summer 1961 between harki soldiers and Army officials concerning the former’s postwar relationship to France in terms of nationality and residence. It concludes with the passage of the February 23, 2005 legislation that lawmakers initially conceived to recognize and compensate former harki soldiers who became French citizens for their contributions to France during the war and the failures of successive French governments to foster harki citizens’ economic and social integration. To investigate the implementation of national policies at the local level, this dissertation incorporates two case studies that focus on a subsection of JORF, “Loi n°61-1439 du 26 décembre 1961 relative à l’accueil et à la réinstallation des Français d’outre-mer,” Dec. 28, 1961, 11996-7 and JORF, “Loi nº 70-632 du 15 juillet 1970 relative à une contribution nationale à l’indemnisation des Français dépossédés de biens situés dans un territoire placé antérieurement sous la souveraineté, le protectorat ou la tutelle de l’Etat,” July 17, 1970, 6651. 17 JORF, “Loi n° 2005-158 du 23 février 2005 portant reconnaissance de la Nation et contribution nationale en faveur des Français rapatriés,” Feb. 24, 2005, 3128. 16 9 the harki population exiled in camps under state supervision. The Rivesaltes camp outside Perpignan—previously used for refugees, soldiers, and prisoners—housed approximately one-fifth of the harki population repatriated to France and is the site where approximately 7,500 harkis and their wives became French citizens.18 The Fuveau forest hamlet—a microcosm of the Rivesaltes camp, which was constructed for fifty-four harki families—was a transitional solution that government officials maintained would help these newly-minted citizens integrate into French society. This forest hamlet, located thirty-five kilometers northeast of Marseille, remains open today, though is no longer run by the state. While there is no homogeneous “harki experience,” the camp situations are consequential for each harki citizen in France. Even though these spaces, labeled “camps” and “ghettos” in numerous press articles, housed less than 10 percent of the harki population in 1975 they became the symbol of all harki citizens’ marginalization by the French government. 19 Moreover, the post-imperial government’s most significant policies affecting the entire population (enacted in 1975, 1991, and 2005) resulted from protests that took place in the camps and/or representations of these spaces used in public demonstrations to sway popular opinion. My study differs from the majority of works on colonial and postcolonial immigration in two significant ways. First, recent scholarship investigating colonial-like practices in metropolitan France during and after the colonial period focuses on immigrant populations chiefly, if not entirely, composed foreigners. 20 In contrast, this dissertation analyzes marginalizing treatment for a Centre des archives contemporaines (hereafter CAC), 19920149/5/12, Chef du 13º Bureau bis de la Sous-Direction des Naturalisations (Ministry of Public Health and Population), “Etat numérique des déclarations enregistrées pendant la période du 1er juillet au 31 juillet 1964,” Aug. 10, 1964. 19 In a report submitted on Jan. 1, 1972, sociologist Jean Servier estimated that the total harki population comprised 162,000 individuals, 16,000 of which were “regroupés” in the arrival centers, forest hamlets, and cités urbaines. ACNMF, 6, Servier, “Enquête sur les Français Musulmans,” Part 1, 1 and Part 2, 1. 20 For books published on this topic, see: Mary Dewhurst Lewis, The Boundaries of the Republic: Migrant Rights and the Limits of Universalism in France, 1918-1940 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2007) and Clifford Rosenberg, Policing Paris: The Origins of Modern Immigration Control Between the Wars (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2006). For dissertations, see: Françoise de Barros, “L’État au prisme des municipalités. Une comparaison historique des catégorisations des 18 10 population of French citizens. Second, the bulk of studies on French immigration policy focus on either the national level (primarily those published during the 1990s) or the local one (those published since the beginning of the twentieth-first century).21 Notable exceptions include Clifford Rosenberg’s monograph about immigration control in the interwar period, that by Mary Dewhurst Lewis concerning the rights of migrant workers during the same timeframe, and Yann ScioldoZürcher’s work on government policies toward French repatriates from Algeria since the war. Similarly, my dissertation investigates within the same analytical field both the national-level creation of state policies toward the harkis and their local implementation. Examining the interrelation between the local and national allows me to determine their reciprocal influence and examine the points of tension and consensus between national and local officials. Ethnic Soldiering and the Harkis Throughout France’s imperial history in North America and the Caribbean, encompassing Napoleonic expansion in Europe, and in Africa and Asia its army incorporated native soldiers. During the nineteenth and twentieth-century empire, the history of colonial natives fighting with French forces began during France’s conquest of Algeria with the 1830 formation of the Zouaves military corps, which owes its name to the Kabyle tribe the Zouaouas.22 In 1842 the government created an additional corps of soldiers, known as tirailleurs algériens, to recruit natives to aid in quelling étrangers en France (1919-1984),” (PhD diss., Université de Paris 1, 2004); Melissa Byrnes, “French Like Us? Municipal Policies and North African Migrants in the Parisian Banlieues, 1945-1975” (PhD diss., Georgetown University, 2008); Choukri Hmed, “Loger les étrangers ‘isolés’ en France. Socio-histoire d’une institution d’État: la Sonacotra (1956-2006)” (PhD diss., Université de Paris 1, 2006); and Amelia Lyons, “Invisible Immigrants: Algerian Families and the French Welfare State in the Era of Decolonization (1947-1974)” (PhD diss., University of California, Irvine, 2004). 21 For national-level studies, see: Ralph Schor, Histoire de l’immigration en France de la fin du XIXe siècle à nos jours (Paris: Armand Colin, 1996); Vincent Viet, La France immigrée. Construction d’une politique (Paris: Fayard, 1998); and Patrick Weil, La France et ses étrangers: L’aventure d’une politique de l’immigration de 1938 à nos jours (Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2005). For locallevel ones, see: Marie-Claude Blanc-Chaléard, Les Italiens dans l’Est parisien (années 1880-1960) (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 2000); Emmanuel Blanchard, La police parisienne et les Algériens (1944-1962) (Paris: Nouveau Monde éditions, 2011); Byrnes, “French Like Us?;” and Lyons, “Invisible Immigrants.” 22 For information about the Zouaves, see: Henri duc d’Orléans Aumale, Les zouaves et les chasseurs à pied: esquisses historiques (Paris: M. Lévy frères, 1855) and a special issue of the journal Carnet de la Sabretache, “Les Zouaves” no. 80 (1985). 11 resistance of tribal leaders toward the increasing French dominance in Algeria given the small population of European settlers at this time (37,374 in 1841).23 As France extended its dominance southward in Africa, in 1857, under the auspices of Emperor Napoleon III, Governor Louis Faidherbe of Senegal created a corps of tirailleurs sénégalais to help facilitate the French Empire’s conquest of Africa. These Sub-Saharan conscripts—who hailed from all regions of French West Africa (AOF) and French Equatorial Africa (AEF)—were soon expanded to include soldiers from all over greater France. More generally known as troupes indigènes, colonial subjects subsequently became a foundation of the French Army during non-colonial conquests, including the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War and both World Wars, and the 1946-54 French-Indochinese War.24 After these conflicts, the former soldiers (other than Indochinese natives who fought in their homeland, many of whom fled south of the seventeenth parallel) returned from foreign theaters to their countries and villages, which were still under French colonial rule and protection.25 Yet, the “return home” of native Algerian soldiers—notably the “harkis”—after the end of the Algerian War for Independence was different. Who were the harkis? Today “harkis” is synonymous with traitors among Algerians and connotes all native Algerian repatriates to the French, which are distortions of the term’s original John Ruedy, Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992), 69. On the progressive colonization of Algeria, see pages 51-79. Following the establishment of the tirailleurs algériens, the Zouaves subsequently developed into regiments pulled from Algeria’s European and Jewish populations. 24 On colonial soldiers fighting in the French Army from the Franco-Prussian War through the wars of decolonization, see: Myron Echenberg, Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857-1960 (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1991); Richard S. Fogarty, Race and War in France: Colonial Subjects in the French Army, 1914-1918 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008); Nancy Ellen Lawler, Soldiers of Misfortune: Ivoirien Tirailleurs of World War II (Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992); Joe Lunn, Memories of a Maelstrom: A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999); and Gregory Mann, Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006). 25 In 1953, 108,000 Indochinese, approximately half of whom were auxiliary soldiers, served in the French Army. The number of Indochinese soldiers massacred following the war is unknown. Pierre Messmer, Les Blancs s’en vont: Récits de décolonisation (Paris: Albin Michel, 1998), 49. Much scholarly work remains to be accomplished on Indochinese auxiliary soldiers during and after the French-Indochinese War. The few existing studies include: Gérard Brett, Les supplétifs d’Indochine, 1951-1953 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996); Gérard Brett, La tragédie des supplétifs. La fin des combats 1953-1954 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998); and Trinh Van Thao, “Le retour des rapatriés d’Indochine. L’expérience des Centres d’accueil (1954-1960),” in Marseille et le choc des décolonisations, ed. Jean-Jacques Jordi and Emile Temime (Aix-en-Provence: Edisud, 1996), 29-38. 23 12 meaning. During the war, harkis were native Algerian soldiers in harkas, a derivative of the Arabic word for movement, haraka, which aptly represented their function of patrolling the nearby countryside for fellaghas or supporters of the FLN. The harkis composed the greatest number of the five types of Muslim civilian and military auxiliary forces, which also included moghaznis, groupes mobiles de sécurité, groupes d’auto défense, and aassès. Each formation performed tasks to aid French soldiers or French civilian administrators in their war efforts and protect rural populations from attacks by National Liberation Army (ALN) troops.26 The French Army recruited auxiliary forces to provide a source of manpower to reinforce French troops, receive aid from individuals with knowledge of the countryside and native languages, and demonstrate that native Algerians supported its efforts to maintain sovereignty over Algeria. 27 As General Maurice Challe, who became commander of French forces in Algeria in December 1958 stated, “Nous ne pacifierons pas l’Algérie sans les Algériens.” Accordingly, as demonstrated in table 1, the number of auxiliary forces increased dramatically between January 1959 and January 1960. Harkis Groupes d’autodéfense Moghaznis Groupes mobiles de sécurité Aassès Auxiliary Forces (Total) 1/1957 2,186 10,000 15,000 4,800 -31,986 1/1958 1/1959 16,902 28,021 12,000 30,000 16,000 17,191 6,100 6,100 --51,002 84,312 1/1960 11/1960 57,800 61,400 50,000 62,000 19,100 19,100 7,500 7,500 7,600 2,300 142,000 152,300 7/1961 3/1962 59,000 42,100 62,000 17,000 19,100 18,300 8,000 8,500 3,060 1,100 151,160 87,000 Table 1: Number of FMA auxiliary soldiers serving in the French Army (January 1957-March 1962). The aassès only existed between 1960 and early 1962. Source: Maurice Faivre, Les combattants musulmans de la guerre d’Algérie: Des soldats sacrifiés (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1995), 252. The first harkas were created in January 1955 in the Aurès Mountains. Their status was made official in April 1956 by Governor General Robert Lacoste, who defined their mission as “formations temporaires dont la mission est de participer aux opérations de maintien de l’ordre.” Groups of twenty to twenty-five moghaznis protected the sections administratives sociales (SAS), a corps of French doctors, nurses, educators, and social workers charged with “pacifying” native populations and promoting French Algeria. The groupes mobiles de sécurité were rural police forces and groupes d’auto défense were tasked with protecting rural villages. Finally the aassès were Muslim auxiliary policemen in unités territoriales, which protected Algerian infrastructure and communication lines. For a more detailed description of each auxiliary force’s role see, Charles-Robert Ageron, “Les supplétifs algériens dans l’armée française pendant la guerre d’Algérie,” Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, no. 48 (December 1995): 6-8 and François-Xavier Hautreux, “L’engagement des harkis (1954-1962). Essai de périodisation,” Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire 90 (June 2006): 33-37. 27 Hautreux, “L’engagement des harkis,” 33-34. 26 13 Within these ranks the French Army considered—and treated—the harkis as second-class auxiliary troops, with auxiliary troops already being inferior to FMA soldiers enlisted in the French Army. Unlike other formations, the harkis’ contracts had to be renewed each day. The harkis had fewer opportunities for military promotions, received less technologically advanced weapons, and had access to fewer social benefits.28 This inferior relationship with other auxiliary forces (known as soldats irréguliers) and FMAs in the French Army (called soldats réguliers) would become significant in the postcolonial context. In part owing to the harkis’ daily contracts, the aggregate number of FMAs who served as auxiliary troops during the war is difficult to determine. The only definite statistics concern the number of individuals who served at precise moments. Table 1 shows these figures for FMA auxiliary soldiers in the French Army from January 1957 to the March 1962 ceasefire. Despite claims from pro-French Algeria former Army officers who asserted, primarily based on their personal experiences, that Muslims joined the French cause owing to their allegiance to France, scholarship by Tom Charbit demonstrates that only a small minority of Algerian natives joined the auxiliary forces for this reason.29 The need for jobs in the face of the war-ravaged agrarian Algerian economy, forced recruitment by French soldiers (enrôlement) with orders from the government to promote the appearance that Algerians were opposed to independence, and the quest for weapons to protect their families against FLN violence proved more salient factors in the decision of Algerian natives to fight for France.30 In fact, some auxiliary soldiers and policemen fought alternately for France and the FLN over the course of the war. Therefore, the beginning of Ageron, “Les supplétifs algériens,” 6-8. Tom Charbit summarizes this point: “Si l’engagement dans le camp français peut s’apparenter à un choix de nature politique ou idéologique, celui-ci ne concerne donc qu’une minorité de ‘musulmans’…” Charbit, Les harkis (Paris: La Découverte, 2006), 30-31. Charbit’s positions contrast with arguments from former Army generals who, based on their personal experiences, maintain that Algerian natives joined auxiliary forces primarily owing to their allegiance to France. See, for example, Faivre, Les Combattants musulmans, and François Meyer, Pour l’honneur… avec les harkis: De 1958 à nos jours (Paris: Éditions CLD, 2005). 30 Mohand Hamoumou discusses these reasons for the harkis’ enlistment in Et ils sont devenus harkis (Paris: Fayard, 1993), 129-211. 28 29 14 many of their relationships with imperial France was fraught with contradictions. So, too, was the end. Algeria, France, and Harki Citizens The difficult relationship between the post-imperial French government and its harki citizens in France was generated by not only the Algerian War for Independence but also the nature of France’s colonial relationship with Algeria. Therefore, examining the situation of harki citizens in post-imperial France first requires looking at elements of the history of French Algeria. Since the 1997 publication of Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler’s edited volume, Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, colonial scholarship has focused on placing within the same historical and analytical field the colony and the metropole. In their introduction, the editors advocate an approach that scrutinizes the dialectical relationship between European nation-states and their colonies, arguing: “Europe was made by its imperial projects as much as colonial encounters were shaped by conflicts within Europe itself.”31 Much like the history of such colonial situations, the harki population’s history took place in a transnational space between (former) colony and (former) metropole and indelibly marked populations, cultures, and institutions on both sides of the Mediterranean.32 To place my study into the context of the reciprocal influence between Algeria and France, I examine the specificity of colonial Algeria, which was simultaneously an exceptional “colony” in relation to France’s other possessions and exemplary of methods of governance across France’s empire. In particular, I focus on the categorization of Algerian inhabitants, the shifting legal relationships between these categories and the French government, and the practices of Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler, “Between Metropole and Colony: Rethinking a Research Agenda,” in Tensions of Empire: Colonial Culture in a Bourgeois World, ed. Cooper and Stoler (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 1. 32 Studies examining specific colonial situations and demonstrating that imperial governance affected France in addition to the colonies include: Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 17871804 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004); Gregory Mann, Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006); and Emmanuelle Saada, Les enfants de la colonie: Les métis de l’Empire français entre sujétion et citoyenneté (Paris: La Découverte, 2007). 31 15 administering colonial populations. These demonstrate a divide between legal situations and practices. Algeria was foremost an exception in comparison with France’s other possessions during what scholars have widely-termed the “second empire” (1830 to 1962), coinciding with the territory’s colonization and decolonization.33 As France’s premier settler colony, Algeria’s sizable population of settlers influenced strategies and decisions of how the French government, and by extension colonial administrators, ruled the territory and its peoples. As a result, Algeria’s legal relationship with France different from that with all of France’s other possessions during the second empire. In 1848 following the collapse of the July Monarchy, the Second Republic Constitution declared Algeria to be an integral part of France. A decree later that year incorporated the regions around Algiers, Constantine, and Oran into the French system of departments. Therefore, unlike France’s settlements such as Senegal and Mali that were colonies (under its political control, but not ruled by metropolitan laws) and those such as Morocco and Tunisia that were protectorates (with which France maintained a relationship of partial control and protection), Algeria was to be administered by French laws in “metropolitan fashion.”34 But in practice this would not happen: Algeria was a de facto colony. Efforts by French regimes to integrate Algeria into France foremost engendered unique— and shifting—legal relationships between residents of Algeria and the French government, distinct from those in other colonial holdings. Following an 1865 decree (sénatus-consulte), all residents of Algeria held French nationality, which colonial subjects of France’s other possessions only attained A recent collection of essays edited by Kate Marsh and Nicola Frith seeks to challenge the extant division in French historiography of France’s imperial project into two discrete periods (seventeenth-eighteenth centuries and nineteenthtwentieth centuries). The goal of the project is to highlight how the perceptions of territorial loss sustained continuities between the first and second empires by informing subsequent manifestations of French imperialism. Marsh, “Territorial Loss and the Construction of French Colonial Identities, 1763-1962,” in France’s lost empires: fragmentation, nostalgia, and la fracture colonial, ed. Frith and Marsh (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2011), 2. 34 Charles-Robert Ageron, Modern Algeria: A History from 1830 to the Present, ed. Michael Brett, trans. Michael Brett (Trenton, NJ: African World Press, 1991), 28-29. 33 16 in 1946 through the Fourth Republic Constitution. Moreover, besides a limited number of inhabitants of four Senegalese communes, Algeria was the only colony where natives had the possibility for full French citizenship, theoretically equal to that of metropolitan residents.35 Although all Algerians were French citizens, the definition of (male) citizen in Algeria broke with that in metropolitan French definition since, in colonial Algeria, French nationality did not always ensure French citizenship.36 Citizenship in France, in its most restricted definition, denotes political participation or voting rights, though the term can also be interpreted to include economic and social rights such as access to social welfare and civil service employment.37 While Algeria was purportedly an extension of metropolitan France, its native inhabitants—referred to as natives, or indigènes, in legal documents through the end of the Second World War—were not full French citizens unless they underwent a procedure to renounce Muslim Sharia law. Algerian natives’ classification as French with local civil status (Français de statut civil de droit local) under an 1865 decree set them apart from the population of colonists from France and other European countries, the French with common civil status (Français de statut civil de droit commun), who had access to the same rights as metropolitan citizens. (The 1870 Crémieux decree subsequently included Jews residing in Algeria into the category of French with common civil status without the requirement of renouncing their faith.) Even though the 1865 legislation bestowed French nationality upon Algerian natives, unless they abandoned their Koranic civil status they held an inferior form of nationality depriving them of all citizenship rights until a 1919 law allowed certain natives limited voting rights and a The French government placed substantial restrictions on access to full French citizenship in Senegal. The French government only bestowed these rights on évolués—educated, acculturated inhabitants of the Four Communes (Dakar, Gorée, Rufisque, and Saint-Louis) who renounced their personal status as Muslims. For a discussion of this unique citizenship status, see: Catherine Coquery-Vidrovitch, “Nationalité et citoyenneté en Afrique occidentale française: originaires et citoyens dans le Sénégal colonial,” The Journal of African History, 42 (2001): 285-305. 36 The government did not grant suffrage rights to women in France until 1944. 37 The definition of citizenship in France is often unclear because the words “citoyenneté” and “citoyen” have not appeared in any French legal text since the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. For a discussion about defining citizenship, see: Fred Constant, La citoyenneté (Paris: Montchrestien, 2000); Danièle Lochak, “La citoyenneté: un concept juridique flou,” in Citoyenneté et nationalité: perspectives en France et au Québec, ed. Dominique Colas et al. (Paris: Presses Universitaires Françaises, 1991): 179-207; and Pierre Rosanvallon, Le sacre du citoyen: Histoire du suffrage universel en France (Paris: Gallimard, 1992). 35 17 series of legislation from 1947 onward progressively opened the door to increased rights for all Algerian natives.38 However, these expanded rights did not amount to a fully equal citizenship because Algeria’s legislature comprised a two-college system with unequal representation, which was later abolished in 1958 with the objective of integrating Muslim populations.39 Nevertheless, this legal inequality and treatment of “native” populations during the colonial era in Algeria influenced government and popular perceptions of Algerians in France during and after the colonial era, including the harkis.40 At the same time Algeria was an exemplary colonial situation. There was not one French colonial situation, but rather many colonial situations with similar characteristics that varied across time and space. Though Algerian natives technically were citizens of France (they had French nationality), their inferior French citizenship resembled the limited rights of imperial citizens in France’s colonies and protectorates. Further, many of the colonial methods of governance that originated in Algeria—such as the Native Code (Code de l’indigénat)—were transmitted, in modified forms, to other imperial holdings. The framework for administering Algerian natives, whose implementation varied within different regions, vacillated between inclusion and exclusion. This was the case for populations in other colonies, whether ruled by France or other imperial powers. Frederick Cooper argues that one of the central facets of imperial governance of nineteenth and On the distinction between nationality and citizenship in colonial Algeria, the evolution of Algerian natives’ rights in Algeria, and citizenship rights of FMAs in metropolitan France, see: Emmanuel Blanchard, La police parisienne, 19-49; Laure Blévis, “La citoyenneté française au miroir de la colonisation: Étude des demandes de naturalisation des ‘sujets français’ en Algérie coloniale,” Genèses, no. 53 (Dec. 2003); Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization, 19-54; Alexis Spire, “Semblables et pourtant différents. La citoyenneté paradoxale des ‘Français Musulmans d’Algérie’ en métropole,” Genèses, no. 53 (Dec. 2003): 48-68; and Patrick Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français? Histoire de la Nationalité française depuis la Révolution (Paris: Grasset, 2002), 225-44. 39 In 1944, the first college comprised non-Muslims and approximately sixty thousand naturalized Muslims (those who had undergone the process outlined in the 1865 decree to become French with common civil status and évolués) representing one million Algerian inhabitants. The second college comprised 1.2 million voters—Muslim men aged at least twenty-one years old with local civil status—and represented the balance of the population. Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 243. 40 Works that examine the governance of Algerian natives residing in France during and after the colonial era include: Blanchard, La police parisienne; Tom Charbit and Françoise de Barros (ed.), “La colonie rapatriée,” special issue of Politix 19 no. 76 (2006); and Lyons, “Invisible Immigrants.” 38 18 twentieth century was negotiating “a balance between poles of incorporation (the empire’s claim that its subjects belonged within the empire) and differentiation (the empire’s claim that different subjects should be governed differently).”41 The laws and administration of Algerians reflected France’s continual desire to differentiate European and Jewish versus Arab and Berber populations. This treatment, along with that in other colonies, has led scholars to underscore that republican France’s claims of universalism were indeed bounded by inherent unequal treatment of its citizens and nationals in the colony and the metropole.42 Despite certain similarities between Algeria and France’s other nineteenth and twentieth century colonial possessions, this close relationship made the “decolonization” struggle and postcolonial relationship unique. The difference between Algeria and France’s other colonial possessions resided not only in the fact that the former claimed its independence following a war.43 France’s war strategies (including the use of torture), the presence of between 300,000 and 450,000 so-called FMAs in metropolitan France during the war, and the violence that occurred in the months following the March 1962 ceasefire, also caused repercussions for populations and institutions that continue to reverberate on both sides of the Mediterranean today.44 By posing, in a 1997 article, the provocative question of whether France and Algeria constitute one nation or two, Etienne Balibar Frederick Cooper, Colonialism in Question. Theory, Knowledge, History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 154. For such studies, see Jennifer Boittin, Colonial Metropolis: The Urban Grounds of Anti-Imperialism and Feminism in Interwar Paris (Lincoln: Nebraska University Press, 2010); Alice Conklin, A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895-1930 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1997); Lewis, The Boundaries of the Republic; Rosenberg, Policing Paris; and Gary Wilder, The French Imperial Nation-State: Negritude and Colonial Humanism between the Two World Wars (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 43 The only other war of decolonization took place in Indochina from 1946 to 1954, yet this war had less impact on populations and institutions because Indochina—neither a settlers’ colony nor departments of France—was not incorporated as intimately into France as Algeria. On the relationship between France and Indochina, see Kathryn Robson and Jennifer Yee, eds., France and “Indochina”: Cultural Representations (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005). 44 The number of FMAs is taken from statistics kept by the North Africa division of the Etat-Major de l’Armée de Terre. Service historique de l’Armée de Terre (hereafter SHAT), 10T 549/3a, EMAT, 2e bureau, Chart: “Évolution de la population algérienne de 1945 à 1964.” For historical scholarship on these difficult legacies of the Algerian War for Independence, see Raphaëlle Branche, La torture et l’armée pendant la guerre d’Algérie (Paris: Gallimard, 2001) and Sylvie Thénault, Une drôle de justice: Les magistrats dans la guerre d’Algérie (Paris: La Découverte, 2001). 41 42 19 drew attention to the unique postcolonial rapport between France and Algeria owing to their intertwined histories and populations.45 Recent historical studies have examined the immediate and long-term effects of the breakup of this unique colonial relationship. Yann Scioldo-Zürcher recently published an analysis of French government policies toward French repatriates from Algeria from 1954 to 2005. He demonstrates that contrary to representations of repatriates from Algeria in national memory, which tend to single their traumatic arrival in France to the point of obscuring subsequent state initiatives, the French state indeed created (and most often followed through on) an integration policy for the population upon their arrival in France. The French government’s treatment of the pieds-noirs contrasts with that of the harkis. Scioldo-Zürcher analyzes both the creation of policies and their implementation at the local level, similar to my study.46 While limiting his analysis to 1962, Todd Shepard focuses on the impact of the end of French Algeria, which he refers to as a “revolutionary moment,” on Fifth Republic government institutions, laws, and definitions of who was French. 47 He reveals how French bureaucrats, politicians, and journalists at this time rewrote the history of French Algeria so that decolonization was the predetermined endpoint, which allowed the post-1962 state to exclude Algeria and Algerians from France and French history. My study seeks to contribute to this literature by analyzing the actions of the post-1962 state toward harki citizens in France, thereby demonstrating precisely how French Algeria exerted a long-term influence on citizenship in postimperial France. Etienne Balibar, “Algérie, France: Une ou deux nations?,” Lignes 30 (February 1997): 7-21. Balibar asserts that the France-Algeria relationship is unique, but not singular as the same question could be posed about England and the United States as well as Germany and Austria (9). 46 Scioldo-Zürcher, Devenir métropolitain. Valérie Esclangon-Morin also published a work investigating state policies toward repatriates of European descent after they arrived in France. However, her study examines repatriates from across North Africa—Tunisia and Morocco in addition to Algeria. Esclangon-Morin, Les rapatriés d’Afrique du nord de 1956 à nos jours (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007). 47 Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization, 12. 45 20 The Colonial, the Postcolonial, and Harki Citizens The “uncomfortable story,” in the words of Tony Judt, of harki citizens’ paradoxical marginalization from French society requires reexamining the “fracture coloniale” between the colonial period in Algeria and the effects of its colonial situations on harki citizens in postcolonial France.48 In their volume, La fracture coloniale: La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial, editors Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, and Sandrine Lemaire encourage scholars to rethink the division between the colonial and postcolonial periods. They explain “la fracture coloniale” as “un concept [qui] voudrait à la fois signifier la tension et les effets de la postcolonialité: il recouvre des réalités multiples et des situations hétérogènes, dans la mesure où ces réalités multiples et des situations peuvent être éclairées, en partie, par des processus de longue durée, reliés à la situation coloniale.”49 Various scholars have critiqued this approach and I share some of their critiques. For example, Emmanuelle Saada has argued that when applied to racism in contemporary society, effacing the “colonial fracture” gives too much weight to colonial situations, to the point of negating the longue durée of racist thought in France.50 By foremost insisting on continuities in structures, this approach first overlooks the agency of individuals. Neither colonized populations (whether in the colony or metropole) nor postcolonial migrants to France were powerless. Examples of independence movements, violent and non-violent protests, as well as more subtle forms of resistance that subverted domination proliferate in the colonial and postcolonial contexts.51 The See the epigraph to this dissertation. Pascal Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, and Sandrine Lemaire, ed., La fracture coloniale: La société française au prisme de l’héritage colonial (Paris: La Découverte, 2005), 13. 50 Emmanuelle Saada, “Un racisme de l’expansion. Les discriminations raciales au regard des situations coloniales,” in De la question sociale à la question raciale? Représenter la société française, ed. Didier Fassin and Eric Fassin, 2nd ed. (Paris: La Découverte, 2009), 63-79. 51 For a theoretical discussion of strategies of resistance, see: Ania Loomba, Colonialism/Postcolonialism (New York: Routledge, 1998), 173–254. On independence movements, see: John Ruedy, “Chérif Benhabylès and Ferhat Abbas: Case Studies in the Contradictions of the Mission civilisatrice,” Historical Reflections 28.2 (Summer 2002): 185-202 and Benjamin Stora, Messali Hadj (Paris: Hachette, 2004). On protests in Algeria and France during the colonial period, see: Jim House and Neil MacMaster, Paris 1961: Algerians, State Terror, and Memory (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) and JeanPierre Peyroulou, Guelma, 1945: Une subversion française dans l’Algérie coloniale (Paris: La Découverte, 2009). On protests in France undertaken by immigrants from its former colonies and their descendants, see: Saïd Bouamama, Dix ans de marche 48 49 21 focus on structures moreover fails to recognize the autonomy of administrators, which led to discrepancies in policy implementation. When examining the relationship between the state and its population, one must conceptualize the state as not only collective political actor, but also individual representatives responsible for putting policies into practice. In the context of my study, by classifying harkis as “French,” “Algerian,” “immigrant,” “refugees,” or “repatriates,” to define their relationship with the state, this body—both the collectivity and its representatives who carry out policies—dictates who has which rights and duties associated with French citizenship. Such categorizations are particularly important in France given the centralized state, represented by a large corps of civil servants, which uses its power to intervene in many aspects of its citizens’ and nationals’ everyday life. Despite such critiques, certain elements of Blanchard, Bancel, and Lemaire’s approach are useful for my study. By reexamining the “fracture coloniale” for the postcolonial experiences of harki citizens in France, three legacies from France’s 132-year rule in Algeria become particularly salient for their history. First, I note the similarities between the de facto and de jure categorizations of native populations in Algeria and those of the harki population after the March 1962 ceasefire. During the colonial period, difficulties continually arose in defining the association between, on the one hand, the French government and the European settlers and, on the other, native Algerians. The attempts to legally differentiate these two categories of inhabitants resulted in new lexicons seeking to clarify their relationships with the French government. In actuality, the appellations that the government chose essentialized the heterogeneous population of Berbers and Arabs and emphasized differences between the two sets of citizens in Algeria. For example, Français musulmans d’Algérie (chosen in opposition to Français d’Algérie) highlighted the different religion—one often viewed as inferior—of almost all Algerian natives. Similarly, in the post-imperial context, “harkis” des Beurs: Chronique d’un mouvement avorté (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer, 1994) and Fadela Amara and Mohammed Abdi, La racaille de la République (Paris: Seuil, 2006). 22 arose out of the state’s creation of a social category that expanded the prior definition of harkis as one of the five types of auxiliary soldiers during the Algerian War for Independence.52 At the end of the war, the French government mapped the term “harki” onto any native Algerian who had fought for France or was perceived to have been “pro-French” (such as domestic servants for pied-noir families) and whose life was consequently threatened by possible FLN retributions.53 The definition of an already heterogeneous group (geographically, ethnically, and those who fought for France because they wanted Algeria to remain French versus those who enlisted to save their families’ lives from violence and starvation) expanded for those who crossed the Mediterranean. The government lumped together all women and children who fled Algeria with their husbands and fathers under the generic term “harki.” Whereas men had chosen to enlist in the French Army, for the host of reasons listed above, this redefinition placed their wives, children, and descendants into a stigmatized category associated with “traitors.” This state categorization, moreover, presented a double bind for the harki population. It simultaneously allowed them access to specific benefits from the state and placed them in an unofficially inferior citizenship status. This inferiority in part derived from the post-1962 government’s de facto classification of harki citizens as refugees and immigrants, and not their de jure status as repatriates. The term rapatriés in government discourse almost always referred exclusively (and implicitly) to French repatriates. When government officials referred to harkis as repatriates, they qualified this term with “French Muslim” to distinguish them from “French” repatriates. Rapatriés Français musulmans was a reference to their former imperial status and not to their different religion, which in the post-imperial context not only was perceived as inferior, but unlike in Algeria (where Islam was the most practiced religion) highlighted their belonging to a On the difference between social groups and social categories as well as the power dynamic that such classifications create, see Gérard Noiriel, “Représentation nationale et catégories sociales. L’exemple des réfugiés politiques,” in Etat, nation et immigration. Vers une histoire du pouvoir (Paris: Belin, 2001), 265-66. 53 The Algerian government equally used this term in a broader sense. 52 23 minority. Government classification as a “harki” meant placement into refugee-like conditions in camps upon their arrival. Furthermore, the French government rehoused 25 percent of harki citizens from the Rivesaltes and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camps in forest hamlets, smaller scale versions of these camps. 54 To address what officials termed “the harki problem”—the failed integration of harki citizens—the government used many of the same social welfare offices and agents as it did for immigrants, yet the latter were not citizens. The second legacy of French Algeria relevant to my study of harki citizens in France is exclusionary practices and discourses. While noting that some of these were not limited to colonial situations, I analyze continuities between particular methods of governance used in French Algeria and those for harki citizens in post-imperial France.55 The existence of these continuities in imperial and post-imperial methods of governance, therefore, necessitates nuancing the idea of 1962 as an abrupt rupture in the history of French government, as Frederick Cooper argues in a 2005 essay. Cooper contends that France did not become a nation-state until 1962 because up to this moment it was an “empire-state.” To demonstrate his point, Cooper offers the example of President de Gaulle’s decision in 1946 to create a French Union, uniting France and all its colonies. Cooper argues that because “[Algeria’s] population was not treated equally… France, in 1946, was not a nation-state, but an empire-state.”56 An abrupt shift from an “empire-state” to a “nation-state” in 1962, as Cooper asserts, minimizes the effects of France’s (former) colonies on the state after this time and does not account for the French government’s unequal treatment of harki citizens in postimperial France. My analysis of this treatment reveals that continuities in practices, discourses, decision makers’ mentalities, and political actors themselves existed alongside the political ruptures ascribed to the end of the imperial era. While the overseas empire is no longer geographically part of AN, 5 AG 1/22, Minister of the Interior, “Rapport sur l’application…,” 112. While some of these practices were present in France’s other colonial holdings, in this study, I primarily focus on those in Algeria. 56 Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 153. 54 55 24 the French nation-state, remnants of colonial divisions continue to mark the post-1962 state’s creation of policies for harki citizens and the policies’ implementation. Though the harki community—originally one hundred thousand repatriates and estimated in a 2003 government report at five-hundred thousand people—comprises a small percentage of French citizens, this treatment is nonetheless significant owing to the importance of social groups at the margins of society for shaping national identity.57 Finally, legacies of France’s defeat in the Algerian War for Independence influenced the French government’s treatment of harki citizens. This war—which France won militarily, but lost politically—signaled the end of its entire nineteenth and twentieth-century empire. The conquest, moreover, came on the tail end of twenty-two years of humbling combat (notably the “strange defeat” during the Second World War and the fall of Diên Biên Phu to native forces ending the Indochinese War), making the loss of Algeria more glaring.58 Harki citizens were closely associated with the Algerian War for Independence (as “les témoins gênants de la guerre d’Algérie,” according to Benjamin Stora)59 in a nation whose government worked to immediately forget, and continued to suppress, the event out of which this social category was created.60 Sociologist Ann Stoler argues that the term “aphasia”—instead of the commonly-used “forgetting” or “amnesia”—better characterizes the absence of colonial history as objects of scholarship until recently. She defines aphasia in this context as “both loss of access and active dissociation.”61 This term is apropos for the French government’s treatment of the war after Algerian independence—an active forgetting. See Maurice Agulhon, “Le centre et la périphérie,” in Les lieux de mémoire, III. Les France, ed. Pierre Nora (Paris: Gallimard, 1993), 2903 and Peter Sahlins, Boundaries: The Making of France and Spain in the Pyrenees (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 8-9. 58 See Marc Bloch, L’étrange défaite (Paris: Éditions Franc-Tireur, 1946). 59 Benjamin Stora, La gangrène et l’oubli: La mémoire de la guerre d’Algérie, 2nd ed. (Paris: La Découverte, 1998), 207. 60 On the suppression of the memory of the Algerian War for Independence, see Raphaëlle Branche, La Guerre d’Algérie: une histoire apaisée? (Paris: Seuil, 2005); William Cohen, “The Algerian War, the French State and Official Memory,” Historical Reflections 28, no. 2 (2002): 219-39; Jo McCormack, Collective Memory: France and the Algerian War (1954-1962) (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2007); and Stora, La gangrène et l’oubli. 61 Ann Laura Stoler, “Colonial Aphasia: Race and Disabled Histories in France,” Public Culture 23, no. 1 (2011): 125. 57 25 Nowhere was this aphasia more visible than in how French government officials characterized the war for nearly half a century. Using “les opérations effectués en Afrique du Nord” and other euphemisms in official documents and discourse, they belied the reality of the seven and a half year bloody decolonization struggle as a “war,” until an October 1999 law replaced these vague terms with “la guerre d’Algérie.”62 Writing about the Harki Population: From Actors to Observers Writings about the harki population have been marked by three trends. First, the authors of most existing books are not scholars. Indeed, the first books written by scholars did not appear until the early 1990s. This turning point can be attributed to both the events leading up to the 1991 revolts by harki children, which awakened in many a self-identification as harki citizens and public questions about their occluded history, and expiration of the thirty-year waiting period for military archives in 1992, which gave scholars access to documents regarding the Algerian War for Independence. Second, social scientists—and not historians—have published most of the scholarly work. And finally, almost all scholarship is authored by individuals with links to the harki community. Only recently have historians and outsiders to the population begun to produce work on the harkis, which is where my dissertation is situated. Former military commanders, soldiers, and politicians were the first to publish books about the harki population. These texts appeared soon after the end of the Algerian War for Independence and recounted the authors’ experiences interacting with harki soldiers during and after the war.63 While there has been a fairly steady stream of such publications over the last five decades, two JORF, “Loi nº 99-882 du 18 octobre 1999 relative à la substitution, à l’expression ‘aux opérations effectués en Afrique du Nord’, de l’expression ‘à la guerre d’Algérie ou aux combats en Tunisie ou au Maroc,” Oct. 20, 1999, 15647. Other euphemisms present in government discourse and documents encompassed “les opérations du maintien de l’ordre” and “les événements en Algérie.” 63 For example, Bachaga Boualam, Les harkis au service de la France (Paris: Éditions France-Empire, 1963); General Georges Fleury, Harkis: les combattants du mauvais choix (Paris: Éditions Bellamy et Marlet, 1976); and Eric Taleb, La fin des harkis (Paris: Éditions La Pensée universelle, 1972). 62 26 events served as catalysts for an upswing in volume. First, those linked to the harki population sought to honor France’s forgotten harki citizens following the summer 1991 revolts by predominantly male harki children, which highlighted their difficult history. 64 Second, President Bouteflika’s equation of harkis with collabos in June 2000 and President Chirac’s subsequent delay in defending France’s harki citizens sparked five members of the harki population to publish texts over the next three years.65 In particular, within the span of six months in 2003, the first memoirs ever written by harki daughters emerged into the public literary space. Four women whose families had resided in refugees camps after the migration of their families to France and who had never met before—Fatima Besnaci-Lancou, Hadjila Kemoum, Dalila Kerchouche, and Zahia Rahmani—broke the silence surrounding their families and population’s taboo histories with firsthand testimonies. This act was of particular significance since previously voices of harki children had taken the form of violent protests and hunger strikes from their brothers, which served to point toward a homogenous “harki experience.” By vividly and emotionally recounting their unique experiences, these authors put forth completely new perspectives on the Algerian War for Independence and its ensuing ramifications and forced the public to rethink “Who are the harkis?” The first scholars to study the harki population were anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, and political scientists, some of who had attachments to the harki community. These notably include a 1976 dissertation by sociologist Anne Heinis, who worked for the French Muslim service, and compiled her research from ethnographic data commissioned by the French See, for example, Maurice Faivre, Un village de harkis, des Babors au pays drouais (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1994) and Abd-elAziz Méliani, La France honteuse: le drame des harkis (Paris: Perrin, 1993). Other texts published in the mid-1990s were authored by scholars and will be discussed below. 65 These texts comprise: Boussad Azni, Harkis: crime d’Etat. Généalogie d’un abandon (Paris: Ramsay, 2001); Fatima BesnaciLancou, Fille de harki: Le bouleversant témoignage d’une enfant de la guerre d’Algérie (Paris: Éditions de l’Atelier, 2003); Hadjila Kemoum, Mohand le harki (Paris: Anne Carrière, 2003); Dalila Kerchouche, Mon père, ce Harki (Paris: Seuil, 2003); and Zahia Rahmani, Moze (Paris: Sabine Wespieser, 2003). Since this time Besnaci-Lancou, Kerchouche, and Rahmani have published additional books and Kerchouche has co-directed a made for television movie. 64 27 government and the Comité National pour les Musulmans Français (CNMF).66 Since this time, social scientists continue to publish more books than historians. Their studies tend to evaluate identity construction and the integration of harki citizens, and more specifically, harki children. In his 1999 Le Silence des harkis, sociologist Laurent Muller analyzed the harki population’s difficult integration based on his experiences in the late 1980s working with harki children in Alsace during his military service.67 Between 2000 and 2008 political scientist Stéphanie Abrial and sociologists Mohamed Kara and Régis Pierret published monographs examining the difficulties encountered by second and third generation harkis integrating into French society.68 Political scientist Tom Charbit offered a brief overview of the harkis’ history from the war through 2005 in a volume of La Découverte’s “Repères” series.69 The most recent text, published in 2011, is American anthropologist Vincent Crapazano’s ethnographic study tracing the identity construction of the harkis and their children. Through an analysis of the expressed words and emotions of his interviewees, Crapanzano argues that the role of absent fathers, the history of the Algerian War for Independence, and the population’s treatment by the French government have influenced harki children’s place in French society.70 To date, only three historians have published books focused on the harki population. Michel Roux’s text, which summarized other secondary sources tracing the history of the harki population since their arrival in France, was removed from the market for plagiarism shortly after its 1991 publication.71 In 1999 pied-noir historian Jean-Jacques Jordi co-authored with sociologist Mohand Hamoumou an overview of the harkis’ history from their participation in the war to their Anne Heinis, “L’Insertion des Français Musulmans: Étude faite sur les populations regroupées dans le Midi de la France et les centres de ex-harkis” (Doctorat de Spécialité 3° cycle, Université Paul Valéry de Montpellier, 1977). 67 Laurent Muller, Le silence des harkis (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1999). 68 Stéphanie Abrial, Les enfants de Harkis: de la révolte à l’intégration (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2001); Mohamed Kara, Les Tentations du repli communautaire: Le cas des Franco-Maghrébins et des enfants de Harkis en particulier (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000); and Régis Pierret, Les Filles et fils de harkis: Entre double rejet et triple appartenance (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008). 69 Charbit, Les harkis. 70 Crapanzano, The Harkis. Another anthropologist’s study merits mentioning. Guilia Fabbiano’s dissertation analyzes the complexities of harki identity through the writings of harki children. Giulia Fabbiano, “Des générations post algériennes. Discours, Pratiques, recompositions identitaires” (PhD diss., Università degli studi di Siena/EHESS, 2006). 71 Michel Roux, Les harkis ou les oubliés de l’histoire (Paris: La Découverte, 1991). 66 28 repatriation to their living conditions in France. The authors strongly critiqued the French government for having forgotten the harki population and speak of the various camps as the harkis’ “lieux de mémoire” in France. The text is largely based on oral interviews and press articles, though also uses a small number of archival documents from the Bouches-du-Rhône departmental archives.72 Historian Abderahmen Moumen’s published Masters thesis is the only study of the harkis chiefly based on archival sources. Moumen focuses on the harki population residing in the Vaucluse department and concludes that those who lived in forest hamlets or in neighborhoods with concentrations of harki families were less likely to integrate into French society.73 Until the late 1990s most studies continued to be written by members of the population and those associated with the population. These individuals, outside the French Academy, often sought to positively portray their interest group (whether harkis or the French Army) and their conclusions highlighted their personal involvement. Two examples are emblematic. In 1993 harki son Mohand Hamoumou published a study, based on his dissertation, that defined who constitutes “French Muslim Repatriates” (a name used by government officials for the harkis) and aimed to debunk the myth that harkis had joined the French Army owing to their allegiance to France. His work primarily drew from interviews with former Muslim auxiliary soldiers in the Clermont-Ferrand region. The polemical concluding words of Hamoumou’s book represented a challenge to the French government and not scientific conclusions based on his research: “Reste donc à la France, pour son honneur, d’admettre officiellement sa responsabilité dans l’abandon – et donc le massacre – des harkis et d’autres milliers de ‘musulmans français’ qui lui avaient fait confiance, afin que l’oubli ne les assassine pas une seconde fois. Afin aussi que des vérités trop longtemps tues n’empoisonnent Jean-Jacques Jordi and Mohand Hamoumou, Les harkis, une mémoire enfouie (Paris: Autrement, 1999). Abderahmen Moumen, Les Français musulmans en Vaucluse 1962-1991. Installation et difficultés d’intégration d’une communauté de rapatriés d’Algérie (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003). 72 73 29 l’avenir.”74 The second example is a book about auxiliary soldiers during the war published in 1995 by Maurice Faivre, an Army general and former harka commander who personally repatriated a village of harki soldiers and their families to the countryside near Dreux (Eure-et-Loir). Taking advantage of the newly accessible Army Archives, his text provides useful statistics concerning the participation of auxiliary forces in the war, but his conclusions seek to absolve the French Army of claims that it abandoned the harkis in 1962 and reify the memory of the harki community. Faivre writes: “Les responsables directs du massacre sont les chefs du FLN eux-mêmes…[Ils avaient] une idéologie révolutionnaire fondée sur le terrorisme, opposée théoriquement au pluralisme…”75 He goes on to laud the efforts of the French Army to help integrate the harkis in France into society: “La réussite la plus notable est celle des garnisons françaises d’Allemagne.”76 These conclusions, notably the latter, stray from the archival documents that his study is based upon.77 Since the early 1990s, due to some authors’ political and emotional investment with the harki community and/or French Algeria, scholarship about the harkis has been entrenched heated debates (sometimes including personal attacks) between authors of different political persuasions or points of view. For example, after Hamoumou termed the post-March 1962 killings a “genocide” in his monograph, historian Charles-Robert Ageron, who taught history in an Algerian high school when the war broke out, responded in a 1994 article in Vingtième Siècle: Revue d’histoire. He argued: “Ces chiffres [des morts] relèvent de la légende noire, au même titre que les accusations de l’auteur stigmatisant ‘le déshonneur de l’armée abandonnant les siens’… M. Hamoumou est brouillé avec les chiffres.”78 These debates continue today. Hamoumou, Et ils sont devenus harkis, 322. Faivre, Les combattants musulmans, 224-25. 76 Ibid., 235. 77 For a critique of Faivre’s earlier work about the repatriation to France of a village of harkis in Kabylia, see Branche, La guerre d’Algérie, 59-62. 78 Charles-Robert Ageron, “Le drame des harkis en 1962,” Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, no. 42 (June 1994): 5-6. 74 75 30 In 2005, following the passage of the law to honor the harkis, harki daughter Fatima Besnaci-Lancou teamed with historian Gilles Manceron to create the Association Harkis et Droits de l’Homme. The association’s website describes its mission this way: “mettre en œuvre tout travail d’histoire et de mémoire, sous l’angle des droits de l’homme, pour faire connaître l’histoire des harkis.”79 Toward this end, Besnaci-Lancou and Manceron have invited scholars to participate in conferences and submit articles to their edited volumes. However, they advocate a specific version of the harkis’ history, one indicts the French government for its responsibility in the killings and torture after the ceasefire. Following the contribution of Algerian War for Independence historian Sylvie Thénault to their 2008 volume, Besnaci-Lancou and Manceron critiqued Thénault’s article in which she used a subtle linguistic difference in the title to argue that “des massacres de harkis” and not “un massacre des harkis” took place across the territory in different regions with varied intensity at different times.80 That is, there were multiple massacres of some harkis, and not one massacre of the harki population. In their introduction, titled “En finir avec toutes les légendes,” the editors write: “Nous remercions Sylvie Thénault d’avoir participé à cette réflexion, mais les directeurs de cet ouvrage ne cachent pas leur désaccord avec le fait que son texte, à propos des pouvoirs publics français en 1962, ne reprend pas à son compte les concepts d’abandon et de crime d’Etat, qui résultent pourtant, à nos yeux, de la simple analyse de faits.”81 Such emotional debates rife with polemical terms among scholars and members of the harki population over the precise number of harkis killed, lexicon, and representations of the population have tended to overshadow harki citizens’ history. <http://www.harki.net/article.php?rubrique=5>. My emphasis. Sylvie Thénault, “Massacre des harkis ou massacres de harkis?,” in Les harkis dans la décolonisation et après, ed. Fatima Besnaci-Lancou and Gilles Manceron (Paris: Éditions de l’Atelier, 2008), 81-91. 81 Fatima Besnaci-Lancou and Gilles Manceron, “Introduction: En finir avec toutes les légendes,” in Les harkis dans la décolonisation, 23. 79 80 31 Nevertheless, recently historians who are not linked to the harki population have undertaken studies. Between 2007 and 2009, three doctoral students defended dissertations in France, the United States, and the United Kingdom that focus entirely on the harkis or compare the harki and pied-noir communities. François-Xavier Hautreux examined the French Army’s strategies of recruiting and using auxiliary soldiers during the war.82 Sung Choi analyzed the influence of the resettlement of pied-noir and harki repatriates on contemporary French national identity and politics commemorating the colonial era.83 Claire Eldridge focused on similarities, differences, and overlaps in memory construction in harki and pied-noir communities.84 These three recent dissertations in history and American anthropologist Crapanzano’s book are important contributions in part owing to the authors’ distance from their subjects. A Note on Sources This study draws on documents gathered from twenty different public and private archives. The private archival collections include, notably, that of CNMF, whose sustained involvement in aiding the harki community from 1962 to 2007 generated a wealth of documentation. These meticulous records encompass reports with precise data about the harki population at the nationallevel and in the Bouches-du-Rhône department and correspondence among high-level government officials. Catalogued in spring 2008 just before I finished my research in Paris, these documents were a valuable resource for filling in gaps in materials absent from public archives. François-Xavier Hautreux, “L’armée française et les supplétifs ‘Français musulmans’ pendant la guerre d’Algérie (1954-1962): Expérience et enjeux” (PhD diss., Université de Paris X-Nanterre, 2009). See also, Hautreux, “L’engagement des harkis.” 83 Sung Choi, “From Colonial Citizen to Postcolonial Repatriate: The Politics of National Belonging and the Integration of the French from Algeria after Decolonization,” (PhD diss., UCLA, 2007). See also, Sung Choi, “The Muslim Veteran in Postcolonial France: The Politics of the Integration of Harkis After 1962,” French Politics, Culture & Society 29, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 24-45. 84 Claire Eldridge, “The Mobilisation and Transmission of Memory within the Pied-Noir and Harki Communities, 19622007,” (PhD diss., University of St. Andrews, 2009). See also, Claire Eldridge, “‘We’ve never had a voice’: memory construction and the children of the harkis (1962–1991),” French History 23, no. 1 (2009): 88-107. 82 32 I carried out my work in national government archives at the Centre historique des Archives Nationales (AN), the Centre des Archives contemporaines (CAC), the Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (MAE), and the Service historique de l’Armée de Terre (SHAT), which house the Ministry of Defense’s archives. Due to the sensitive nature of the material and the recentness of the history I was investigating, most of these archives required special permission (dérogations) to access following the provisions of the January 3, 1979 law on archives.85 The challenge in this process was not being accorded dérogations, as I received them for nearly every dossier. But rather, the often vague descriptions in archival inventories rendered it difficult to determine which cartons might contain documents relevant to my study, which I could not verify on my own without first completing a dérogation request, and the length of time some ministries took to grant me access to their dossiers (in one case, eighteen months). The SHAT collections include documents about the harkis’ participation in the Algerian War for Independence, correspondence among soldiers and commanders about the harkis’ situation in Algeria, exchanges between officials in Algeria and those in France about repatriation and violence toward the harkis, and information about the Rivesaltes camp, which was overseen by military officials. Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer’s personal papers, to which he granted me special access, include personal correspondence about the harkis’ repatriation and residence in camps in France. Some of the documents he wrote in 1962 and 1963 or marginalia in documents he received revealed his resistance toward repatriating harki soldiers given the overcrowding of these camps. Much of my work in Paris was carried out at the CAC, which houses most ministries’ archives. Cartons from the Ministries of Agriculture and Social Affairs contained particularly useful documents concerning the governments’ policies for the forest hamlets. In addition to documents On this law and the challenges faced by historians in accessing sensitive archival documents, particularly those concerning Vichy France, see Sébastien Laurent, ed., Archives “secrètes”, secrets d’archives? Historiens et archivistes face aux archives sensibles (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2003). 85 33 about the personnel overseeing harki camps, the AN houses President Charles de Gaulle’s papers. At the time of my research (fall 2006 to spring 2008), de Gaulle’s archives remained under a one hundred year waiting period. The access that the curator of his archives granted me revealed only official reports and no personal communication from the President. In fact, I only found two documents signed by him. To fill in this gap, I relied on Alain Peyrefitte’s C’était de Gaulle, a two thousand-word tome based on Peyrefitte’s extensive note-taking during Council of Ministers’ meetings and their private conversations. Therefore, the words I cite from de Gaulle come primarily from this source. Over the course of my research I interviewed three ministers: Minister for Veterans Affairs Hamlaoui Mekachera, former Minister of Armies and Prime Minister Pierre Messmer, and former Minister delegate of Repatriates Roger Romani. Each of these encounters allowed me to learn more about the individuals responsible for legislation and policies. While I wrote to Minister Messmer for an interview, Ministers Mekachera and Romani contacted me based on derogation requests I had made for archives at the CAC. Moreover, while my American nationality and distance from the harkis’ situation facilitated obtaining these interviews, the men were eager for me to share their version of controversial events in which they had been involved. Appendix A contains a transcript of my July 5, 2004 interview with Minister Messmer. I use sparingly these men’s words in sections of my dissertation that describe events that took place decades ago. However, in my final chapter, which focuses on the memory, I analyze how they remember the harkis’ history. To investigate the implementation of government policies toward the harki population at the Rivesaltes camp and the Fuveau forest hamlet, I began my research in the Pyrénées-Orientales (ADPO) and the Bouches-du-Rhône departmental archives (ADBR). The ADPO houses very few documents about the camp and the Rivesaltes municipal archives were equally disappointing. However, given the wealth of documents at the SHAT, I was able to largely overcome this obstacle. 34 The ADBR contained more useful documents than the ADPO. I soon realized, though, that many of the offices that interacted regularly with the population in the department, as well as municipalities with sizeable harki populations, had not deposited their archives at the ADBR. Therefore, I requested permission from each office to view these documents onsite. At the departmental branch of the Office national des forêts in Aix-en-Provence, I found personnel files for harkis who worked at the Fuveau forest hamlet and reports explaining the type of work they carried out. Salary records allowed me to compile the precise number of harkis who resided in the forest hamlet. The most glaring absence from the ADBR was that of any papers from the Service des rapatriés; some of these documents had been destroyed and some were in an attic at the Marseille Prefecture. Here, I cross-referenced the names of Fuveau harkis with the thousands of social welfare files and was able to locate twenty-five of their files. The documents that these dossiers contained gave texture to descriptions of individual harki families’ difficult financial situation and illustrated their trajectories once they left Algeria. I also sought out personal dossiers at the departmental office of the Office national des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre (ONAC) in Marseille. In addition to information about individuals’ lives in France, these documents included information about the men’s military service. While I did not use many of the documents found in these files for the present study, they nonetheless provided a contrast to official communications that spoke in generalities. For information about rebuilding of the Fuveau forest hamlet in the mid-1970s, I located documents at the construction and management company office in Marseille, the Société Anonyme Nouvelle d’HLM de Marseille (SANHLMM). The municipal archives in Fuveau, where I had hoped to find reports from the forest hamlet’s social counselor and documents giving a voice to the harki population, contained no documents dating before the mid-1990s. While some of these other offices allowed me to fill in gaps, I also interviewed members of the harki population and municipal officials. A town councilwoman 35 whose functions included relations with the camp residents provided me with personal documents about her work with the population in the height of the early 1990s protests. I interviewed ten members of Fuveau’s harki population and met several others. Although these interviews did not figure prominently into my study, they were important to understanding harki citizens’ views, largely absent from the archives. I was also able to recover the voices of some harki citizens from the excellent collection of periodical articles in the Sciences Po dossiers de presse. Beginning in the mid1970s newspapers and magazines reproduced press releases and speeches from members of the harki population who were active in protests. These articles also offer a glimpse into how harki citizens’ were portrayed to the public. Overview In section one (“The Harkis’ Nationality Amidst a Franco-French War”), I argue that the fractures created as a result of the Franco-French war in the early 1960s between the French government and the Secret Army Organization (OAS), which fought violently to keep Algeria French, impacted the harkis’ access to French nationality after Algerian independence. The former colonial status of nearly all harkis meant that they were not automatically eligible for French nationality, thereby restricting their access to the physical and metaphorical interior of France’s new post-imperial geographic boundaries. Section two (“Harki Citizens’ Exile in France”) relies on two case studies to demonstrate that the government’s decision to relegate to camps those who succeeded in “returning” to France set a precedent for long-persisting exclusionary policies. This treatment labeled the harkis not as French citizens but as “harki citizens.” Already shunned from Algerian communities in France because they had fought for France during the Algerian War for Independence, their different ethnicity and the isolated living conditions of those in camps kept them exiled from their 36 surrounding French community. This section also demonstrates the significance of the local camp situations for policy shifts affecting the entire harki population. Finally, the conclusion turns to national legislative and memorial initiatives regarding harki citizens. The commemorative acts to honor France’s harki citizens were influenced by both the actions of male harki children who sometimes violently protested their plight and France’s evolving relationship with the memory of its colonial past. 37 SECTION 1 The Harkis’ Nationality Amidst a Franco-French War …L’intérêt de la France a cessé de se confondre avec celui des pieds-noirs. Il ne faut pas laisser croire que l’avenir de la France en Algérie c’est le leur… Cette affaire d’Algérie aura démontré l’effroyable infirmité de l’État, encouragée au fil du temps par toutes sortes d’abandons et de faiblesses. Le tournant était difficile, les habitudes étaient tellement invétérées! Maintenant le tournant est pris. Cette tournée, à tous égards, sera celle du grand tournant.1 -President Charles de Gaulle, Council of Ministers meeting, May 4, 1962 “En l’an de grâce 1962, fleurit le renouveau de la France. Elle avait été menacée de guerre civile. La faillite allait l’accabler. Le monde oubliait sa voix. La voici tirée d’affaire.”2 So opens the second volume of President Charles de Gaulle’s memoirs. These sentiments about France’s internal conflict during the Algerian War for Independence, written shortly before his death in November 1970 (eighteen months after he stepped down from the French presidency), resonate with the words cited in the epigraph that he vociferated in a May 4, 1962 Council of Ministers meeting. De Gaulle wanted to shed France’s former departments that, in his view, had weakened France for too long and consign to the past the “affaire d’Algérie,” immediately. He wanted to witness the birth of a new Algeria, one in which France would have only strategic and economic interests. He wanted to end the violence of the OAS, formed in January 1961 by extremist elements of the pieds-noirs to fight to keep Algeria French, violence that threatened security and stability in metropolitan France. De Gaulle took this “grand tournant”—a new resolve to no longer abandon France’s interests by surrendering to those of the pieds-noirs—to reassert France’s strength. This meant placing full 1 2 Quoted in Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle (Paris: Gallimard, 2002), 140. Charles de Gaulle, Mémoires d’espoir: L’Effort, 1962-…, tome II (Paris: Plon, 1971), 13. 38 attention on extricating the French government from the crippling “Franco-French war” with the OAS that continued after the March 19, 1962 ceasefire had officially ended its military battle with the FLN. The first time that the expression “Franco-French war” appeared in academic discourse was in American historian Stanley Hoffmann’s 1968 article “Collaborationism in France during World War II.”3 Here, Hoffmann argues that historians must analyze the French state’s collaboration with the German state and individuals’ collaborationism with the Nazis—topics hitherto absent from scholarly treatment—from the viewpoint of Franco-French relations and not from that of FrancoGerman relations.4 He nuances the difference between the Vichy government’s collaboration with Germany, necessitated by the June 1940 armistice, and its more extreme form, citizens’ willful collaborationism with the Nazis.5 For him, the “Franco-French war” pitted French men and women who “openly desired co-operation with and imitation of the Nazi regime,” many of who did not “know much about what the Nazis were really like” and understood little about what fascism and national socialism really were, against those opposed to collaboration and/or collaborationism with the Nazi cause.6 This Franco-French war, which Hoffmann labeled a “civil war” once in his text, took on an identity of its own, separate from the German Occupation. Since Hoffmann’s identification of the internal conflict during the Vichy regime as a FrancoFrench war, the designation has been used as a descriptor and an analytical category for events such as the French Revolution (notably the Terror), the Paris Commune, the Dreyfus affair, and the Stanley Hoffmann, “Collaborationism in France during World War II,” The Journal of Modern History 40, no. 3 (Sept. 1968): 375-395. The term Franco-French war first appeared in print in 1950 with the publication of La guerre francofrançaise by Maréchal Pétain’s cabinet director, Louis-Dominique Girard. This book defended the Vichy regime’s controversial policies against Jews. However, the author did not use this phrase to describe the Vichy era, but rather the civil war in France taking place at that time caused by, on one hand, the repression of Pétain supporters and collaborationists and, on the other, the Cold War. Girard, La guerre franco-française (Paris: Éditions André Bonne, 1950). 4 Hoffman, “Collaborationism in France,” 376. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. The actions by collaborationists—notably, their agency in round-ups and deportations—threatened the lives of French civilians, particularly Jews and Resistance fighters. 3 39 Algerian War for Independence. In their own ways, all these clashes brought to the surface cleavages between two camps that fought passionately—and often violently—for their own cause, which necessarily meant fighting versus fellow French citizens and for or against the French government of the time. Franco-French wars were offshoots of the primary conflicts taking place. For example, in the case of the Second World War, France’s initial conflict was with Germany; the ensuing FrancoFrench war pitted collaborators against Resistance fighters. During the Dreyfus affair, the trial of Jewish Army Captain Alfred Dreyfus for treason gave birth to a battle between Dreyfusards and Anti-Dreyfusards. The former saw injustice in society if any individual’s human rights were threatened, while the latter’s holistic conception of society (one unable to be reduced to its individual members) led it to argue for protecting the French nation from the threats that the Dreyfus case posed.7 Nearly two decade’s after Hoffmann’s article, French historians Jean-Pierre Azéma, JeanPierre Rioux, and Henry Rousso, in a special issue of Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire titled “Les guerres Franco-Françaises,” underlined the importance of the notion of the French nation-state’s repeated “fractures” in their analysis of Franco-French wars. In their introduction to the journal, the editors write that Franco-French wars are ideological conflicts similar to geological faults. During periods between two fractures, “sediments” (like peace treaties or amnesties) cover the faults, masking previous internal conflicts. When faced with a new clash that falls along the same fault lines (whether it be a war, international crisis, or internal difficulties), the newest layer of sediment cracks and additional, similar fractures appear.8 The internal conflicts that have been present in France since 1789 repeat themselves in different forms, yet the core issue in these Franco-French wars is Michel Winock, “Les affaires Dreyfus,” Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, no. 5 (Jan.-Mar. 1985): 23-24. Jean-Pierre Azéma, Jean-Pierre Rioux, and Henry Rousso, “Les guerres Franco-Françaises,” Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire, no. 5 (Jan.-Mar. 1985): 4. 7 8 40 whether to include within or exclude from the nation certain French citizens, often based on conflicting interpretations of defining the nation. By early 1962 a Franco-French war had emerged from the fracture between, one on hand, French government officials who increasingly wanted to exclude Algeria and Algerians from France and, on the other, the majority of pieds-noirs who vehemently believed that the Algerian territory should remain French. During the last several years of the war, the French government’s attention slowly shifted from defeating the FLN on the battlefield to quelling its burgeoning fight with staunch supporters of French Algeria whose terrorist actions threatened the safety of metropolitan and Algerian residents. The government’s policies throughout the spring and summer of 1962 when it made crucial decisions about breaking from Algeria were inflected by these acts such as the February 1962 bombing of Culture Minister Andre Malraux’s apartment building, attacks on Algerian civilians around the March 1962 ceasefire, and an August 22, 1962 assassination attempt on de Gaulle. This Franco-French war had two consequences for the relationship between France and the harkis, in the term’s broader definition of anyone who had fought for France or was perceived to be “pro-French” and their family members. First, the question of inclusion versus exclusion that predominates during and as a result of Franco-French wars yet again surfaced as the Algerian War for Independence drew to a close. At issue for the harkis was whether they would retain their French nationality after the war, particularly given their service to France and complicity with the French cause. Ultimately, President de Gaulle issued legislation that would restrict access to French nationality for nearly all native Algerians—including the harkis—owing to their classification as French with local civil status (Français de statut civil de droit local).9 Meanwhile the French with common civil status (Français de statut civil de droit commun)—pieds-noirs and the infinitesimal number of 9 JORF, “Ordonnance n˚ 62-825 du 21 juillet 1962…,” July 22, 1962, 7230. 41 Algerian Muslims who had renounced their local, or Koranic, civil status—retained their French nationality. Determined by their Berber and/or Arab origins, the colonial classification of French with local civil status would limit the harkis’ entry into France’s emerging post-imperial geographic boundaries because, after Algerian independence, they were foreigners (a legal status in France). The government’s decision not to automatically accord French nationality to these former Algerian Muslims who had fought for France followed policies developed over nearly two centuries, most visible at moments of Franco-French internal conflicts, to exclude certain populations from full French citizenship owing to their class, gender, religion, or ethnicity. Second, the government’s focus on ending its Franco-French war with the pieds-noirs obscured the harkis’ interests, which foremost included protection by the French Army from violent retributions by other Algerians and unimpeded access to France to escape these attacks. Since the government regarded the harkis as Algerians after the ceasefire and subsequently legally codified that they were not French citizens, it gave the Army orders not to rescue harkis whose lives were in danger and limited repatriation to harkis judged to be “severely threatened.” Indeed, the harkis found themselves on the outside looking in on the Franco-French war that consumed the government in the winter and spring of 1962, because the government considered them to be neither Franco (pied-noir) nor French (metropolitan). While the government was circumspect regarding the pieds-noirs—its adversaries in the Franco-French war—it guaranteed their French nationality after the ceasefire, and with it their freedom to cross the Mediterranean. The harkis, like other Muslim Algerians, were not accorded this guarantee. Despite promises to the contrary as they fought side by side with French military officers, they were not eligible to automatically become French citizens after France relinquished its control over Algeria in July 1962. Once the military fighting ended, the Franco-French war rendered it impossible for the harkis to escape their imperial—and now post-imperial—categorization as “Algerians.” 42 This section comprises two chapters that analyze how the fractures created as a result of the Franco-French war in the early 1960s—which defined who belonged within France’s reduced geographical boundaries—impacted the harkis’ access to French nationality after Algerian independence. Chapter 1 focuses on the obstacles to French nationality posed by the harkis’ colonial status and chapter 2 examines those posed by “repatriation” to metropolitan soil and the administrative procedure to become French citizens. 43 CHAPTER 1 Algerians? The Harkis’ Deeply “Rooted” Colonial Status Le souci de la protection des musulmans fidèles à la France conduit à des conclusions diamétralement opposées: pour pouvoir admettre ces musulmans au bénéfice des mesures de rapatriement, la France doit souhaiter que tous les musulmans conservent de plein droit la nationalité française, au moins pendant un certain délai. Durant cette période, la liberté absolue de quitter l’Algérie étant garantie, la France devrait accueillir les musulmans sans aucune restriction.1 - Official communication from the Secretariat of State for Algerian Affairs (SEAA), December 11, 1961 On July 21, 1962, nearly three weeks after France relinquished control of Algeria symbolizing the end of its 132-year colonial empire, President de Gaulle issued an ordinance concerning French nationality for Algerian residents, which had serious consequences for the socalled “musulmans fidèles à la France.”2 This legislation differentiated individuals’ access to French nationality based on their former colonial citizenship status: French with local civil status versus French with common civil status. The French with common civil status—European settlers, Jews, and an infinitesimal number of Algerian natives—kept their French nationality, no matter whether they resided in France or Algeria after independence. However, the legislation required the French with local civil status—an inferior citizenship category during the colonial era for native Algerians that included almost all harkis—to request French nationality in front of a judge on metropolitan French soil. The ordinance, therefore, induced three obstacles to French nationality for these harkis: Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères (hereafter MAE), SEAA, 97, “Note a/s Circulation des Musulmans,” 1, Dec. 11, 1961. 2 JORF, “Ordonnance n˚ 62-825 du 21 juillet 1962…,” July 22, 1962, 7230. 1 44 their colonial status based on their non-white ethnicity, the need to be repatriated to France, and the process of making a nationality declaration.3 The July 21 legislation signified that the harkis’ former colonial status proved more important than their service to France in determining their nationality at the end of French Algeria. The requirement put on the harkis of requesting French nationality demonstrated that the post-1962 government continued to view the Arab and Berber harkis as unequal to the other “pro-French” population in Algeria, the pieds-noirs. 4 Just as the first law regarding nationality for Algerian residents during the colonial period had attributed a superior French nationality status to the settler population in 1865, the 1962 text accorded superior access to French nationality to this other group of “pro-French” Algerian residents, who automatically became French citizens. Moreover, the ordinance did not differentiate the harkis from other native Algerians who sought out French nationality: the procedure to become French citizens after Algerian independence was identical for harkis and for Algerians who had fought against France. De Gaulle’s ordinance reaffirmed the March 18, 1962 Evian Accords between France and the FLN, as the peace treaty ending the Algerian War for Independence made no special provisions for the harkis to become French citizens. By placing the harkis within the category of “Algerians,” de Gaulle disregarded their actions to protect France during the recently lost—and eager to be forgotten—Algerian War for Independence. Instead, he privileged their colonial status as the primary factor determining whether they would automatically be granted French nationality. In a discussion about the harkis’ access to metropolitan soil during the July 25, 1962 Council of Ministers’ meeting, de Gaulle expressed a differentiation between Muslim Algerian roots and French origins. He claimed that: “On ne peut pas accepter de Historian Guy Pervillé provides an interesting discussion of the evolving meanings and uses of the myriad terms used to describe natives, Jews, French, and other Europeans living in Algeria throughout the colonial era in “Comment appeler les habitants de l’Algérie avant la définition légale d’une nationalité algérienne?” Cahiers de la Méditerranée 54 (June 1997): 55-60. 4 In contrast, the July 1960 law issued after Sub-Saharan African countries and Madagascar gained their independence based the nationality of these countries’ indigenous residents on their place of birth and not on their personal status. This difference, once again, highlights the uniqueness of Algeria. 3 45 replier tous les musulmans qui viendraient à déclarer qu’ils ne s’entendront pas avec leur gouvernement! Le terme de rapatriés ne s’applique évidemment pas aux musulmans: ils ne retournent pas dans la terre de leurs pères!”5 Even if de Gaulle’s statement was incorrect since the “French” population in Algeria had migrated from different European countries, he was clear: the harkis’ lack of ancestral heritage in France was a reason to limit their migration to France. In July 1962, after the end of the empire, the harkis’ deeply “rooted” colonial status as “Muslims” continued to determine on which side of the Mediterranean the French government believed that they belonged. The rupture with exclusionary colonial methods of governance in Algeria did not end once France lost its former “colony.” The harkis could not escape their imperial label as “French Muslims from Algeria” or FMA.6 These measures at the height of political crisis 1962 evoked once again the question of inclusion and exclusion based on difference (gender, religion, and ethnicity, for example), which had been present during previous Franco-French conflicts. The meaning of the July 21 ordinance for the harkis cannot be understood without taking into account the Franco-French war between the French government and the OAS. De Gaulle’s decision to resort to an emergency legal text to attribute French nationality to Algerian residents during decolonization is particularly consequential because it reflects France’s crisis situation in the immediate aftermath of the Algerian War for Independence. Ordinances, a special executive power granted by the 1958 Constitution rarely used Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 209. “Tous” and “rapatriés” are italicized in Peyrefitte’s text. Since 1865 Algerian residents were divided into two categories based on their civil status. However, at the end of the colonial era emerged additional taxonomy in government documents that focused entirely on individuals’ origins—or ethnicity. The term Français musulman d’Algérie appeared in a March 7, 1944 ordinance for Algerians in metropolitan France and subsequently was used in opposition to Français d’Algérie, which explicitly referred to Algerian residents of European and Jewish origins. (SHAT, 21R 179/2, “Ordinance du 7 mars 1944 relative au statut des Français musulmans d’Algérie,” Journal Officiel N˚ 24 du 18 mars 1944, 217.) According to Todd Shepard, this frequently employed term lacked a clear definition about whether it included native Algerians who had renounced their Koranic status until a 1956 memo by the secretary of state for the Civil Service to his cabinet members. This document defined FMA as both Algerians who conserved their local civil status and those who had renounced their Muslim religion to become full French citizens. Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization, 49. 5 6 46 in the first decades of the Fifth Republic,7 authorize the president to expeditiously enact legislation without securing Parliamentary approval in order for the law to take legal effect.8 Significantly, the first time that de Gaulle used this power was in February 1960 after a week of insurrection and barricade building by the pieds-noirs who revolted against his decision to dismiss Algiers Prefect and Army General Jacques Massu, a staunch supporter of French Algeria. This ordinance, which targeted the budding Franco-French conflict, authorized de Gaulle’s government to “prendre certaines mesures relatives au maintien de l’ordre, à la sauvegarde de l’État, à la pacification et à l’administration de l’Algérie.”9 The now raging Franco-French war was a direct factor in de Gaulle’s July 1962 decision to enact the same type of emergency legislation to maintain order over which Algerian residents would be French (the Franco pieds-noirs) and which would remain Algerian (all others). The FrancoFrench war—which obscured the interests of anyone who, like the harkis, was neither Franco (piednoir) nor French (metropolitan)—yet again played a determining role as de Gaulle tried to extricate France from Algeria, or rather, tried to extricate Algerians from France. The need to officially request French nationality had a great impact on the harkis in Algeria. As the December 1961 communication from the Secretariat of State for Algerian Affairs cited above predicted, the restricted access of the “musulmans fidèles à la France” to French nationality limited the French Army’s legal capability to protect them after Algerian independence because France would be intervening in Algeria’s internal affairs. According to a working paper by the French Senate, from 1960 to 1990 Presidents issued a total of 158 ordinances, which is, on average, five times per year. “Les documents de travail du Sénat, Série Études Juridiques, Les Ordonnances, Bilan au 31 décembre 2007.” <http://www.senat.fr/ej/ej_ordonnance/ej_ordonnance0.html.> 8 Article 38 of the Fifth Republic Constitution states: “Le Gouvernement peut, pour l’exécution de son programme, demander au Parlement l’autorisation de prendre par ordonnances, pendant un délai limité, des mesures qui sont normalement du domaine de la loi. Les ordonnances sont prises en Conseil des ministres après avis du Conseil d’État. Elles entrent en vigueur dès leur publication mais deviennent caduques si le projet de loi de ratification n’est pas déposé devant le Parlement avant la date fixée par la loi d’habilitation.” <http://www.assembleenationale.fr/connaissance/constitution.asp.> 9 “Les documents de travail du Sénat… Les Ordonnances.” 7 47 De Gaulle’s focus remained on French internal politics and French citizens. He issued the July 21 ordinance as he looked to curtail an unanticipated massive influx from Algeria, which tested France’s already saturated public housing system.10 In June 1962 alone, 354,914 pieds-noirs migrated from Algeria to France and only 26,480 returned to Algeria.11 And in June and July 1962, 15,339 harkis arrived in Marseille with only a miniscule number returning to Algeria to bring their families back to France.12 On the other hand, the reverse was true for Algerian labor migrants. According to data kept by the Sûreté Nationale on the movements of Algerians (which did not include harkis), in July 1962 only 7,510 people arrived in France and 23,478 migrated to Algeria and in August, 22,193 people arrived in France and 26,705 migrated to Algeria.13 The post-1962 government’s efforts to slow down the exodus from Algeria by limiting the access of French with local civil status to French nationality targeted, at least at the moment of independence, the harkis. This chapter presents a brief history of French nationality law in colonial Algeria to introduce an analysis of the language and significance of the 1962 text. Next, it examines the first of three obstacles to becoming French citizens that the legislation created: the harkis’ colonial status. Chapter Two will analyze the remaining two obstacles: the harkis’ limited access to the repatriation process and the confusing logistical process the legislation required once they reached France. The “Nationalité Dénaturée” of Algerian Muslims The harkis’ nationality status created by the July 21, 1962 ordinance resembled the exceptional nationality status of the inferior Algerian Muslims during the colonial period, which The French government insisted on the principle of free circulation in the Evian Accords allowing the pieds-noirs who had fled Algeria owing to violence at the end of the war to return to Algeria once peace was reestablished. However, the population shift was not bi-directional. Instead, over one million former residents of Algeria migrated permanently to France during the 1960s. These figures do not take into account their descendants born after they arrived on French soil. 11 Jean-Jacques Jordi, De l’exode à l’exil: Rapatriés et Pieds-Noirs en France (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1993), 66. 12 CAC, 19910467/1, “Chiffre des harkis qui sont arrivés à Marseille en juin et juillet 1962.” 13 ADBR, 138 W 5, Service de coordination et d’information nord-africaine (SCINA), “Synthèse quotidienne de renseignements, journées des 8, 9, 10 & 11 septembre 1962,” g, N˚ 1 750. 10 48 historian Patrick Weil labels a “nationalité dénaturée.” Playing on the idea of “naturalization”—a “rebirth” according to the term’s Latin etymological root of “naturalis”—Weil uses this concept to signify that Algerian Muslims’ nationality was “vidée de ses droits et de son sens.”14 Their rights were inferior to those of French citizens and, more perplexingly, in most respects inferior to those of foreigners living on French soil, which included Algeria. Muslim natives had a specific set of laws about naturalization that applied explicitly to them, which highlighted their truly unique status. Consequently, they were ineligible to become French citizens under the 1889 nationality law, which put forth a republican version of jus soli—nationality based on one’s place of birth—as the dominant criteria for determining the nationality of foreigners and children of foreigners residing on French soil, including Algeria.15 The law greatly facilitated access to French nationality for the pieds-noirs (many of whom had migrated to Algeria from countries such as Spain and Italy) since Algeria had been incorporated as three departments of France in 1848. However, Algerian natives did not fall into the category of “foreigners” residing on French soil, even though they were not considered French citizens. Instead, as mentioned in the introduction, Muslim natives’ access to French nationality was determined by an 1865 sénatus-consulte. This judicial decree bestowed upon them the possibility to Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 238. Weil and philosopher Pierre-André Taguieff maintain that naturalization cannot be reduced to a juridical process of acquiring nationality because it must “être pensé comme une métamorphose, voire une transsubstantiation, fondée sur une déculturation/acculturation (reculturation) des étrangers rendue possible par la scolarisation, laquelle garantit l’homogénéité linguistique et l’inculcation de valeurs communes, ainsi la convergence des mœurs, dont la mixité des mariages est, par exemple, témoin et facteur.” Taguieff and Weil, “‘Immigration’, fait national et ‘citoyenneté’” Esprit (May 1990): 89. On naturalization also see: Abdelmalek Sayad, “La ‘naturalisation,’” La double absence: Des illusions de l’émigré aux souffrances de l’immigré (Paris: Seuil, 1999), 319-71. 15 Jus soli, which established citizenship based on one’s place of birth, prevailed as the chief determinant of French citizenship during the Old Regime and until the 1804 Civil Code issued by Napoleon. Therefore, the Frenchman was defined by his link to the king and to the physical territory. The Civil Code broke with monarchy’s conception of citizenship by instituting for the first time in Europe the idea of jus sanguinis or filiation. The June 26, 1889 law—known as the first nationality law—reintroduced jus soli into nationality legislation. It also reaffirmed the principle of double jus soli (a child born in France to a foreigner who was also born in France is automatically French) established in a February 7, 1851 law, but added the restriction that the child could not repudiate French citizenship. This republican version of jus soli correlated nationality with socialization under the premise that those who were educated in French schools learned how to become French citizens. The schooling provided at camps such as Rivesaltes for harki adults and children after their repatriation follows this logic; see chapter 3 of this dissertation. On the 1889 law, see Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 85-113 and Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 53-61. 14 49 obtain full French citizenship if they underwent what Weil denominates “une lourde procédure de ‘naturalisation’” culminating in the president of the Republic signing a decree of approval for each candidate.16 The law’s first article pronounced: “[L’indigène musulman] peut, sur sa demande, être admis à jouir des droits de citoyen français: dans ce cas, il est régi par les lois civiles et politiques de la France.”17 In other words, in order to obtain French nationality and its accompanying civil rights, duties, and social benefits, the Algerian native needed to renounce the five customs of Muslim Sharia law that were incompatible with the Civil Code (such as polygamy and the male privilege in matters of inheritance).18 The three million natives residing in Algeria in 1865 were technically French, but, by virtue of being governed by Sharia law, they maintained an inferior status to the Christian residents of Algeria and to Jews living in Algeria following their mass naturalization and inclusion into the definition of French from Algeria with the 1870 Crémieux Decree.19 Most notably, natives were subject to the Native Code. This doctrine, passed in 1881, created a different body of laws for Algerian natives that severely restricted their freedoms by sanctioning them for offenses such as speaking disrespectfully to or about French officials, traveling outside of their commune without a permit, and refusing to perform obligatory forced labor tasks (la corvée) including fighting forest fires and grasshoppers. The infinitesimal number of natives who became naturalized French citizens (2,396 between 1865 and 1915)20 were able to escape what historian John Ruedy refers to as Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 211. Ministère de la Justice, “Le sénatus-consulte du 14 juillet 1865 sur l’état des personnes et la naturalisation en Algérie,” in La nationalité française, Textes et documents (Paris: La Documentation Française, 1996), 228. 18 The other customs include: the right for a Muslim father to marry off his child until a certain age (djebr), the right of a husband to break the conjugal bond at his own discretion, and the theory of the “sleeping child” (the possibility to recognize the legitimate filiation of a child born more than ten months and as long as five years after the dissolution of a marriage). Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 234. 19 Historian Daniel Rivet estimates the population of Algerian Jews at 50,000 individuals on the eve of colonization. Daniel Rivet, Le Maghreb à l’épreuve de la colonisation (Paris: Hachette, 2002), 71. 20 Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 237. 16 17 50 “a humiliating regime of exception.”21 This tenet of the sénatus-consulte based on personal religious status served as the first obstacle to the natives’ citizenship. But, as Weil demonstrates, renunciation of their personal status as Muslims did not always guarantee full French citizenship since its attribution hinged on a discretionary decision by French magistrates, some of whom believed that “Muslim” was a permanent label that remained unchanged even if an individual stopped practicing Islam.22 The authority over each individual dossier that the government bestowed to civil servants underscores the subjectivity of this process and represents a second obstacle toward gaining French citizenship. Each candidate needed to undergo an administrative investigation, which scrutinized his morality, ancestors, and marital situation, thereby giving colonial authorities significant power over the natives. According to sociologist Laure Blévis, administrators in France and Algeria looked above all for proof of their possessing “worth” (valeur) and “dignity” (dignité),23 that is, their exemplifying of “‘bonne vie et mœurs.’”24 One ideal means for the natives to demonstrate loyalty and worth to the mother country was service in the military; soldiers and former soldiers represented twenty-seven percent of the Muslim natives naturalized between 1870 and 1919.25 During the nineteenth century when colonial policy focused on the theory of assimilating the “natives” into Frenchmen, the total of rejected requests for naturalization was quite small. However, starting around the turn of the century once the French government shifted to a policy of association that focused less on the “francisation” of colonial populations, the figure Ruedy, Modern Algeria, 89. The court of appeals in Algiers handed down a 1903 ruling that “le terme musulman ‘n’a pas un sens purement confessionnel, mais qu’il désigne au contraire l’ensemble des individus d’origine musulmane qui, n’ayant point été admis au droit de cité, ont nécessairement conservé leur statut personnel musulman, sans qu’il y ait lieu de distinguer s’ils appartiennent ou non au culte mahométan.’” Quoted in Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 235 and 334 n. 153. 23 Blévis, “La citoyenneté française,” 28. Sociologist Emmanuelle Saada calls attention to the ubiquity and frequency of the terms “dignity” and “prestige” (as in “threats to [the] prestige” of the mère patrie) in legal documents produced by colonial administrators, arguing that these codified legal terms were “privileged instruments of colonial domination.” Emmanuelle Saada, “The Empire of Law: Dignity, Prestige, and Domination in the ‘Colonial Situation,’” French Politics, Culture & Society 20.2 (2002): 101. 24 Blévis, “La citoyenneté française,” 39. 25 Ibid., 40. 21 22 51 grew markedly, reaching one third, one half, or even three fifths of the requests.26 This discretionary dynamic between state representatives and the natives was indeed a facet of the colonial civilizing mission, which sought to adjudicate who was “evolved” enough to be awarded full French citizenship. The last set of hurdles that Muslim natives needed to surmount to obtain French nationality was logistical. Their dossier needed to include eight different documents, including the certificate of “bonne vie et moeurs” from French local government officials. Each Algerian had to appear in person before the mayor or administrative authority to declare that he had renounced his status as a Muslim and would abide by French political and civil laws. Once accomplishing these tasks, the candidate became the object of the administrative inquiry described above. Along with the opinions of the prefect and the governor, administrators sent the dossier across the Mediterranean for approval by the Ministry of Justice, the Council of State, and finally the president of the Republic who signed a decree.27 This procedure would remain in place until the end of French Algeria: between 1865 and 1962 approximately 7,000 Algerian natives would become French citizens.28 The “Nationalité Dénaturée” of the Harkis Although the harkis did not have to withstand such strict scrutiny, the obstacles that they encountered in acquiring French nationality as a result of the July 21, 1962 ordinance “relative à certaines dispositions concernant la nationalité française” are reminiscent of the Algerian Muslims’ nationality procedure during the colonial period. The July legislation’s second article stipulated that “les personnes de statut civil de droit local originaires d’Algérie ainsi que leurs enfants” who had Moutet report, 1919, reprinted in Victor Piquet, Les réformes en Algérie et le statut des indigènes (Paris: Emile Larose, 1919), 59-64, quoted in Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 237. 27 Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 236. 28 Patrick Weil, “Histoire et mémoire des discriminations en matière de nationalité française,” Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire 84 (Oct.-Dec. 2004): 8. 26 52 French nationality on July 3, 1962 (the date that France recognized Algerian independence) “peuvent, en France, se faire reconnaître la nationalité française.”29 This category of Algerians— which included the harkis—had been the inferior colonial status of almost all natives. According to the text, they had to present themselves before January 1, 1963 in front of a metropolitan French judge bearing the proper documentation and make a declaration affirming that they wished to “remain”—or, more accurately “become”—French as outlined in the 1945 Nationality Code. If not, they would lose the possibility of acquiring French nationality. The obstacles that the ordinance created for the harkis to become French (their colonial status, repatriation to France, and the administrative procedure) are significant in themselves. However, the sometimes subtle wording of the text makes its impact even more significant. First, the lexical choice of “personnes” to describe the Muslim natives in the ordinance indubitably symbolized that these former French citizens were no longer considered French by the government. Hitherto, the harkis and other Muslim natives in colonial Algeria had been legally categorized as “French with local civil status.” This inferior class of French nationality was predicated on the Algerian natives’ need to renounce their personal status as Muslims and the subsequent obstacleridden procedure they needed to endure before they could become naturalized French citizens. The decision to employ “personnes” contrasts with Article One of the ordinance, which referred to the pieds-noirs in Algeria as “French with common civil status,” a juridically superior class of French citizens during the colonial era. The legislation held that all pieds-noirs were now entitled to automatic French nationality without any legal proceedings, even if they still resided in Algeria, which amounted to a double French-Algerian nationality.30 The inferior colonial status of harkis as JORF, “Ordonnance n˚ 62-825 du 21 juillet 1962…,” July 22, 1962, 7230. The first article of the July 21, 1962 ordinance decreed: “Les Français de statut civil de droit commun domiciliés en Algérie à la date de l’annonce officielle des résultats du scrutin de l’autodétermination conservent la nationalité française quelle que soit leur situation au regard de la nationalité algérienne.” 29 30 53 “Français/personnes de statut civil de droit local,” therefore, continued to legally differentiate them from their non-Muslim counterparts after the end of the French empire. Second, harkis who had been French with local civil status could only make a nationality declaration if they resided “in France;” they could not ask for French nationality while they were still living in Algeria. This stipulation did not exist for any of the pieds-noirs, who became French even if they chose to reside in Algeria. Conversely, the harkis’ French nationality was contingent upon their movement across the transforming borders of France, a migration that, as the next chapter demonstrates, the French government tried to limit. Lastly, the phrase “se faire reconnaître la nationalité française” and the process it entailed in part induced ambiguities in the nationality status of harkis and other Muslim Algerians once they arrived in metropolitan France. “Se faire reconnaître,” which is a less common phrase than “se faire connaître” (to identify oneself or to make oneself known) and “se reconnaître” (to recognize oneself or to consider oneself), does not have a straightforward meaning and, therefore, leaves many questions about Muslim Algerians’ French nationality when they arrived in metropolitan France. Were they French during the liminal moment between July 3, 1962 (the date they—retroactively— lost French nationality) and the time that they made a nationality declaration? Were they acquiring or reacquiring French nationality? After all, the question to which they needed to respond was “Voulez-vous garder votre nationalité française?” The process the harkis and other Algerian Muslims needed to undergo to acquire French nationality after the end of the empire implicitly addresses these questions. The ordinance required them to follow the procedure outlined by the 1945 Nationality Code applicable to foreigners: appear before a judge with a lengthy list of appropriate documentation. This procedure in many ways mimicked that implemented during the colonial period for Algerian subjects to become full French 54 citizens. The recourse to this policy implied that the harkis were foreigners like the Algerian natives who had actively fought against France during the seven and a half year war. The harkis’ nationality was indeed “denatured” because these “pro-French” Muslims could only become French through an exceptional process, which discounted their military service to France. The harkis’ defense of French Algeria—which put their lives in danger not only during the war on the battlefield but also at that moment as members of the FLN and its military arm, the ALN, tortured and massacred harki “traitors” by the thousands—did not earn them the right to French nationality. Their military service arguably created a “blood debt” owed by France toward them, but it did not repay the debt by welcoming the harkis into the French polity.31 The refusal to grant automatic French nationality to the harkis mimicked the policies of the French government during the imperial era, which had excluded colonial soldiers and veterans from full French nationality. Even if this exclusion contradicted the republican principle of equality, such policies were also, paradoxically, intrinsic features of republican France.32 Although citizenship was tightly linked to defense of the nation since the formation of the National Guard on July 13, 1789 created a “citizenarmy” 33 and although the Third Republic embraced military service as one of the twin In a recent study, Gregory Mann probes the notion of France owing a “blood debt” to French West African veterans. He argues: “in twentieth-century West Africa, regional idioms and ideals of social exchange, mutual obligation, and uneven reciprocity intersected with French ideas about the special relationship between a nation and its veterans… The unfinished product of the intersection of these contentious French and West African ideals is a political language of sacrifice and obligation that continues to inflect contemporary debates, notably about African immigration to France and the idea of a ‘blood debt’ owed by France to its former colonies.” Gregory Mann, Native Sons: West African Veterans and France in the Twentieth Century (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006), 4. 32 On this argument, see Wilder, The French Imperial Nation-State. He contends on page 4 that an “antinomy between universality and particularity… existed within both the metropolitan and colonial poles of the imperial nation-state and … expressed itself in discourses as well as practices.” 33 On the National Guard “citizen-army” formed through individuals’ political and military mobilization during the Revolution, see Pierre Birnbaum, “L’Étatisation de la nation: La levée en masse pendant la Révolution Française,” in La Logigue de l’État (Paris: Fayard, 1982), 193-213. Julia Osman argues that while the National Guard has been widely recognized as France’s first “citizen-army,” the notion of citizen soldiers was not an outcome of the French Revolution, but rather the result of reforms that the French Army enacted after the loss of its North American empire during the 1756-63 Seven Years’ War. Julia Osman, “The Citizen Army of Old Regime France,” (PhD diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2010), 12 and 64-65. 31 55 components—along with schooling—for building French citizens,34 republican France operated a differentiation between les troupes indigènes and les troupes françaises in terms of their nationality status. For example, despite a 1915 legislative proposal to reward colonial troops with French nationality, the imperial nation-state never opted to bestow this “highest, noblest recognition” on its colonial subjects who served as vital components of the French Army during France’s colonial conquests all over the globe, and later in the World Wars, and even in the wars of decolonization in Asia and Africa.35 After France’s second empire ended with loss of Algeria, the French government chose to uphold imperial citizenship policies for its former soldiers. De Gaulle, eager to resign the “Affaire d’Algérie” to the past, did not want to encourage the migration of Berber and Arab Algerians to France. Despite continual promises that government officials made to the harkis in the war’s waning months that they would be French citizens, once Algeria became independent the harkis’ former colonial status trumped their having risked their lives for France. The Harkis’ Future in an “Algerian Algeria” The requirement for harkis to formally request French nationality simultaneously contradicted public claims the government had made during the war that they would not encounter obstacles to being French citizens and reinforced the policies of the imperial French government to distance itself from them. As the war drew to a close, the French Army disarmed the harkis and encouraged them to return to their villages, without its protection. Despite the discourse to mollify the trepidation that many harkis expressed about potentially losing their French nationality, it is clear For an analysis of the Third Republic’s defining citizenship based on the idea of socialization into the nation through schooling and military service, see: Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood, 108-13; Gérard Noiriel, “Nations, nationalités, nationalismes: Pour une socio-histoire comparée,” in État, nation et immigration: Vers une histoire du pouvoir (Paris: Belin, 1999), 128-37; and Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976), 292-302 and 330-38. 35 The legislative proposal presented before the Chamber of Deputies on April 1, 1915 stated: “It is an obligation for France to seek to compensate the indigènes who fight for her, or who, simply but loyally, have fulfilled their military duty. The highest, noblest recognition that France can perceive is to offer what she considers most precious, that is to say, French nationality.” Quoted in Fogarty, Race and War, 230. 34 56 that the French government neither viewed the harkis as full citizens nor intended them to be citizens after the war. During their service in the French Army, government documents referred to the harkis as musulmans, Français de souche nord-africaine or its abbreviated form FSNA, and even Musulmans fidèles à la France. Army officials most often used FSNA or harkis in their documents, while Foreign Affairs’ officials employed musulmans, musulmans fidèles à la France, and musulmans attachés à la France seemingly to include civilian pro-French Muslims. After the end of the war, and even subsequent to the loss of colonial Algeria, government papers kept employing such colonial classifications to define the harkis, thereby distinguishing them from other French citizens. Once it became apparent that French Algeria would cease to exist, government officials employed a discursive strategy of promising the harkis that they could be French citizens and that France would not abandon them. The first negotiations to discuss the “new Algeria” and move toward re-establishing peace in the war-ravaged country opened between an FLN delegation led by Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) president Belkacem Krim and a French government delegation headed by Minister of Algerian Affairs Louis Joxe in Evian, Switzerland on May 20, 1961.36 On this date, France also declared a unilateral one-month truce in the fighting. These talks and actions signaled to the Algerian natives fighting for the French cause that an FLN victory was imminent. The auxiliary soldiers’ morale, which had been degrading since the previous summer because of their fear of inevitable reprisals if the FLN was victorious, dipped even further and they expressed their grave concerns to their superiors about their future in a new Algeria.37 One harki soldier wrote in June to Colonel Guillard of the Akbou sector in Kabylia that the harkis’ “attitude… bonne volonté et loyauté” had considerably contributed to French military success in Joxe opened the talks by exposing France’s double objective: “tenter de rétablir la paix après six années de guerre en Algérie; étudier les principes selon lesquels peut se fonder une Algérie nouvelle.” Vers la paix en Algérie: Les négociations d'Evian dans les archives diplomatiques françaises (15 janvier 1961 - 29 juin 1962) (Brussels: Bruyant, 2003), 40. 37 SHAT, 1H 1397/7, Le Chef d’ Escadrons de Bouillas, “Objet: État d’esprit des supplétifs – Problème de Solde,” 1, Nº 5100/EMI/2/EG, Sept. 20, 1960. 36 57 Algeria, but that “la France demeure encore sourde à notre égard et ignore totalement le sort de les [sic] Harkas sans défense.”38 He also exposed growing discontent by harkis who worried about their relationship with France. Colonel Guillard immediately met with the harki to reassure him that “en aucun cas, la France n’abandonnerait tous ceux qui s’étaient engagés à ses côtés.” 39 Guillard’s superior noted in a letter sharing this story with the Commander of the Western region of Constantine that the Akbou harki’s concerns about a future relationship with France reflected the concerns expressed for some time by practically all of the harkis.40 Guillard’s response aligns with instructions from Prime Minister Michel Debré that the Army Chief of Staff in Paris relayed that same month to military commanders in Algeria with orders to distribute to harki soldiers with “le plus grand discernement” given “l’extême sensibilité actuelle du moral des supplétifs.” In other words, officials in Paris feared that harki soldiers might desert the French Army, or worse, use their weapons to turn on French soldiers. Concerning their relationship with France, this document stated, “Les supplétifs FSNA pourront en toutes circonstances se réclamer de la citoyenneté Française et bénéficier de tous les droits correspondants. À cet égard le Corps d’Armée a demandé aux autorités supérieures que soient indiqués les avantages concrets de cette mesure et a prescrit en attendant, de préciser aux harkis qu’ils sont des citoyens et des soldats français jouissant de tous les avantages de cette situation.”41 Based on these instructions relayed from the Prime Minister, the French government was asking military officials to affirm to harki soldiers that they were French citizens without question. SHAT, 1H 1397/7, Harki serving in Harka 224 stationed in Tazmalt, handwritten letter to Colonel Guillad (Battalion Chief of the II/2˚ RIMA) received on June 17, 1961, page 1. This text is attached to a letter from Colonel Charrier to the General commanding Western region of Constantine, “Objet: Moral des Harkis,” N˚ 1655/SA/B 3/PH/SC, June 23, 1961. Colonel Charrier believed that the harki’s father, who was a local Muslim notable, might have written the letter. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 SHAT, 1H 1260/1, Division General Perrotat, “Note de Service. Objet: Situation des Harkis et AASSES,” June 12, 1961. 38 58 Later that summer, on August 25, 1961, the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army in Paris issued a memorandum with the precise measures the government was taking to improve the harki soldiers’ situations for the zone commanders in Algeria to communicate with all soldiers. The note promised increased pecuniary benefits, more opportunities within each unit of harkis (harka) to earn a higher military rank, and a forthcoming statute allowing for more harkis to enlist in the “regular” army. Its final clause affirmed the harkis’ French nationality, but with a catch not present in the June instructions: “Les supplétifs sont des personnes de nationalité française. Cette situation ne pourra être modifiée que par l’effet d’une loi française.”42 The French government maintained a public discourse that it would not strip the harkis of their French nationality and gave no indication that the state would issue such a law. For example, a fall 1961 public announcement broadcast on Algeria’s Radio Arabe opened with the sentence “Les Harkis vont toucher le prix de leur fidélité à la République Française.” Its first paragraph, seemingly aimed at assuaging the harkis’ fears about being abandoned, elaborated on this point by promising them that they would remain French citizens: “Les harkis qui servent sous les armes françaises pourront se réclamer, en toutes circonstances, de la citoyenneté française et de la totalité des droits qui s’y rattachent.”43 With these words, the government publicly equated the harkis’ service in the French Army with the reward of French nationality, but enacted no measures to assure this status. Officials in Algeria, well acquainted with the political climate, also supported guaranteeing French nationality for the pro-French Muslims and opposed requiring them to ask for French nationality. On October 4, 1961 and on November 2, 1961, the Secretariat of Algerian Affairs circulated to the Prefects of each Algerian department questionnaires principally focused on the SHAT, 1H 1397/1, General Lagarde (S/Chef d’État-Major de l’Armée) à MM. Les Généraux Commandant les Régions Territoriales et Corps d’Armée d’Alger, d’Oran, de Constantine et M. le Général Commandant la Région Militaire du Sahara, “Objet: Problème Harki. Note d’information générale,” 2, N˚ 2800/EMA/1.E., Aug. 25, 1961. The Army sent 400 copies of the memo to hand out in all military zones. 43 SHAT, 1H 1397/1, Le Chef d’État-Major, “Note pour la Radio Arabe.” 42 59 nationality and future of the pieds-noirs in a new Algerian state, but each form also included one question concerning the protection of Muslims. 44 Question nine of the October questionnaire inquired: “Quelle est la meilleure manière d’assurer la protection des musulmans particulièrement attachés à la France? Doit-on pour certains prévoir leur transfert en Métropole et pour le plus grand nombre le maintien s’ils le veulent de la nationalité française pour qu’ils bénéficient en Algérie des garanties accordées aux Algériens de souche européenne?” The summary of responses compiled by Algerian Affairs revealed that the Prefects strongly advocated safeguarding “les Musulmans attachés à la France” from future possible FLN retaliatory measures by offering them the same protections, possibilities for double nationality, and right to migrate to France as the pieds-noirs would have.45 At the same time, the Prefects recognized that assimilating the pro-French Muslims with the pieds-noirs would provoke a de facto expatriation from their community of origin (as the Algiers prefect contended, “On voit mal des Musulmans français dans une Algérie algérienne”) and, therefore, they argued that French government must provide a place for these pro-French Muslims in the repatriation process and guarantee their French nationality.46 Nevertheless, the Ministry of Algerian Affairs opined in the summary’s conclusion that according the same dual nationality status to the pro-French Muslims as to the pieds-noirs, which would allow both groups the same right to repatriation, would be an illusory solution. This report concluded that most of these Muslims would not opt for double nationality because it would place them in a minority position vis-à-vis other Algerians.47 Opposed to these arguments and concerned for the harkis’ safety, local officials strongly encouraged the government to allow the harkis to automatically keep their French nationality and, in multiple notes to the Quai d’Orsay, warned of detrimental consequences if this were not the case. The questionnaires, most of the responses, and a summary of responses can be found in MAE, SEAA, 97. MAE, SEAA, 97 (dossier: Premier questionnaire – garanties), “Synthèse des réponses au premier questionnaire relatif aux garanties,” Oct. 24, 1961. 46 Ibid. 47 Ibid. 44 45 60 One such document titled “Protection des Musulmans” contended: “Les Musulmans fidèles à la France doivent pouvoir conserver à l’égard de la France leur nationalité française. Il serait injurieux de leur imposer un acte positif pour que cette nationalité française leur soit reconnue.”48 These words proved to be a harbinger of the future exile that the harkis would experience in France. The Harkis’ Future in Post-Imperial France As peace talks began, French civilian administrators and military personnel in Algeria warned government officials in Paris that they must protect the pro-French Muslims from “certain danger” by assuring them a future legal link with the French state. Nevertheless, the negotiations during the fall of 1961 and winter of 1961-1962 between FLN representatives and French Foreign Affairs Ministry officials completely neglected to reference civilian and military auxiliary forces in discussions about according French nationality to Algerian populations. Moreover, the resulting document outlining the future relationship between the two countries and their populations—the March 18, 1962 Evian Accords—made this position official by not including any special provisions for the harkis to retain their French nationality. In fact, this treaty did not include one single line about the nationality status of the harkis (or that of other native Algerians).49 Instead, France placed the onus of assuring the harkis’ safety onto the FLN and the new Algerian state, which, after the Algerian population approved its creation, the Evian Accords declared “exercera sa souveraineté pleine et entière à l’intérieur et à l’extérieur.”50 The protection of the harkis rested on this state, and this sovereign state alone, to uphold the following clauses from the Accords: MAE, SEAA, 97 (dossier: Protection des musulmans), DL, “Note a/s Protection des Musulmans,” 1, Dec. 12, 1961. In the entire text, the word “nationalité” was used twice and both times the term was used referred to the pieds-noirs’ nationality. The two occurrences are in: Déclaration des Garanties, Deuxième Partie, Chapitre 1. 50 Accords d’Evian, Déclaration Générale, Chapter 2. 48 49 61 Nul ne pourra faire l’objet de mesures de police ou de justice, de sanctions disciplinaires ou d’une discrimination quelconque en raison: d’opinions émises à l’occasion des événements survenus en Algérie avant le jour du scrutin d’autodétermination; d’actes commis à l’occasion des mêmes événements avant le jour de la proclamation du cessez-le-feu. Aucun Algérien ne pourra être contraint de quitter le territoire algérien ni empêché d’en sortir.51 In a directive to the commanders of the Army, Navy, and Air Force outlining the probable terms of the peace agreement ten days before the ceasefire Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer emphasized this trust of the new Algerian state. He wrote: “L’Algérie, Indépendante et Souveraine, garantira à tous ses habitants la sûreté de leur personne et de leurs biens, le respect des particularismes et des droits publics et privés.”52 As will be shown in the next chapter, the French government officials’ faith in the new Algerian State was misguided. By not insisting on French nationality for the harkis, voices from the Quai d’Orsay were dissonant with those of Army and local government officials in Algeria. These latter groups overwhelmingly advocated including the pro-French Muslims as legal members of the French postimperial state, citing real safety concerns if they returned to their status as “Algerians.” The available transcripts and summaries from secret meetings on October 28-29 and November 8-10, 1961,53 on December 9, 1961,54 on December 30, 1961,55 on January 28-29, 1962,56 on February 11-19, 1962,57 Ibid. SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Directives), Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer to the Commanders of the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force, “Annexe 1: Les termes probables de la négociation,” Nº 206/MA/CAB/INF/CA (DR), Mar. 8, 1962. 53 The October 28-29 and November 8-10 secret meeting was held in Bâle, Switzerland between Mohammed Ben Yahia and Redha Malek representing the FLN and Bruno de Leusse and Claude Chayet of the French Ministry of Algerian Affairs. A hunger strike by FLN leader Ahmed Bella caused the talks to come to an end before higher-level officials joined in. Vers la paix en Algérie, xxxvii. 54 On December 9, de Gaulle told his Enarque confidant at the Quai d’Orsay, Alain Peyrefitte, that “France had to unburden itself of Algeria.” Matthew Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria’s Fight for Independence and the Origin of the Post-Cold War Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 257. Following this conversation, Minister of Algerian Affairs Louis Joxe brought de Leusse with him to meet Saad Dahlab and Ben Yahia at the Yéti chalet in the French Jura mountains. Vers la paix en Algérie, xxxviii. 55 The third secret meeting on December 30 between the same parties as the December 9 encounter took place in Chalain, France. Vers la paix en Algérie, xxxix. 56 Joxe led the French delegation and Dahlab led that of the FLN at the January 28-29 meeting in Lons-le-Saunier. Vers la paix en Algérie, xli. 57 The delegations for the final secret meeting on February 11-19, once again in Rousses, were headed by Joxe and by GPRA leader Krim Belkacem. Vers la paix en Algérie, xlii-xliii. 51 52 62 and finally those of the public Evian discussions on March 7-18, 196258 reveal that the French government’s primary, and only, concern about Algerian populations’ nationality was guaranteeing a double French-Algerian nationality for the pieds-noirs. Each time that the question of nationality surfaced, it was either in a debate over the pieds-noirs being given automatic Algerian nationality (the French position) or over Algerians in metropolitan France not losing their French nationality (the FLN position). Minister Joxe and his team’s insistence on double nationality for the pieds-noirs clashed with the FLN’s position and made their choice to neglect the French state’s relationship with the “proFrench Muslims” more glaring. FLN officials, led in the initial meetings by Saad Dahlab and in the last clandestine talks by Krim Belkacem, fervently maintained that only Muslim Algerians should automatically become—or rather, remain—Algerian citizens, believing that “le peuple algérien, composé de musulmans, a toujours existé” and this people would be reborn when France released its stranglehold on the colony.59 Therefore, not only did the FLN delegation question the place of the pieds-noirs in the new Algeria, but it also disputed the pieds-noirs’ status since 1830. The debates over who would be automatically Algerian in the new state reawakened a significant source of contention between Muslim natives and the pieds-noirs dating back to the nineteenth century, when the latter had appropriated the label “Algerians” for themselves.60 The FLN wanted to protect post-imperial Algeria from a neo-colonial situation of according the pieds-noirs special privileges that would replicate the state within a state that had been present on their territory throughout the colonial era. They argued that granting the pieds-noirs automatic Algerian nationality would threaten A transcript of the proceedings for the first nine sessions of meeting (March 7-11) is located in Vers la paix en Algérie, 316-377. 59 Note du Ministère d’État chargé des Affaires algériennes, “Projet de propositions en vue de la reprise des négociations,” Nov. 21, 1961, in Vers la paix en Algérie, 291. 60 For a discussion of the evolution and definition of the term “Algériens,” see Guy Pervillé, “Comment appeler les habitants.” 58 63 the stability in, and the definition of, the nascent independent Algeria.61 The FLN wanted people of European origin to officially affirm their allegiance to the new state, which would ensure that these individuals supported the new iteration of Algeria. The French government would not cede to the FLN about double nationality for the piedsnoirs, which became, according to Todd Shepard, “one of the most charged issues that was negotiated.”62 The progression of the peace talks seemingly contradicted the French government’s opposition to the pieds-noirs’ vehement stance about keeping Algeria French because government officials allowed this issue to dominate discussions, and ultimately to drag them out. In fact, Sylvie Thénault contends that during the last two years of the war, the killings and coup attempts on metropolitan French soil carried out by the partisans of French Algeria reoriented the French government’s focus in the conflict. These individuals became France’s primary enemy and were increasingly viewed as a greater threat than FLN operatives.63 Most feared of all was the OAS. The OAS’s violent actions seriously threatened France’s stability not only in Algeria, but also in the metropole. This militia regularly engaged in bombing campaigns of government buildings and public venues in Algeria, reaching a fevered pitch as France and the FLN grew nearer to a peace agreement. In February 1962 alone, OAS bombs or bullets killed 553 people.64 This same month, an OAS bomb rocked the ground floor of Minister of Culture André Malraux’s Parisian suburb apartment building, leaving his landlord’s four-year-old daughter Delphine with a bloody face that the next morning’s newspapers spread across their front pages. In protest, the Communist Party (PCF), the far-left Unified Socialist Party (PSU), and the centrist Republican Popular Movement (MRP), along with several leftist labor unions, organized a march near the Charonne metro station in the twelfth arrondissement on February 8. The Interior Ministry’s infamous Forces de l’Ordre (security forces) “Compte rendu, Entretien L. Joxe – S. Dahlab du 30 décembre 1961,” in Vers la paix en Algérie, 311. Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization, 156. 63 Thénault, Histoire de la guerre, 198. 64 Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution, 260. 61 62 64 executed a violent repression over the thirty thousand protesters, which left nine of them dead. Historians estimate that as many as one million people attended their funerals at Père Lachaise cemetery on February 13.65 Meanwhile, the OAS also set its sights on toppling its archenemy, President de Gaulle, who increasingly demonstrated that he wanted the war to end. In April 1961, its members perpetrated a failed putsch (known as the Generals’ Uprising) to protest secret deliberations between Prime Minister Debré and the FLN and, on September 8, 1961, it botched a coup attempt on President de Gaulle in Pont-sur-Seine, France.66 The OAS acts of violence that transformed the Algerian War for Independence into a Franco-French conflict, along with mounting international pressure on France to capitulate in the wake of the anti-colonial Cold War context, beg the question of why French negotiators would fight so earnestly for the pieds-noirs’ right to Algerian nationality. Over the course of the negotiations, the FLN and the French delegation passed back and forth a total of nineteen proposals and counterproposals about the pieds-noirs’ future in Algeria.67 The French government had a selfish motivation for wanting the pieds-noirs to obtain Algerian nationality; namely, they would be more likely to stay in Algeria—and not flee to France—if they were Algerian citizens. But, an internal note emanating from Joxe himself reveals another important motivation. France’s calculated choice not to yield over the question of the pieds-noirs’ Algerian nationality reflected French strategic interests in the future Algerian state: “La coexistence des Français et des musulmans devenus Algériens au sein de l’État permettra de maintenir la présence française en Algérie…”68 Understanding why the French government favored an Algerian nationality for the pieds-noirs sheds light on why it did not ensure automatic access to French nationality to the harkis. For a detailed account of this episode and a description of the Franco-French war between the government and the OAS, see: Rémi Kauffer, “OAS: la guerre franco-française d’Algérie,” in La Guerre d’Algérie: 1954-2004, la fin de l’amnésie, ed. Mohammed Harbi and Benjamin Stora (Paris: Robert Laffont, 2004), 451-76. 66 The OAS violence continued even after Algerian independence. In August 1962, OAS members bombed de Gaulle’s motorcade heading from Paris to his hometown of Colombey-les-Deux-Eglises, narrowly missing the president. 67 Connelly, A Diplomatic Revolution, 259. 68 “Projet de propositions,” Vers la paix en Algérie, 291. 65 65 Once the war was over and there were no more partisans of Algerian independence (fellaghas) to “pacify,” the harkis could not offer any strategic advantage to France if they became French citizens. France would incur the responsibility of protecting them, or repatriating them. At the same time, the French government recognized that offering the harkis French nationality was the sole assurance for them to escape the inevitable FLN retaliatory violence because the French state would then have legal justification to protect its own citizens. If they remained Algerian, France would need to violate international law sovereignty principles to protect them: “S’ils devenaient Algériens en Algérie, la défense de leurs intérêts et la protection de leur sécurité constitueraient un problème délicat. Confier cette tâche aux représentants diplomatiques et consulaires de la France, serait une atteinte à la souveraineté intérieure algérienne, et en quelque sorte un retour aggravé au système des ‘capitulations’ pratiqué durant les siècles précédents.”69 Figure 1: “L’Algérie de demain” pamphlet, pages 10-11. Source: SHAT, 1H 2467/6. MAE, SEAA, 97, “Formule possible pour la protection des musulmans attachés à la France et n’envisageant pas l’émigration en métropole.” 69 66 The government, or rather President de Gaulle, distanced the harkis from France and sought to instantly forget France’s seven and a half years of fighting to maintain the fiction that Algeria was French and Algerians were French.70 This view also did not take into account the sentiments of the GPRA leaders, including its president Benyoucef Ben Khedda who issued a public statement to the “Peuple Algérien” on March 18 in which he stressed, “le cessez-le-feu n’est pas la paix.”71 The Algerian Revolution was not over according to Algerian nationalists. Nevertheless, immediately after the ceasefire, the French government published a pamphlet titled “L’Algérie de demain” to explain the terms of the Evian Accords to the pieds-noirs.72 The centerfold, its sole image, displays a swarthy Algerian girl and a blond-haired French boy looking affectionately at each other while embracing and surrounded by the words “Pour nos enfants la paix en Algérie” (see figure 1). This picture negates France and Algeria’s colonial relationship semiotically through its choice of children who were born after the start of the war and linguistically through the prominence of the word “peace.” Despite the appearance of harmony, the photograph seems to contain a deeper inegalitarian message. By depicting the French boy as bigger than the Algerian girl, the image suggests to the reader that France is still more powerful than Algeria in size and in gender. The concluding words of this propagandistic tract perfectly capture France’s belief that it remained dominant over Algeria: Dans le monde d’aujourd’hui, apparaissent beaucoup de nations nouvelles. Les Algériens de souche musulmane, qui sont la grande majorité, semblent vouloir constituer une nation. La France qui a créé l’Algérie leur donne une chance. La France est décidée à marquer son intérêt pour l’Algérie nouvelle et à continuer une œuvre grâce à laquelle celle-ci existe aujourd’hui…73 Todd Shepard argues that “French responses to the Algerian Revolution gave birth to the certainty that ‘decolonization’ was a stage in the forward march of history, of the Hegelian ‘linear History with a capital H.’” Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization, 2. 71 Quoted in Mohammed Harbi and Gilbert Meynier, Le FLN: Documents et Histoire, 1954-1962 (Paris: Fayard, 2004), 853. 72 SHAT, 1H 2467/6, “L’Algérie de demain,” Mar. 1962. 73 Ibid., 19. 70 67 This document, therefore, positioned France as a unifying force in Algeria that would “continue” to provide paternalistic support to its “oldest daughter” and would serve as a peace monger that altruistically “created” the opportunity for the Algerian masses to “form a nation.” The pamphlet shows France’s efforts to actively forget the reality of the situation. It neglected to mention that France had spent 132 years asserting its unwanted dominance over the native Algerian subjects and that it had not just “created” the opportunity for an Algerian nation, but it also created enable irreparable divisions within its Muslim population. Conclusion: Algerians in a Franco-French War With no provisions in the Evian Accords for granting French nationality to the harkis, they would become “Algériens de souche musulmane” who were left to find their own place in the new Algerian nation, including escaping the violent retributions of FLN members. De Gaulle wanted to make the “affaire d’Algérie”—which had shown “l’effroyable infirmité de l’État” because France continually ceded to the pieds-noirs’ interests—part of yesterday, and not of tomorrow.74 As Pierre Messmer, Minister of Armies from 1960 to 1969, explained in a 2004 interview with me: “C’est que de Gaulle veut sortir d’Algérie, veut sortir. Et aller chercher les Harkis là où ils se retrouvent… dans les villages, c’est chaque fois une opération militaire et ce que de Gaulle pense c’est que ces opérations militaires risquent de rallumer la guerre d’Algérie. Et ça, on veut pas [sic].”75 Reigniting the Algerian War would not only spark fighting with the FLN, but it also would send a signal to the pieds-noirs that France was willing to continue to fight to keep Algeria French. De Gaulle did not want to add any more fuel to the Franco-French war, which had become a larger threat to him and his government than their battle with the FLN. After the March 1962 ceasefire, the Franco-French war consumed the government’s attention and resources: transcripts of Council 74 75 Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 140. Pierre Messmer, Interview with the author, July 5, 2004, Paris. 68 of Ministers’ meetings demonstrate that discussions more often centered on the pieds-noirs and the OAS, and not on the FLN. Because the harkis were outsiders to the Franco-French war—owing to their deeply rooted colonial status as “Muslim Algerians”—France ignored them and their interests. In the July 21, 1962 ordinance, de Gaulle advocated a position of ethnically differentiated nationality. In response to a statement by Minister of Algerian Affairs Joxe that the harkis wanted to leave Algeria “en masse” and reports about violence among the Muslim population, the President maintained that, “La France ne doit plus avoir aucune responsabilité dans le maintien de l’ordre après l’autodétermination…. Si les gens s’entre-massacrent, ce sera l’affaire des nouvelles autorités.”76 Once independence was proclaimed, the massacres among Muslim Algerians, including those carried out toward harkis because they had fought for France, would no longer be France’s “business.” The harkis were not included in the new definition of French citizens, revisiting fractures present during previous Franco-French wars and evoking new questions of inclusion versus exclusion based on ethnicity. The next chapter follows the harkis in their quest to escape the massacres and overcome the last two obstacles for French nationality by focusing on their movement from the Algerian colonial space to within the new geographical—and figurative—boundaries of France. 76 Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 151. 69 CHAPTER 2 French? Movements of Post-Imperial Citizens Primo: Epuration menée par les populations et l’ALN envers ex-supplétifs, signalée par message référence, s’est poursuivie avec une violence accrue durant la semaine écoulée… Secundo: Précarité petits regroupements locaux, rendus obligatoires par saturation principaux camps présente risque incidents graves avec l’ALN. De plus situation pitoyable anciens compagnons d’armées menacés dans leur vie par la population… Tertio: Honneur vous demander instamment autoriser embarquement vers métropole ex-supplétifs menacés, tant que pouvoir central algérien se révélera incapable de faire cesser violences a leur égard. En tout état de cause, il y a urgence à transférer dès maintenant les personnes regroupées…1 -General Michel de Brébisson (Senior Commander of French Armed Forces in Algeria) to Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer, August 1, 1962 On July 1, 1962, Algerians went to the polls in droves to vote on the following referendum: “Voulez-vous que l’Algérie devienne un État indépendant, coopérant avec la France, dans les conditions définies par la déclaration du 19 mars 1962?” Three months after 90.7 percent of metropolitan French citizens had approved a similar referendum, 99.72 percent of the Algerians who voted replied with a resounding “oui.”2 Two days later during a brief ceremony near Algiers SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Situation des harkis en Algérie), General de Brébisson to the Minister of Armies (Cabinet), “Objet: Ex-supplétifs menacés,” N° 1820/CSFAFA/EMI/MOR, Aug. 1, 1962. General de Brébisson was named Commandant Supérieur des Forces Armées Françaises en Algérie on July 24, 1962. 2 The referendum held in France on April 8, 1962 asked voters: “Approuvez-vous le projet de loi soumis au peuple français par le président de la République et concernant les accords à établir et les mesures à prendre au sujet de l’Algérie sur la base des déclarations gouvernementales du 19 mars 1962?” The bill referenced above, voted into law on April 13 (Loi n° 62-421), maintained: “Article premier: Le président de la République peut conclure tous accords à établir conformément aux déclarations gouvernementales du 19 mars 1962, si les populations algériennes, consultées en vertu de la loi du 11 janvier 1961, choisissent de constituer l’Algérie en un État indépendant coopérant avec la France. Article 2: Jusqu’à la mise en place de l’organisation politique nouvelle éventuellement issue de l’autodétermination des populations algériennes, le président de la République peut arrêter, par voie d’ordonnances ou, selon le cas, de décrets 1 70 (the star on the map in figure 2), the French High Commissioner in Algeria, Christian Fouchet, handed the President of the Provisional Executive Government, Abderrahmane Farès, a letter from President Charles de Gaulle that recognized the independent Algerian state. The Algerian government (GPRA) symbolically selected July 5—the same day that the dey of Algiers had signed the act of capitulation that began, in 1830, the era of French colonial domination—to celebrate its victory. Joyful Algerians flooded streets across the nascent nation-state draped in their new green, white, and red flag holding signs with slogans such as “Sept ans, ça suffit!” However, some of the festivities turned violent, particularly in the western city of Oran (see figure 2) where haphazard gunfire by OAS members, ALN solders, Algerian civilians, and French soldiers left seventy-six Algerians and twenty-five pieds-noirs dead.3 The Algerian War for Independence—during which, according to historian Benjamin Stora, five hundred thousand French and Algerian civilians and soldiers perished—had ended over three months earlier, but the killing in Algeria was not over.4 Figure 2: Map of northern Algeria. The country’s three principal cities are Oran in the west, Algiers (the capital), and Constantine in the east. Source: http://www.lib.utexas.ed u/maps/africa/algeria_p ol01.jpg. pris en Conseil des ministres, toutes mesures législatives ou réglementaires relatives à l’application des déclarations gouvernementales du 19 mars 1962.” JORF, Apr. 14, 1962, 3843. The abstention rate for the April referendum in France was 24.4 percent and that for the July referendum in Algeria was a paltry 8.77 percent. Benjamin Stora, Histoire de la guerre d’Algérie (1954-1962), new ed. (Paris: La Découverte, 2001), 78 and 84. 3 Fouad Soufi, “Oran, 28 février 1962, 5 juillet 1962. Deux événements pour l’histoire, deux événements pour la mémoire,” in La guerre d’Algérie au miroir des décolonisations françaises. En l’honneur de Charles-Robert Ageron: actes du colloque international, Paris, Sorbonne (23, 24, 25 novembre 2000) (Paris: Société Française d’Histoire d’Outre-Mer, 2000), 669. 4 Stora, Histoire de la guerre, 91. 71 Most of the violence carried out by Algerians after independence targeted the harkis. A French government report issued at the signature of the Evian Accords approximated that 2,500 harkis were killed and 3,900 more were injured during the war.5 Estimates from historians and reports by government officials about the number of harkis killed after the ceasefire range from tens of thousands to one-hundred thousand, which does not include those who survived acts of torture.6 Some harki association leaders advance the highly improbable figure of 150,000 harkis killed, originating from a report from the prefect of the Akbou district near Sétif, where 750 harkis had been slain between the ceasefire and November 1962. The prefect, Jean-Marie Robert, estimated that other regions probably had more fatalities so he increased the figure to one or two thousand, which he then multiplied by seventy-two, the number of districts in Algeria. By his calculation, at minimum 72,000 harkis were killed, and at maximum nearly 150,000.7 Lacking concrete data, this debate will never be resolved. However, based on documentary evidence (particularly that from the Army Archives and Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer’s private archival collection), several facts are certain, all of which the Senior Commander of French Armed Forces in Algeria, General Michel de Brébisson, referenced in the urgent August 1, 1962 telegram to Messmer cited above. First, retaliatory actions by Algerians who believed their brethren to be traitors led to exponentially more harki deaths after the March 19, 1962 ceasefire than during the war. This violence was in large part due to unstable government structures in Algeria and the belief by FLN and ALN leaders that the “Algerian Revolution” did not end with the ceasefire.8 As Messmer wrote Ibid., 89. Charles-Robert Ageron, the first scholar to exploit documents about the harkis in the Army Archives after the thirty year waiting period expired in 1993, summarizes the varied estimates of harkis massacred advanced by government officials, journalists, and military officers in his article: “Le ‘drame des harkis,’” 9-11. 7 Ibid., 10-11. This report was reprinted in Anne Heinis, “L’Insertion des Français Musulmans,” 22-31. A copy of the report is also located in: ACNMF, 4/3, “Rapport rédigé par M. Robert, ex sous-préfet d’Akbou, actuellement sous-préfet à Sarlat,” undated. 8 For example, the ALN commander of the fifth military region in Algeria proclaimed in a directive on March 8 that “Le cessez-le-feu ne peut être et ne représente qu’une sorte de trêve militaire seulement, étant donné que politiquement nous ne cesserons en aucune manière notre lutte infinie qu’est la révolution par tous les moyens. Durant cette trêve, 5 6 72 in a January 23 letter to a National Assembly deputy: “Il n’est pas possible de préciser le nombre des harkis assassinés. Avec le repliement de nos forces et dans un climat de désorganisation, nous avons éprouvé les plus grandes difficultés à suivre ce qui se faisait dans le bled et même dans certaines villes.”9 These killings started during spring 1962 with two particularly violent periods. The first began once France transferred its power to the Algerian government after the July 1 selfdetermination vote and the French Army could no longer legally intervene in Algerian internal affairs. As a result, ALN members and civilians carried out, in the words of General de Brébisson, an “épuration”—the term used to describe the “purge” of Vichy collaborators after the 1944 Liberation of France. At this same time during July and August 1962, factions within the Algerian independence movement struggled for control of the government for nearly two months. The disorganization left a power vacuum in the Algerian countryside as anarchy surfaced with no stable government in place. Then, after a relatively calm month and a half with a new unified Algerian governing structure in place, French troops accelerated their withdraw from Algeria in mid-October. The decreased French presence—even if soldiers had only served a defensive role since the July independence—meant that control of the countryside increasingly fell to the newly-constituted successor to the ALN, the Algerian National Popular Amry (Armée nationale populaire algérienne or ANP), founded on August 30 by former ALN chief Houari Boumediène. Many ANP members did not uphold the clauses of the Evian Accords to protect individuals from sanctions as a result of opinions expressed or actions taken during the war. In fact, the ANP imprisoned a significant l’endoctrinement de nos unités et leur instruction restent primordiales. Nous devons former de nos hommes des militants au sens propre du mot, des éléments essentiels et fondamentaux de la construction d’une Algérie nouvelle, prospère et développée.” SHAT, 1H 1786/1, Le commandement de la wilâya 5, Directive n° 403, Mar. 8, 1962. Quoted in Harbi and Meynier, Le FLN: Documents et Histoire, 849. 9 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Point de la situation des Harkis), Letter from Pierre Messmer to Pierre Bas (National Assembly Deputy for Paris), Nº 1814 MA/CC, Jan. 22, 1963. 73 number of harkis in detention centers owing to their service to France, and violence toward the harkis did not markedly decrease until early 1963.10 Second, in addition to general statements like the one in the above telegram, Army officers and commanders in Algeria sent to government officials in France countless documents describing precise acts of torture and slayings. The first accounts of violence and threats toward the harkis trickled in from officers stationed in the countryside, who recognized that they could do little to protect the former soldiers and their families. Beginning in April 1962, officers related to their superiors cases of torture (sometimes carried out publicly in town squares), murders, disappearances, and rapes of harkis’ wives. Some officers even wrote to government leaders such as Prime Minister Michel Debré, who subsequently sent a handwritten note to Messmer on May 17 stating that he was “un peu ému” by the number of letters he had received detailing acts of violence toward the harkis and the “très profonde tristesse” of soldiers because they could not save their comrades-in-arms.11 As the violence escalated in summer 1962, Army officials sent directly to Messmer itemized lists of acts of torture, arrest, and execution with the date, place, and sometimes the names of individuals and the gruesome details. One such document from General de Brébisson—located in Messmer’s personal archives—enumerated 50 separate instances of violence across Algeria between July 11 and August 6, some of which were perpetrated against as many as 250 harkis at a time (see Appendix B). De Brébisson and other Army officers in Algeria did not believe that the government reacted to their reports swiftly enough with concrete actions, demonstrating a gap between officials on the two sides of the Mediterranean. Finally, the documentary evidence offered in this chapter demonstrates that President de Gaulle’s government implemented a policy of restricting the harkis’ access to metropolitan French Ageron, “Le ‘drame des harkis,’” 5. SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Directives concernant les harkis), handwritten letter from Michel Debré to Pierre Messmer, May 17, 1962. 10 11 74 soil. As the third paragraph of the epigraph indicates, each harki waiting in the relocation camps (camps de regroupement) set up to protect those whose lives were in danger needed individualized authorization from Minister of Armies Messmer or Minister of Algerian Affairs Joxe themselves to cross the Mediterranean. Messmer even issued a warning in mid-May that any harkis repatriated to metropolitan France without his authorization would be sent back to Algeria.12 The restriction of the number of harkis allowed across French borders had been established immediately after the ceasefire and was constantly repeated in official documents emanating from Paris.13 Many of these directives also reminded military personnel in Algeria to “strictly limit” government repatriation to “severely threatened” harkis. With stringent regulatory controls in place for the official repatriation process, Army officers and French residents of Algeria—some of who had links to the OAS—took it upon themselves to repatriate harki families whose lives the FLN violence endangered. Government officials believed that these actions potentially threatened the security of post-imperial French metropolitan territory, a territory where Algerians—pieds-noirs or harkis—were not welcome. Officials feared that the harkis provided a fertile recruitment ground for the OAS, whose terrorist actions protesting de Gaulle’s decision to end French Algeria included bombing civilian targets on Algerian and French soil and eradicating Algerian farmland and government buildings with the “scorched-earth policy.” Therefore, the government was circumspect of the harkis who arrived on French soil through individual initiatives. In a May 1962 telegram Minister of the Interior Roger Frey wrote to Messmer that the possible link between the OAS and harkis provoked “certain danger.” 14 This security concern—soon applied to other harkis who arrived in France—caused the government to impose SHAT, 1H 3077/2, Lieutenant Colonel Pochat to COMSEC Autonome Oran, telegram n° 97/RT/CAO/MOR, May 14, 1962. 13 For example, SHAT 1K 744 (dossier: Directives concernant les harkis), Minister of Algerian Affairs Joxe to High Commissioner of the Algerian Republic Christian Delaballe, “Objet: Situation des personnes engagées en Algérie aux côtés de l’Administration ou de l’Armée,” Apr. 18, 1962. 14 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Directives concernant les harkis), letter from Minister of the Interior Roger Frey to Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer, 2, N° SN/CAB 2924, May 15, 1962. 12 75 stricter control over France’s post-imperial borders. After the March 1962 ceasefire ended the fighting with the FLN, the government’s attention fully shifted to controlling the raging FrancoFrench war with OAS members. This myopic focus on its “internal” conflict, which persisted after the Algerian War for Independence’s ceasefire, obscured the grave safety concerns facing the harkis. As discussed in the previous chapter, almost all harkis fell outside of the Franco-French war owing to their colonial status, predicated on their Berber and/or Arab ethnicity, which was the first obstacle to their obtaining French nationality. As per the July 21, 1962 ordinance about nationality for residents of Algeria—which codified the omission of the harkis from the Evian Accords’ passages about French nationality—the majority of harkis and all other French with local civil status needed to migrate to France and undergo an administrative procedure to become French citizens. Consequently, restricting the harkis’ access to metropolitan soil limited their access to French nationality, thereby creating a double bind. Put differently, possessing the superior colonial classification of French with common civil status like all pieds-noirs (which amounted to a double French-Algerian nationality) facilitated state repatriation. The government only guaranteed movements of post-empire from Algeria to France for French citizens. Nevertheless, the harkis could not obtain full nationality status unless they migrated to France owing to their (former) colonial status. Repatriation and the special administrative procedure, therefore, were the second and third obstacles to French nationality for the harkis. Not being accorded automatic French nationality had immediate consequences: it created a refugee situation for harkis in Algeria, it meant that the French Army could not legally intervene in Algerian internal affairs to stop violence toward the harkis, and it interfered with their repatriation. It also had long-term consequences: the need to ask for French nationality created psychological scars for who lost their French nationality after having fought for France and has led many in the harki population to blame the French government for 76 abandoning harki soldiers who were subsequently massacred, a responsibility that harki associations continue implore the government to take today. This chapter follows the harkis in their quest for repatriation to and nationality in an unfamiliar, unwelcoming supposed safe haven in France in the aftermath of the Algerian War for Independence and in the midst of the Franco-French war that had a stranglehold on the government’s attention. At this crucial moment, French government officials were learning to acclimate to France’s newly-reconfigured map with eraser marks where its “oldest daughter” had once buttressed the other side of the Mediterranean. The determination of French nationality based on their former colonial status as inferior French citizens questioned the harkis’ present and future relationship to the state as “French” and as “citizens.” Distancing Harki Soldiers from France Beginning in the summer of 1961 the French government enacted a policy of reducing the number of harkis serving in the Army, which distanced them from France not only in terms of their connection with the nation but also, eventually, geographically. As it became increasingly evident that Algeria would gain its independence from France, the government recognized that not having a relationship with the harkis at the time of the imminent ceasefire would lessen its responsibility toward repatriating them. Toward this end, in July 1961 the Army stopped recruiting new harkis and outlined its plans for the gradual reductions of its auxiliary forces.15 After an August 23 meeting of the Committee for Algerian Affairs, President de Gaulle released precise figures to decrease the number of harkis from 65,000 to 45,000 men by the end of 1961: 3,000 harkis would shift to the military police, 500 to 600 harkis would move to another type of auxiliary force, the groupes mobiles de sécurité (GMS), 3,000 to 4,000 harkis would integrate into the Army, and each month an average of SHAT, 1H 2467/3 bis, “Remarques concernant la fiche B.3 sur les supplétifs.” On July 10, 1961, the État-Major Interarmées (3ème bureau) wrote the original “fiche,” which is stapled to this document. 15 77 850 harkis, a few of whom would receive from the Army training for civilian jobs, would be sent back to their villages.16 As this information indicates, the government decided to proceed cautiously when cutting ties with harki soldiers, preferring to give them new assignments and provide them with job training. According to several internal memos, government officials’ motives were not benevolent. Instead, they foremost feared that abruptly ending the relationship with the harkis could put their 100,000 arms into the hands of FLN members, who could then turn these weapons on “French” soldiers.17 A July 1961 memo from the État-Major interarmées stressed: “Il faut que chaque supplétif porteur d’une arme de guerre soit sûr: d’être défendu par nous, lui et sa famille, d’être entièrement indemnisé et recasé s’il nous suit, d’être récompensé si nous le démobilisons et s’il nous remet volontairement son arme pour reprendre sa liberté.”18 The Army rationalized that paying each former harki ten thousand old francs to trade in their weapons would be less costly because it would avoid “very grave danger” if the FLN took possession of their arms: “C’est bien plus de 10 milliards que nous perdrions en prestige international, en confiance nationale, en vies et en biens français.”19 The government’s primary concern, therefore, was safeguarding its own image and its “French” soldiers’ lives. Another Army document written five months later confirms the government’s skepticism of the harkis’ allegiance to France by stating that its course of action to provide the harkis with concrete benefits would prevent “une éventuelle ‘révolte des Cipayes.’”20 The government feared a SHAT, 1H 1397/1, Charles de Gaulle, “Comité des Affaires Algériennes, Séance du Mercredi 23 Août 1961, Relevé des décisions.” 17 SHAT, 1H 2467/3 bis, État-Major Interarmées, 3ème bureau, “Fiche,” July 10, 1961. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 SHAT, 1H 1397/8, “Problèmes posés par les harkis au moment du ‘Cessez-le-feu,’” Dec. 14, 1961. Several newspaper articles in the spring of 1962 referenced this revolt, including: “De l’entraide à l’utilisation des Harkis en métropole,” Le Monde, May 23, 1962 and Jean Planchais, “D’anciens supplétifs et leurs familles devront être protégés lors des premiers remous de l’indépendance,” Le Monde, June 21, 1962. Both articles can be found in the Sciences Po Dossiers de Presse (hereafter SPDP), dossier: Harkis. 16 78 rebellion like the 1857-58 mutiny of the native Indians who fought alongside British troops for the East India Company’s Army in its quest to conquer India—and against their fellow Indians. After years of inequitable treatment from their British commanders, in May 1857 the native Indian Cipayes (the Hindi word for “soldiers”) protested that placing the new bullets greased with cow and pig lard into their mouths to remove the shell casing violated their Hindu and Muslim religions. The East India Company Army and the Cipayes violently clashed for nine months until the British government decided to dissolve the Company and take control of India. This comparison, which weighed on some Army officials’ minds, demonstrates a fundamental mistrust of the harkis. Despite the appearance of helping these soldiers, the government’s actions were primarily a means to continue to watch over the harkis—and their weapons. As the ceasefire neared the government remained reluctant to repatriate harkis and their families to France, which would block them from French nationality. On March 15, 1962, the Army headquarters in Algeria received a telegram from the National Defense Headquarters in Paris with Prime Minister Michel Debré’s instructions explaining the crucial link between repatriation and nationality for all French with local civil status, a category that included harkis. The telegram responded to the following question that Army officials in Algeria had posed “Les français musulmans de droit civil local perdront-ils automatiquement la nationalité française d’après résultat autodétermination qui se prononcerait en faveur indépendance en Algérie?” by declaring “Oui, s’ils demeurent en Algérie.” 21 These instructions clearly conveyed that without repatriation these harkis—whose nationality status, according to the Evian Accords, was no different from that of other Algerians—were ineligible to become French citizens. While some government officials recognized that there needed to be a repatriation procedure in place for the “most threatened” harkis, documents from February 1962 onward SHAT, 1H 2467/6, DefNat Paris to Genesuper Reghaia, telegram Nº 231/DN/COD/A/TS, 1, received Mar. 15, 1962. 21 79 constantly stressed that this would be a last option. Minister of Interior Frey’s cabinet director reported to his boss that Messmer had contended during a phone conversation in early February that he did not believe it necessary to prepare a plan for the harkis’ repatriation.22 “Return to civilian life,” the heading for a plethora of memos issued by the Army and other government officials in Algeria and France, was clearly the government’s preference.23 On March 8, 1962, Messmer wrote an informational memo giving the commanding officers of the Army, Navy, and Air Force instructions about the course of action to take regarding their “subordonnées de tous grades et de toutes origines” following the ceasefire.24 While he announced that the pieds-noirs and the “musulmans attachés à la France” would have the opportunity to choose whether to settle in France or Algeria, his next sentence contradicted this pledge: “…[I]l est hautement souhaitable que la grande majorité des Algériens décident de continuer à vivre dans leur pays natal et d’assurer ainsi une réalité aux liens d’association entre la France et l’Algérie.” 25 This internal government discourse demonstrated apprehension over an influx of Algerians, whether pieds-noirs or harkis. Messmer maintained that a mass departure of pieds-noirs would run counter to the principle of “cooperation”—a word that appeared in the Evian Accords ten times—because such a migration would “vider l’Algérie des cadres nécessaires à sa vie et à son développement.”26 On the contrary, the chief reason Messmer offered for why it was “highly desirable” for the harkis not to migrate to France focused on their “adaptation brutale en France,”27 that is, the presumed inability of these men—98 percent of whom were illiterate, according to an April 1962 AN, F1a 5140, R. Morice, “Note à l’attention de Monsieur le Ministre,” N˚ 166 AGA/SEC, Feb. 13, 1962. For example, SHAT, 1H 2028/5, Chief of the General Delegation in Algeria, “Objet: Retour des supplétifs à la vie civile,” Mar. 17, 1962. 24 SHAT, 1H 2467/6, Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer to the Commanding Officers of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, 1, Nº 106/MA/CAB/INF/CS, Mar. 8, 1962. 25 Ibid., 2. 26 Ibid. 27 Ibid., Annexe 2, p. 3. 22 23 80 French government report 28 —to adjust to metropolitan life. In an August 1962 document summarizing the French government policies toward the harkis since the ceasefire, the supreme commander of French Forces in Algeria advanced a similar explanation for limiting their repatriation: “Cette politique… est destinée à… empêcher l’arrivée en Métropole de personnes inadaptables destinées à devenir des épaves.” 29 This disparaging assessment of the harkis as “derelicts” clearly indicated that the government did not want the harkis to “return” to metropolitan France because they could offer nothing to, and would be a drain on, French society. Or, as another document from April 1962 put it, only those showing “worth” should be repatriated: “Autorité militaire doivent [sic] être persuadées [sic] qu’avenir des personnes prises en charge doit être digne. Il ne peut être question de déraciner des FSNA inadaptables appelés à devenir des épaves sur le sol français.”30 The use of “digne” kept alive colonial discourse. “Dignité,” a codified legal term, had been one requisite quality—and “an instrument of colonial domination,” according to Emmanuelle Saada—for Algerian natives applying for full French nationality.31 Violence and “Repatriation” Despite top-ranking government officials’ circumspection toward repatriating harkis and their family members, on February 21, 1962 Messmer convoked an inter-ministerial commission “concernant le rapatriement éventuel des personnels placés sous le contrôle des autorités militaires,” which would report to Prime Minister Debré. Its members comprised Minister of Algerian Affairs Joxe, Minister of Armies Messmer, Minister of Agriculture Edgard Pisani, Secretary of State for Repatriates Robert Boulin, Minister of the Interior Frey, and Minister of Labor Paul Bacon. The ACNMF, 5/7, “Procès-verbal de la réunion tenue le mardi 10 avril 1962 et concernant le rapatriement éventuel de personnels musulmans placés sous le contrôle des autorités militaires,” 3. 29 SHAT, 1H 1793/1, General de Brébisson, “Objet: Situation des ex-harkis en Algérie depuis le cessez-le-feu,” Nº 5555/31/2d, Aug. 13, 1962. 30 SHAT, 1H 3077/2, Sergeant Vella, “Objet: Recasement en France supplétifs et civils FSNA engagés aux côtés F. Armées,” Nº 1050/CSFA/EMI/MOR, Apr. 16, 1962. 31 Saada, “The Empire of Law,” 101. 28 81 Prime Minister’s selection for the president of the Commission fell to a pro-French Algeria Council of State member who had impressed Gaullist figures, most notably Debré, by writing a pamphlet in 1957 defending the French government against charges that it condoned the French Army’s use of torture.32 Michel Massenet had served since January 1959 in the interministerial post of “délégué à l’action sociale pour les Français musulmans d’Algérie en métropole.” In this capacity, he was the only high-level French government official representing the interests of Algerian Muslims. Massenet, therefore, was familiar with the challenges facing Algerian natives as they tried to integrate into French society. The Commission’s charter introduced its assignment to prepare “step by step” plans for rehousing the harkis in France.33 More specifically, Prime Minister Debré tasked the Commission members with compiling information to respond to nine concrete questions about “the refugees,” which can be divided into two broad categories.34 The first set of questions addressed the harkis’ present situation in Algeria: the number of harkis to be repatriated and how to protect them from the likely violence perpetrated by FLN members. The second group focused on the harkis’ future in France: their initial and permanent housing, what jobs would be appropriate given their lack of professional skills, and how to facilitate their integration into French society. At the same time, the charter made clear that the Massenet Commission’s authority was limited to “studying” potential housing and jobs for the harkis. It stipulated that neither the Commission as a whole nor any of its Sylvain Laurens, “La noblesse d’État à l’épreuve de ‘l’Algérie’ et de l’après 1962” Politix 76.4 (2006): 89. Massenet’s pamphlet was titled Contrepoison, ou, la morale en Algérie (Paris: Grasset, 1957). 33 ACNMF, 5/7, “Procès-verbal de la réunion tenue le mardi 10 avril 1962…,” 1. 34 Ibid., 2. The specific questions comprised: how many harkis wanted to migrate to France; how to protect harkis from FLN members who were threatening their lives; how to ensure the principle of free circulation for harkis to migrate to France; how to transport them; where to house them when they first arrived in the metropole; how to facilitate social networks to help them adapt to metropolitan life; what the modalities would be for providing job training for the men, “adaptation” classes for the women, and schooling for the children; how to find them jobs appropriate for their professional skills; and what type of permanent housing would be possible. 32 82 individual members would have the power to implement its own suggestions, which would later serve as a point of contention between Massenet and Debré.35 The Commission met four times before, on April 10, Massenet issued an eleven-page singlespaced document summarizing the information gathered by each ministry to address the specific questions in its domain. Massenet also presented his suggestions about how to remedy the “harki problem.” The report’s level of detail demonstrated the extensive research that committee members and Massenet himself had undertaken. According to surveys that the Army conducted, the harkis’ median age was twenty-nine years old and 52 percent of these men were heads of families with three children on average.36 Massenet further relayed that the Minister of Agriculture estimated that 1,000 to 1,500 men could find permanent positions as farm hands; 1,000 to 1,500 men could be forestry workers; and 1,000 men could become farmers.37 Massenet’s tone in the report reinforced the harkis’ exigent circumstances. In addition to employing terms such as “sévérité” and “situation dramatique” several times in the document, derivatives of “grave” and “menacer” appeared four and eleven times respectively, and the word “problème” was used eighteen times. His words were powerful indicators of the fate that would befall not only the harkis in Algeria whose lives were threatened by FLN members but also those who migrated to metropolitan France and were placed in camps by the government. In the report’s conclusion, Massenet’s words forcefully communicated three points. In the first section, which he labeled “Gravité et urgence du problème à resoudre,” he argued that the government was not taking seriously enough this time-sensitive “problème de vie et de mort.”38 Notably, Secretary of State for Repatriates Boulin, whose ministry was in charge of welcoming these Muslim repatriates to France, declared at the end of the meeting that the “harki problem” did not Ibid., 1-2. Ibid., 3. 37 Ibid., 7. 38 Ibid., 9. 35 36 83 really exist because none would agree to come to France.39 This miscalculation by the official under whose jurisdiction fell the harkis—as repatriates—had serious consequences for the government’s organization of the their arrival in France. While his Ministry dedicated its resources to the reclassement of the repatriates of European and Jewish origins by aiding them look for jobs and housing, it did little to prepare for the harkis’ migration to France. Massenet then exposed the “severity” of violence by FLN members toward the harkis and instances of FLN operatives blackmailing harkis’ families, both of which the Army had failed to protect them from. Without detailing specific incidents, Massenet had revealed earlier in the report that “multiple reliable sources” had related the great extent of the threats to the harkis’ lives.40 Meanwhile, other accounts divulged concrete incidents of Algerian subprefectures routinely denying harkis the necessary authorization they required to travel to France to escape this violence, a violation the of Evian Accords’ free circulation clause. 41 According to Massenet, the French government proved inefficacious in the face of this situation because it had neither committed any money to fund, nor taken any steps to organize, repatriating harkis. He averred that “Il faudrait un miracle pour que l’organisation et le financement du repli des réfugiés musulmans en France puisse être pris en charge par le secrétariat d’État aux Rapatriés si nous ne disposons que d’un délai de 2 mois avant la date fatidique de l’autodétermination.”42 Put simply, the government was not following through on its promise in the February 21 press release to provide a concrete plan to ensure, or welcome, the harkis’ repatriation to France. Massenet then presented the “Mesures immédiates à prendre pour redresser la situation” since the government had failed to provide a concrete repatriation plan and allocate the funds to CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis: Correspondance 1962), “Compte rendu de séance sur les harkis, Commission Interministérielle Massenet, 10 avril 1962,” 4. 40 ACNMF, 5/7, “Procès-verbal de la réunion tenue le mardi 10 avril 1962…,” 3. 41 Ibid., 4. 42 Ibid., 10. 39 84 officials in Algeria that would be necessary to remedy the harkis’ dire situation.43 For him, it was a foregone conclusion that repatriation was the only option. However, the requisite means to achieve this would challenge the harkis’ status as repatriates because these measures would define the harkis as refugees. Massenet proposed that the Army open relocation camps in Algeria as way stations for the harkis whose lives were in peril while they awaited safe passage to metropolitan France. Significantly, these would be located on the same grounds—and be classified under the identical name—as the relocation camps that had been used for FLN prisoners and Algerian refugees forced from their homes during the war. Massenet acknowledged that these actions would provoke “conditions certes regrettables sur le plan psychologique…” 44 During the war, native Algerian auxiliary police forces in the French Army (groupes mobiles de protection rurale) had watched over FLN prisoners in these very same camps.45 Now, French soldiers watched over the powerless former rural “protection” police forces to safeguard them from FLN attacks. The next step in developing a repatriation plan, according to Massenet, was to inventory where to house the harkis and where to find them jobs in metropolitan France. With carefully chosen words that in themselves related the urgency of the situation, he argued that the government had not put enough time into finding satisfactory solutions to these serious problems. Massenet wrote in the body of the report, “les moyens d’accueil disponibles doivent-ils être considérés comme dérisoires si des mesures immédiates ne sont pas prises pour en créer de toutes pièces.”46 In the weeks following this meeting Ministry of Agriculture officials inquired among prefects in southern France about housing possibilities for harkis in their departments, to which Agriculture officials received primarily negative responses. In the end, the national government failed to adequately plan Ibid. Ibid., 4. 45 Sylvie Thénault, “Personnel et internés dans les camps français de la guerre d’Algérie,” Politix 69 (2004): 71. Thénault’s article provides an excellent analysis of internment camps in France and Algeria during the Algerian War for Independence. 46 ACNMF, 5/7, “Procès-verbal de la réunion tenue le mardi 10 avril 1962…,” 6. 43 44 85 for the harkis’ migration to metropolitan France and local government officials were unable—or refused—to offer land to house harkis. Consequently, the government opted to house them in former FLN prisoner camps in metropolitan France, such as Larzac in the Aveyron department, and former refugee and prisoner of war camps, such as Rivesaltes in the Pyrénées-Orientales. The significance of relegating the harkis to such sites provoked a lasting exile owing to their isolation and exclusion from the surrounding community, the subject of section two of this dissertation. Massenet’s final, and most forceful, point bookended his two-page conclusion to the report, which he believed would “clôt la première phase des travaux de la commission.”47 Secretary of State for Repatriates Boulin, responsible for managing the harkis’ situation along with that of the piedsnoirs, could not adequately address the former problem because the harkis were “refugees” and not “repatriates,” words that he underlined in the report’s second to last sentence: “…il faudrait placer auprès du Haut-Commissaire un fonctionnaire chargé de traiter le problème des réfugiés en attendant que ceux-ci reçoivent, peut-être seulement dans la suite et sur le territoire métropolitain le statut de rapatriés.”48 Not only did the government reject Massenet’s twofold recommendation to organize a repatriation plan to address the harkis’ unique situation and appoint him to ensure that there would be someone representing the harkis’ specific interests but it also never convened the Commission again. The first phase of its work was its last. One week after submitting his report to Prime Minister Debré, Massenet attached a copy to a handwritten letter to the Director of the National Police (Sûreté Nationale), Jacques Aubert, who had spent two years leading the police forces in Algeria before returning to the metropole to serve as director of the Minister of Interior’s cabinet. Massenet believed that Aubert, intimately acquainted with the brutality of FLN members in Algeria, was in a better position than anyone else in the government to assess the “definite and real” threats that 47 48 Ibid., 1. Ibid., 9. 86 faced the harkis and could convey these to government officials. 49 Massenet insisted that humanitarianism was not the sole reason that the government needed to repatriate the harkis. Citing the example of France having provided a safe haven to Hungarians when the Soviet Union invaded their homeland in 1956, he argued, “…il s’agit avant tout d’accueillir sur notre sol de malheureuses épaves, conformément à une constante tradition de notre pays.”50 Aubert’s response reveals important insights into the divergence between government and Army officials about the risks to harkis’ safety from FLN members and the French government’s motivations for not enacting a repatriation plan to welcome harkis to France. Massenet did not find an ally in Aubert. The Director of the National Police minimized the FLN violence toward the harkis, believed that only a few hundred harkis would need to be repatriated, and wanted any operations to evacuate the harkis to be led “in secrecy.” 51 Aubert claimed that his previous experiences in Algeria led him to believe that FLN members would not break the “détente entre les familles politiques musulmanes,” that is, between them and former harkis. Reports that he recently received from civilian administrators in Algeria attested “almost unanimously” to an easing of hostilities.52 If Aubert was indeed accurately portraying the prefects and sub-prefects’ opinions, then these reports reveal a discrepancy between Ministry of Interior employees and military men who increasingly informed their superiors of FLN threats. For example, on April 26, one Gendarmerie Corps commander wrote a memo to the generals in charge of the Gendarmerie in Algiers, Oran, and Constantine, signaling that a questionnaire had been sent to each Muslim family, which needed to answer questions about its pro-FLN or pro-French activities. According to this officer, “La population entière vit un régime de terreur. Il y aurait de nombreuses exactions commises (roues de coups, règlements de compte), mais les victimes n’osent pas se plaindre, tant est grande la peur du CAC 19910467/2, handwritten letter from Michel Massenet to Jacques Aubert, Apr. 17, 1962. Ibid. 51 CAC, 19910467/2, letter from Jacques Aubert to Michel Massenet, Apr. 25, 1962. 52 Ibid. 49 50 87 FLN.”53 This report, which reached the upper echelons of the French Army, contradicted not only Aubert’s assertions about the détente, but also scores of firsthand accounts of violence toward the harkis that officers related to their commanders, which will be discussed below. The reasons that Aubert offered to Massenet for why the Army should call on authorities from the newly-created Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic (GPRA) to curb the violence instead of giving “the exodus signal” suggest that the government’s refusal to come to the aid of harkis was a purposeful political maneuver.54 Aubert listed several motivations for not doing so. First, he was concerned for the safety of the “troupes de choc” that would need to rescue the harkis. Second, he underscored the importance of France demonstrating faith in the GPRA to uphold the Evian Accords statutes that guaranteed the safety of Algerian inhabitants. Third, he emphasized the Gaullist regime’s goal of building strong relations between France and the Muslim world with the global post-imperial reconfiguration. And finally, he warned of the necessity for “tomorrow’s Algeria” to become subdued.55 Aubert expounded on why a “spectacular manoeuver” to bring the harkis to safety in the metropole would disrupt peace not only in Algeria but also, and more importantly, in France: Derrière nos collègues musulmans, une tendance raisonnable à ses chances de modeler le visage de l’Algérie de demain. Ne commençons pas prématurément par annoncer notre impuissance, décourager les adaptations qui ne demandent qu’à se faire et orienter délibérément des ‘buveurs de soleil’ sur nos vertes mais humides campagnes. Et puis, ne soyons pas dupe d’un parti du pire en France qui veut cela pour terminer sur un constat de faillite le chapitre de l’histoire de notre République.56 If repatriated en masse to France, government officials would face the challenge of helping the harkis adapt to a French society to which, many felt, they had little to contribute. Aubert exhibited a contemptuous attitude for the harkis through his use of “buveurs de soleil,” a pejorative label given SHAT, 1H 1793/1, Captain Marrel (Commandant la Compagnie de Gendarmerie) to the Generals commanding the Gendarmerie in Algiers, Constantine, and Oran, Nº 232/4, Apr. 26, 1962. 54 CAC, 19910467/2, letter from Jacques Aubert to Michel Massenet, Apr. 25, 1962. 55 Ibid. 56 Ibid. 53 88 by the pieds-noirs to idle Algerian men who whiled away hours in the sun. This phrase oddly contrasted with Aubert’s description of FLN members, whom he identified in the previous sentence as “our colleagues” and in whom he was placing great faith to uphold the Evian Accords. Therefore, he portrayed the harkis who fought for France in a more negative light than the fellaghas who fought against France. However, more significantly, Aubert’s words reinforced the notion that the French government wanted to will a peaceful new Algeria—the “Algérie de demain” showcased in the March 1962 pamphlet destined for the pieds-noirs—to quell the fallout from the two-front war, that with the FLN and that with extremist elements of the pieds-noirs.57 And it was the Franco-French conflict that Aubert was foremost concerned about. He argued that admitting the harkis’ lives were in danger would present the appearance that France was weak and would give fodder to the piedsnoirs who vehemently opposed France’s decision to stop fighting for French Algeria. The violence perpetrated by those that he designated as the “parti du pire” was rampant in Algeria, from the “Rock and Roll” Operation in which OAS members set 120 bombs to explode over two hours on March 6, to the slaying of six Ministry of Education inspectors on March 15, to the OAS’s arbitrary decision to target pharmacy assistants for assassination on March 17.58 Any sign of the French government’s failure or frailty would open the door to the “migration” of these widespread acts of terrorism to metropolitan France. Aubert’s prediction that the “détente entre les familles politiques musulmanes,” would continue proved completely inaccurate. In fact, while chiefly targeting harkis, the FLN also committed widespread terrorist acts across Algeria that affected all inhabitants, including Muslim 57 58 See pages 66 and 67 for an image and description of this pamphlet. Thénault, Histoire de la guerre, 249-250. 89 civilians, pieds-noirs, and French Army soldiers.59 From the end of April onward, eyewitness reports of the FLN’s repression of the harkis streamed in to superior Army officers in Algeria and government officials across the Mediterranean. Initially, the FLN threatened these individuals and tried to exclude them from the new Algerian society. For instance, one harki wife relayed to Army officials in mid-May that her family and other harki families were unable to sustain themselves financially because the FLN would not hire former harkis and forbade harki men to work for piedsnoirs “sous peine de sanctions graves.”60 Pieds-noirs who related that the Muslims refused to work for them and would not provide an explanation corroborated these facts.61 Another harki who resided in Rouached, a town in the Aurès mountains fifty kilometers southeast of Algiers, wrote a letter that reached Ministry of Interior officials in Paris detailing the violence and threats in his region. In this May 4 letter, he repeatedly argued that it was impossible for the harkis to remain in Algeria. He relayed that fellaghas requisitioned lands belonging to members of the moghazni auxiliary forces and destroyed their houses, leading former auxiliary troop members like himself to be certain that, without any defense, they would be killed. The harki told of three harkis and two Muslim civilians from his village whom the FLN captured and tortured for four days. These men were paraded naked through neighboring towns where, following the fellaghas’ orders, inhabitants beat and spat on them. He never saw four of these individuals again, although one of the Muslim civilians was given his freedom after proving during a four-day interrogation that he had never fought for the French Army. The letter further revealed that harkis’ wives were taken For example, during the course of his rounds near the gendarmerie headquarters in Oran, one military policeman found a threatening letter written on April 26. The document signed “FLNA” (the FLN of Algeria) and “ALNA” (the ALN of Algeria) warned in error-ridden French: “FLN vous envoi un lettre, poure vou dire deux disparaetre ou si Non Nou salon vou tue tous grand et petit. Set nautre preux miere avertise man separe l’ordre deux FLNA vive vie l’algerien ondependant et vive FLN.” (“FLN vous envoie une lettre, pour vous dire de disparaître ou, sinon, nous allons vous tuer tous, grand et petit. Cette nature première avertissement sépare l’ordre du FLN. Vive la vie algérienne indépendante et vive le FLN.”) On the back, a drawing of a head with a blood flowing from its ear and a red cross on its forehead promised future violence. SHAT, 1H 3077/2, Chef d’Escadron Coadic au Commandant du sous-secteur Ouest, “Bulletin de Renseignements,” N˚ 958/B.2/SC, May 11, 1962. 60 SHAT, 1H 3077/2, Chef d’Escadron Coadic, “Objet: Agissement du FLN à l’égard des populations rurales,” N˚ 997/B.2/SC, May 19, 1962. 61 Ibid. 59 90 each night into the countryside where fellaghas raped them and that FLN members demanded large sums of money from former harkis.62 By means of such reports from both harkis and French soldiers throughout April and May, French government officials were cognizant of the escalation of FLN violence. Yet the government still did not start repatriating harkis until mid-June. As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, on May 17 Prime Minister Debré sent to Messmer a handwritten note, which signified a heightened, personal level of attention about the harkis’ situation. He stated that he was moved by the number of letters he had received describing violent acts committed against the harkis and relaying the profound sadness of French military officers unable to defend the former FMA soldiers. 63 Messmer’s response two weeks later outlined the steps that the French Army was taking to address the harkis’ precarious situation and once again emphasized that the Army was preparing to transfer to metropolitan France only those who were judged to be “particulièrement menacés.” 64 This phrasing that stressed repatriation as a last resort—for example, “dans les cas urgents,”65 “harkis et civils FSNA gravement menacés,”66 “en nombre limité,”67 and “celles réellement menacées”68—was continually repeated in memos emanating from Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Armies officials after the ceasefire. The first step the Army took toward determining whether individuals’ lives were being threatened was to conduct a census among as many harkis as possible to establish who wished to CAC, 19910467/2 (dossier: Correspondance avec M. Massenet), Anonymous letter, Rouached, May 4, 1962. SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Directives concernant les harkis), handwritten letter from Michel Debré to Pierre Messmer, May 17, 1962. 64 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Directives concernant les harkis), letter from Pierre Messmer to Michel Debré, June 2, 1962. 65 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Directives concernant les harkis), letter from the Minister of State for Algerian Affairs to the High Commissionner of the Algerian Republic, “Objet: Rapatriement éventuel des Français-Musulmans engagés aux côtés des Forces de l’Ordre,” 2, N˚ 44 API/POL, Apr. 11, 1962. 66 SHAT, 3077/2, Sergent Vella, “Objet: Recasement en France supplétifs et civils FSNA engagés aux côtés Forces Armées,” Message N˚ 1050/CSFA/EMI/MOR, Apr. 16, 1962. 67 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Directives concernant les harkis), letter from the Minister of State for Algerian Affairs to the Minister of Armies, “Objet: Situation des personnes engagées en Algérie aux côtés de l’Administration ou de l’Armée,” N˚ 515 API/POL, Apr. 19, 1962. 68 SHAT, 1H 3077/2, Lt. Colonel Pochat to COMSEC autonome Oran, N˚ 97/RT/CAO/MOR, May 14, 1962. 62 63 91 migrate to France. This census was based both on the harki’s desire for repatriation and qualitative assessments from military officers about his service. According to a memo from the Army chief of staff, General Hublot, officers were to fill out a questionnaire for each male, including information about his current employment and job skills, his marital status, the immediate family members to be repatriated with him, his professional aptitude, and a succinct explanation of how his life was being threatened.69 The government also solicited recommendations concerning the harki’s request for repatriation both from officers who had worked directly with the former soldier and the officers’ superiors. The memo urged those deciding whether to endorse a candidate for repatriation to keep in mind that “la réadaptation dans un pays, un climat, une ambiance sociale différente de ceux qu’ils connaissent, constituera pour les FSNA une épreuve difficile et qu’elle ne doit être envisagée que si le maintien en Algérie se révèle impossible.” 70 However, many of the recommendations for repatriation from military officers of all grades did not address the harki’s potential for adaptation to metropolitan France. Instead, in addition to describing the concrete threats to the harki’s life (such as family members killed by FLN members), the officers emphasized the individual’s attachment to France. For example, Depuis juillet 1957 combat pour la France de toutes ses forces et de toute son âme. Exemple parfait de Musulman Francophile.71 Avis très favorable à cette demande d’installation en France métropolitaine. Le loyalisme et le dévouement de ce harki pour la France, se fasse de tous, les commentaires. Malgré les injures et les menaces dont il est l’objet, il reste attaché à la France et à son drapeau. Cet emblème pour lequel il a déjà tout donné.72 SHAT, 1H 4214/1, General Hublot (Chef d’État-Major) to the General commanding the “Région Territoriale” and the Oran Army Corps, “Objet: Recasement en France de militaires supplétifs et civils FSNA,” 2, N˚ 1013/CSFA/EMI/MOR, Apr. 11, 1962. 70 Ibid. 71 In accordance with confidentiality laws for classified archival documents, “CM” are the harki’s initials. SHAT, 1H 1260/3, Rapport du Lieutenant COMBESSI (16e RI de Marine, 1˚ Bataillon CCAS Commando V 221) sur les services rendus par le Sergent Chef CM, N˚ 84/CDO, Apr. 9, 1962. 72 SHAT, 1H 1260/3, Général de Brigade MULTRIER Commandant la SEC et la 2˚ SIM à Monsieur le Général de Division, Commandant la Région Territoriale et le CAC, May 15, 1962. 69 92 Fidèle serviteur de notre cause le harki MA fortement compromis risque d’être victime de représailles.73 These appraisals underscoring the harkis’ devotion to France as a reason for repatriation—a crucial step toward French nationality—echo the language in reports that civil administrators needed to submit follow the 1865 sénatus-consulte to approve on a case-by-case basis, as explained in the previous chapter, Algerian natives’ applications for French nationality. One such example from 1890 reads: “M. est un très bon officier indigène très digne, d’une conduite exemplaire, excellent serviteur et animé de très bons sentiments français.”74 Civil administrators in colonial Algeria and Army officers in 1962 alike argued that serving devotedly under the French flag should earn Algerian natives access to French nationality. After the three Army Corps (Algiers, Oran, and Constantine) and the Sahara region finished the census in late April, a May 10 memo from Army headquarters in Algeria evaluated the maximum number of “supplétifs et civils FSNA engagés aux côtés des Forces Armées” and their family members to be repatriated at 7,006 (representing 1,334 heads of families).75 Approximately two thousand individuals were moghaznis76 and civilians (such as domestics for pied-noir families), who fell under the authority of the Ministry of Interior, and slightly under five thousand were harkis for SHAT, 1H 1260/3, Le Lieutenant-Colonel Marois à Monsieur le Général Comandant la 14˚ DI – EM – B 3 PH, 1, N˚ 572/SPH/3/PH, Apr. 30, 1962. “MA” are the harki’s initials. 74 Blévis, “La citoyenneté française,” 40. 75 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Rapatriement des harkis), CSFA, EMI, Bureau du Moral, “Recensement des supplétifs et civils FSNA engagés aux côtés des Forces Armées et dont le transfert en France est envisagé (à la date du 1er mai 1962),” N˚ 1266/CSFA/EMI/MOR, May 10, 1962. 76 As mentioned in the introduction to this dissertation, the moghaznis were civilian forces charged during the war with protecting and aiding the sections administratives sociales (SAS), local French civil administrators who served as mediators between the Algerian population and state institutions through a dynamic of close police control or encadrement. The functions of these Ministry of Interior employees comprised collecting taxes, monitoring elections, supplying free medical care, providing schooling and job training to children, overseeing construction projects and improvements in agricultural systems, running the relocation camps for displaced Algerians, and serving as intelligence agents seeking out individuals suspected of anti-French actions. Owing to the moghaznis’ close daily contact with the Algerian population, which made them easily identifiable, they were particularly at risk for retributions from Algerian insurgents due to their complicity with the French cause. For more information about the role of the SAS and the moghaznis during the war, see: Charbit, Les harkis, 17-22. 73 93 whom the Ministry of Armies was responsible.77 The memo further predicted that these numbers would diminish because some of these men were likely to change their minds and decide to remain in Algeria, which indeed was the case initially. Army officials completed a second census a mere 10 days later and determined that 2,298 less people, or one-third of the initial total, had reconsidered their decision to leave Algeria as episodes of FLN violence were relatively isolated, at least then.78 “Harkis” As “Rapatriés”? To facilitate and prepare the “repatriation” of harkis and their family members to France, the Army followed Massenet’s suggestion to reopen the relocation—or refugee—camps. Over the course of the Algerian War for Independence, these sites had housed three million displaced persons (representing one-half of the rural population).79 Government discourse in spring 1962 consistently referred to harkis as “refugees,” an incorrect classification that government officials continued to use after harkis and their family members arrived in France. This descriptor had an impact on how state agents and the general public viewed their French citizenship. The term “refugees,” moreover, contradicted the legal truth that the harkis who migrated to France were “repatriates.” The harkis qualified for the December 26, 1961 “Loi relative à l’accueil et à la réinstallation des Français d’outre-mer,” named after Robert Boulin, who occupied the newlycreated cabinet post of Secretary of State for Repatriates since August 24, 1961.80 This legislation, developed with French repatriates from Algeria in mind, allocated to French citizens returning from Numerous documents, including Messmer’s June 2 letter to Debré, offered this approximate breakdown of “proFrench Muslims” to be repatriated. Another example includes AN, F1a 5140, Cabinet director for the Secretary of State for Repatriates, “Note sur le rapatriement des Français-Musulmans,” 1, June 20, 1962. 78 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Rapatriement des harkis), CSFA, EMI, Bureau du Moral, “Recasement en France des supplétifs et civils FSNA. État d’avancement des opérations de regroupement initial au 10 mai 1962,” N˚ RR/YR-15.5, May 16, 1962. 79 Kateb, Européens, “indigènes” et juifs, 315-16. 80 After a lengthy exchange, Boulin confirmed to Messmer in late March 1962 that the law legally applied to the harkis. SHAT, 1R 367/7, Minister of Armies Messmer to the Senior French Commander in Algeria, Nº 10074/MA/CAB/DIR, Mar. 29, 1962. 77 94 all of its former colonies and protectorates social and economic benefits to support their integration into metropolitan society.81 However, the status of “repatriate” did not guarantee harkis—Algerian Muslims—access to the repatriation process, a necessary step to becoming French citizens. Based on colonial classifications, the French government physically separated the harki “repatriates” from the pieds-noirs repatriates, both of who left Algeria in refugee-like conditions owing to FLN violence. At the harki refugee camps, the government allowed only wives, dependent minor children, and elderly parents with no means to provide for themselves to accompany the “pro-French Muslims.” Moreover, it prohibited from entering heads of families who were planning to leave their families when they migrated to France.82 The government planned to first group the refugee families into camps and military barracks located in the local military sectors, where they would remain for a minimum of one month. All the refugees underwent medical tests and received the vaccinations required for residence in metropolitan France. The children attended school, the men attended courses intended to help them adapt to their future French life, and the women took hygiene and social welfare classes.83 Once government officials approved each individual harki family’s request to migrate to France, its members were transported by military convoy to displaced persons camps in towns near Algiers—such as Tefeschoun, Zéralda, and Reghaia (see figure 3)—from which they JORF, “Loi n°61-1439 du 26 décembre 1961…,” Dec. 28, 1961. Article 1 of the law states: Les Français, ayant dû ou estimé devoir quitter, par suite d’événements politiques, un territoire où ils étaient établis et qui étaient antérieurement placé sous la souveraineté, le protectorat ou la tutelle de la France, pourront bénéficier du concours de l’État, en vertu de la solidarité nationale affirmée de la Constitution de 1946 dans les conditions prévues par la présente loi. Ce concours se manifeste par un ensemble de mesures de nature à intégrer les Français rapatriés dans les structures économiques et sociales de la nation. Ces mesures consisteront, en particulier, à accorder aux rapatriés des prestations de retour, des prestations temporaires de subsistance, des prêts à taux réduit et des subventions d’installation et de reclassement, des facilités d’accès à la profession et d’admission dans les établissements scolaires, des prestations sociales ainsi que des secours exceptionnels. Les programmes de construction de logements bénéficiant de l’aide de l’État seront complétés par l’adjonction de contingents supplémentaires de logements pour les rapatriés… 82 SHAT, 1H 3077/2, Sergent Vella, “Objet: Recasement en France supplétifs et civils FSNA engagés aux côtés Forces Armées,” Message N˚ 1050/CSFA/EMI/MOR, Apr. 16, 1962. 83 SHAT, 1H 4214/1, General Hublot (Chef d’État-Major) to the General commanding the Région Territoriale and the Corps d’Armée d’Oran, “Objet: Recasement en France de militaires supplétifs et civils FSNA,” 1, N˚ 1013/CSFA/EMI/MOR, Apr. 11, 1962. 81 95 would depart several days later for Marseille and Port-Vendres, located twenty-five kilometers south of the Rivesaltes camp. R Z T Figure 3: Refugee camps on the northern coast of Algeria. From west to east on this one hundred kilometer stretch, “T” marks the Tefeschoun refugee camp, “Z” marks the Zéralda refugee camp, the star marks Algiers, and “R” marks the Reghaia refugee camp. Source: Google Maps. In her memoir, harki daughter Fatima Besnaci-Lancou gives substance to harki families’ secluded life in the relocation camps through a narrative of her experiences during October and November 1962 at the Béni-Messous military barracks on Algiers’ western outskirts. 84 In early August her father fled his village because he feared for his life after two family members who had served as harkis were savagely killed. His family faced uncertainty about whether he was alive. Two months later, Besnaci, her mother, and her four sisters were able to join him in Béni-Messous, the first in a succession of camps in Algeria and France where they would live hidden from the surrounding community. Each family lived in pre-fabricated buildings comprised of four or five one-room apartments, which contained bunk beds, a table, and two chairs. Since these dwellings had no kitchens, the families received food rations from a canteen several times a day, just like the Besnaci-Lancou, Fille de harki. Chapter 2 (“C’est ainsi que nous sommes devenus des harkis”) focuses on her family’s passage through the relocation camps. 84 96 soldiers who lived on the grounds protecting them. In the mornings, a military officer led classes for eight-year-old Besnaci and fifteen other children of all ages. Every afternoon at three o’clock, harki men attended courses to help them transition to metropolitan life. Besnaci foremost emphasizes the fear, disorientation, and uncertainty for their future that she and the other camp dwellers suffered: “Nous étions coupés du monde extérieur. Nous n’étions nulle part. Les seules nouvelles de l’extérieur nous venaient des nouveaux arrivants. Elles n’étaient pas joyeuses.”85 The isolation that Besnaci expressed served as a harbinger for her family’s future life in camps in metropolitan France. Isolation, though, was not the only problem induced by the camps. On May 16 the Army headquarters in Algeria issued a report with information from all three Army Corps and the Sahara revealing the camp’s principal difficulties. These complications did not just reflect the immediate situation in the camps but, more importantly, they also signaled the two principal factors that served to block the repatriation of harkis. Army officials argued in the report that “un maintien prolongé dans les [camps de] regroupements risque, en raison de la promiscuité et de l’inaction des personnes regroupées, d’engendrer des incidents: affaires de mœurs, vols, manifestations collectives plus ou moins violentes de mécontentement.”86 This view of the harki population as disposed toward violence, protests, and laziness entered into the government’s new, broader definition of “harkis.” After the last units of harkis (harkas) were dissolved in April 1962, the term transformed from its previous meaning of (almost exclusively) male auxiliary soldiers to a word that encompassed entire families of Algerian refugees forced to migrate from their homeland.87 As one Army report expressed, single women, whether widows or unmarried adult daughters of former harki soldiers, should not be included into Ibid., 53-54. SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Rapatriement des harkis), CSFA, EMI, Bureau du Moral, “Recasement en France des supplétifs et civils FSNA. État d’avancement des opérations de regroupement initial au 10 mai 1962,” N˚ RR/YR-15.5, May 16, 1962. 87 Documents in the Army Archives indicate that there were very few female harkis also known as “harkettes.” I met one of these women in June 2009 at the Cité les Tilleuls in Marseille. 85 86 97 the repatriation process for fear that they would resort to prostitution out of economic desperation.88 Army officials who decried the “promiscuity” and “idleness” of the camp dwellers imbued the emergent term “harki” (male and female) with the same stereotypes that government officials had attributed throughout the imperial era to male colonial subjects, whom they held in disdain for being lazy, promiscuous, and dangerous.89 To cite an example from the burgeoning scholarship on government oversight of “natives” in the colony and the metropole during this time, one 1917 government report described problems with Madagascan workers in France by averring: “Conducted with firmness and goodwill at the same time, one can get good work from him… Although intelligent, the Madagascan has little initiative, which explains the small number of industries he has created… The taste for promiscuity which he often abuses, even from childhood, is for him a cause of degeneracy and abbreviates his days.”90 Here we see linguistic continuities between the essentializing assessments of Madagascan “colonial subjects” and those of the harkis. Male and female harkis, adults and children alike, would encounter great difficulties to overcome stereotypes developed from settlers and state agents’ contacts with “natives” during the colonial era, even after they became French citizens in metropolitan France. As the harkis sought approval to migrate to France from military and government officials, extant colonial stigmas and classifications also challenged their inclusion into the definition of repatriates—a necessary step toward French nationality—as much as the Army’s evaluations of the situation in the relocation camps. The harkis could not escape the colonial specter of the label “musulmans,” a statutory category of inferior citizens attributed to the native Algerians, to be SHAT, 1H 1260/2, CSFA, EMI, Bureau du Moral, “Recasement des supplétifs et civils FSNA menacés,” 2, N° SP 87.000, May 26, 1962. 89 For a discussion of stereotypes of colonial subjects, see, for example: Fogarty, Race and War; Lewis, The Boundaries of the Republic; Neil MacMaster, Colonial Migrants and Racism: Algerians in France, 1900-62 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997); Rosenberg, Policing Paris; Emmanuelle Saada, Les enfants de la colonie: les métis de l’Empire français entre sujétion et citoyenneté (Paris: La Découverte, 2007); Sayad, La double absence; and Tyler Stovall, “Colour-blind France? Colonial Workers during the First World War,” Race & Class 35.2 (1993): 35-55. 90 SHAT, 7N 997, “Rapport mensuel,” July-Aug. 1917. Quoted in Stovall, “Colour-blind France?,” 48 and 54 n. 37. 88 98 viewed by upper echelon government officials as “repatriates.” Indeed, when asked to give his position about the place of the harkis in the repatriation process, President de Gaulle would not include them into the category of “repatriates” because he continued to consider them “Muslims.” He argued in an exchange with Minister of Armies Messmer at a July 25, 1962 Council of Ministers that “repatriates” and “Muslims” were mutually exclusive categories: Messmer: Des harkis et des fonctionnaires musulmans, les moghaznis, se disent menacés. D’où des demandes qui viennent à la fois des autorités civiles et militaires. Il faut prendre une position de principe. De Gaulle: On ne peut pas accepter de replier tous les musulmans qui viendraient à déclarer qu’ils ne s’entendront pas avec leur gouvernement! Le terme de rapatriés ne s’applique évidemment pas aux musulmans: ils ne retournent pas dans la terre de leurs pères!91 De Gaulle’s use of “musulmans” reflected an ethnic conception of “rapatriés.” According to him, the harkis could never be “repatriates” because they were still, or always, Muslims, which necessarily meant that they had no roots in the French “fatherland.” However, the President’s reasoning was faulty. A significant portion of the pieds-noirs did not fit into de Gaulle’s definition of repatriate, either. Scholars who study the pieds-noirs emphasize that while almost all were French citizens on the eve of the Algerian War, France was not necessarily “la terre de leurs pères.”92 Indeed, non-Muslim inhabitants of Algeria held diverse European origins and some were Jews who had migrated from the Middle East.93 In addition to French settlers, there were Maltese, Spaniards, Italians, Belgians, and even Alsatians who fled their homeland in 1871 to Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 209. “Tous” and “rapatriés” are italicized in Peyrefitte’s text. For this reason, Ageron labels the two sections of a chapter about the economic and social development of Algeria from 1930 to 1954 “The European Population” and “The Muslim Population,” and Shepard similarly titles his chapter that contrasts France’s policy of “rejecting” Algerians Muslims from the repatriation process as “Repatriating the Europeans.” Ageron, “Chapter 6: The Economic and Social Development of Algeria, 1930-1954,” Modern Algeria, 82-92, and Shepard, “Chapter 8: Repatriating the Europeans,” Invention of Decolonization, 207-228. 93 The Vichy regime stripped Algerian Jews of their full French citizenship under an October 7, 1940 law. This legislation repealed the 1870 Crémieux decree, which had included Jews into the category of French with common civil status. As a result, the 110,000 Jews in Algeria returned to the pre-1870 status of “subjects” until an October 21, 1943 declaration issued by the Comité Français de Libération nationale gave them back full French nationality. Weil, “Histoire et mémoire,” 9-10. 91 92 99 avoid becoming German citizens after the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. It is impossible to quantify the repartition of national origins among the pied-noir population owing to a lack of statistical information (the government’s ethnic distinctions for population groups in Algeria was limited to “Europeans” and “Muslims”) and a high rate of intermarriages among settlers of different national origins. Nevertheless, data from the Annuaire statistique de l’Algérie published in 1933 establish that “foreigners” (i.e., non-French citizens) and naturalized French citizens had consistently comprised a significant proportion of the European population since French colonization of Algeria in 1830. Table 2, which reproduces these figures, demonstrates that, on average, forty-three percent of the “European population” from 1833 to 1926 was comprised of foreigners, data that does not include the proportion of French citizens who were naturalized.94 De Gaulle, therefore, was willing to assimilate those of European origin whose ancestors had never lived in France into French repatriates, but he refused to admit harkis into this category. He also included within this category of “pieds-noirs” Jews, whom Todd Shepard describes as “French citizens whose supposed ‘group’ differences had obsessed and shaped French culturalist xenophobia” since the 1789 Revolution. The opposition between Christians and Jews that had permeated recent Franco-French conflicts, namely the Dreyfus Affair and Vichy France, were forgotten at the end of French Algeria. The French government labeled them as “wholly French,” according to Shepard, now emphasizing the divide between French and Muslims.95 Kateb, Européens, “indigènes” et juifs, 187. Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization, 169-170. Chapter 6 of this book, “Repatriation Rather Than Aliyah: The Jews of France and the End of French Algeria,” focuses on the repatriation of Jews from Algeria. 94 95 100 Year 1833 1836 1839 1841 1846 1847 1851 1856 1866 1872 1876 1886 1891 1896 1901 1906 1911 1921 1926 Total French citizens (of French origin and naturalized) 3,478 5,485 11,000 15,497 46,339 42,274 66,050 92,738 122,119 164,175 189,677 261,666 315,131 366,900 421,389 514,065 542,871 602,609 657,641 Foreigners Total Europeans Proportion of Foreigners 4,334 9,076 14,000 20,230 49,780 67,126 65,233 66,544 94,781 115,516 155,072 203,154 215,793 211,580 212,461 166,198 209,172 188,761 175,718 7,812 14,561 25,000 35,537 96,119 109,400 131,283 159,282 216,990 279,691 344,749 464,280 530,924 578,480 633,850 680,263 752,043 791,370 833,359 55.5 62.3 56 56.9 51.8 61.4 49.7 41.8 43.7 41.3 45 43.7 40.6 36.6 33.5 24.4 27.8 23.9 21.1 Table 2: Population of European descent in Algeria from 1833 to 1926. The decreasing proportion of foreigners since the end of the nineteenth century represents an increasingly aggressive policy to naturalize foreigners in Algeria as the metropolitan French population stagnated. Source: Kateb, Européens, “indigènes” et juifs, 187. The government did not organize a concrete repatriation plan for the harkis, the second major problem reported by Army officials in the May 16 memo, both because officials did not include the harkis into the definition of “French repatriates” and owing to the emergency situation in Algeria. In a heated exchange during the May 4, 1962 Council of Ministers meeting President de Gaulle vociferated his strong desire to celeritously sever all ties with Algeria, which he believed was draining France’s strength: L’État est profondément malade, et les événements n’ont fait qu’aggraver sa maladie, dont ils sont la conséquence… Il faut annoncer la date de l’autodétermination. Que personne ne doute que la France n’exercera plus aucune responsabilité, ni politique ni maintien de l’ordre, au plus tard six mois après le cessez-le-feu! Que les musulmans préparent le gouvernement de l’Algérie! Que les Européens se persuadent qu’il faut, ou bien 101 s’accommoder avec les musulmans sans que la France les protège, ou bien rentrer en France!96 Now that Algeria was on its way to becoming independent, de Gaulle wanted to remove the vestiges of France’s colonial empire that had caused it to be “profoundly sick” and return the governance of Algeria to the “Muslims.” Violence in Algeria forced a frenzied “exodus” of nearly one million pieds-noirs to France during 1962 alone.97 The migration of pieds-noirs to France increased dramatically following the April 30 arrest of ex-General Raoul Salan, the leader of the OAS. In its efforts to keep the piedsnoirs in their homeland to demonstrate the strength of its pro-French Algeria position, this organization issued threats to those wanting to flee.98 After 173,816 departures during the first four months of 1962, 629,980 pieds-noirs arrived in French ports and airports from May through July. While 412,752 individuals did migrate from France back to Algeria over the course of the year, the net gain in metropolitan France equaled 651,265 disoriented people who needed housing and jobs.99 The government neither expected nor wanted this influx. Secretary of State Boulin issued a press release after the May 30, 1962 Council of Ministers, which succinctly exposed the government’s position. It stated: “Nous disposons d’un filet protecteur, la loi de décembre 1961 sur les rapatriements, qui nous permet de prendre en charge 70 000 rapatriés en 1962; mais on peut espérer qu’on n’aura besoin d’y avoir recours et que la quasi-totalité des Européens qui reviennent actuellement en métropole repartiront sans demander à bénéficier du statut de rapatriés.”100 The net total of pieds-noirs who migrated to France in 1962 was more than nine times this ceiling. The government was patently aware that along with the repatriates of European origins came security Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 139. According to Todd Shepard, the term “exodus” was introduced in 1961 in reaction to concerns about Jewish departures from Constantine. The Invention of Decolonization, 211. 98 For details about the OAS threats and propaganda, see Shepard, The Invention of Decolonization, 208-218. 99 Jordi, De l’exode à l’exil, 66. This figure represented two-thirds of the 984,000 Europeans who inhabited Algeria at the outbreak of the war. Scioldo-Zürcher, Devenir métropolitain, 31. 100 Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 151. 96 97 102 threats from recalcitrant OAS members who clung to their visions of a French Algeria. However, despite these links there is no evidence that it refused to admit these repatriates into France. Discussions about Algerian populations during the spring 1962 Council of Ministers meetings focused overwhelmingly on OAS affiliates’ terrorist acts in Algeria and the serious security risks that their migration to France could pose. After metropolitan French citizens overwhelmingly ratified the April 8 referendum that paved the way toward Algerian self-determination OAS extremists undertook the “scorched earth policy,” incinerating municipal buildings, ports, and farmland in Algeria. Apprehension about the lingering Franco-French war consumed President de Gaulle and his Ministers. Evidence from Council of Ministers meetings suggest that they feared that the pied-noirs’ unfettered access to metropolitan France would allow dangerous OAS members to migrate among them, two groups that were difficult to distinguish one from the other. As discussed in chapter one, a few cases of OAS violence had indeed reached metropolitan France with the bombing of Minister of Culture André Malraux’s apartment building and assassination attempts on President de Gaulle (see pages 64-65). In this context, Prime Minister Georges Pompidou asserted on April 25: “Le moment est proche où le seul recours de l’OAS sera le terrorisme désespéré; non plus en Algérie, mais en métropole.”101 Interior Minister Roger Frey declared on May 4: “Nous avons saisi de nombreux documents qui prouvent que l’OAS croit que, lorsque les rapatriés et les militaires vont installer en métropole, elle pourra s’infiltrer partout et que la situation basculera.”102 And de Gaulle pronounced on May 9: “Il faut s’attendre à ce que le retour des Français d’Algérie nous amène de grandes difficultés. Il y aura parmi eux beaucoup de tueurs, beaucoup de tueurs.”103 The government’s attention therefore focused squarely on quelling the Franco-French war. Ibid., 136. Ibid., 139. 103 Ibid., 142. 101 102 103 The OAS, the Harkis, and “Repatriating” the Franco-French War Government officials believed that another, albeit less numerous, potential source of entry for unwanted OAS “killers” existed: the harkis. Confidential documents written by French Ministers and transcripts of Council of Ministers meetings in spring 1962 demonstrate that logistical reasons (including a shortage of housing in France) and ethnicity alone cannot account for why the French government did not want to repatriate the harkis. 104 Government officials feared these former soldiers as potential means to “repatriate” OAS violence to France. For this reason, the government sought to strictly control the harkis’ access to France, and even threatened to send them back to Algeria if government orders were not followed. Amidst reports of soldiers with links to the OAS taking the initiative to repatriate groups of harkis, on May 12, 1962 Pierre Messmer sent a secret telegram warning the Commander of Military Forces in Algeria of dire consequences for harkis who did not have his personal authorization to migrate to France: Dès maintenant je vous prie: Primo- d’effectuer sans délai enquête en vue déterminer conditions départ d’Algérie de ces groupes incontrôlés et sanctionner officiers qui pourraient en être à l’origine. Secundo- …d’informer vos subordonnées que, à compter du 20 mai, seront refoulés sur Algérie tous anciens supplétifs qui arriveraient en métropole sans autorisation de ma part accordée après consultation départements ministériels intéressés.105 Messmer asserted that the primary reason for these “mesures sévères” was the “[n]écessité absolue éviter arrivée en métropole individus ou groupes d’individus incontrôlés qui pourraient constituer masse manœuvre pour organisations subversives.”106 While Messmer maintained in a 2004 interview that he never ordered any harkis be sent back to Algeria (and there is no documentary evidence of In making this assertion, I question Todd Shepard’s claim that “Rather than security concerns, or any kind of explicit embrace of the ideological terms of left-wing rejection of harkis as ‘collaborators’ and OAS ‘storm troopers,’ de Gaulle’s government affirmed a racialized exclusion.” As I demonstrate below, some of the most damning contentions about the OAS trying to use harkis toward political ends came from the right-tilting newspaper, Le Figaro. Shepard, Invention of Decolonization, 239. 105 CAC, 19910467/2 (dossier: Harkis I), telegram from Pierre Messmer to Genesuper Algeria, N˚ 1334 MA/CAB/DIR, May 12, 1962. 106 Ibid. 104 104 such cases), the extreme measures that he promised nonetheless signal that the harkis were feared as potential operatives in the Franco-French war.107 Messmer was not alone in his concern about the OAS-harki connection. Significantly, one of the sole instances that the harkis were mentioned during the postwar Council of Ministers meetings was when Minister of Algerian Affairs Joxe posited a link between the OAS and the harkis. In the context of FLN members increasingly threatening and carrying out violent retributions toward the harkis he argued on May 24, “Enfin, les harkis veulent partir en masse; il faut évidemment combattre une infiltration qui, sous prétexte de bienfaisance, aurait pour effet de nous faire accueillir des éléments indésirables.” In response to Joxe’s statement and reports about strife among the Muslim population, President de Gaulle declared to his cabinet members that that after Algeria became independent, “[l]a France ne doit plus avoir aucune responsabilité dans le maintien de l’ordre…. Si les gens s’entre-massacrent, ce sera l’affaire des nouvelles autorités.”108 Joxe’s statement perfectly summarizes the situation: how to balance humanitarian concerns for the harkis’ safety in the wake of myriad reports of killing, imprisonment, and torture by FLN members with political concerns over the Franco-French war. And President de Gaulle’s response to place the harkis within the category of “les gens [qui] s’entre-massacrent” evidences which way the scales tipped. His government’s policy to limit the harkis’ repatriation demonstrated that political efficacy trumped humanitarian considerations, neglecting the harkis’ welfare in the massacres. Links between the harkis and the OAS did exist, but there is scant evidence that the harkis actually participated in OAS activities. Nevertheless, government officials expressed concerns that the harkis provided a fertile breeding ground for this seditious organization and if the OAS oversaw the harkis’ migration to France, this would perpetuate the Franco-French war. It is unclear to what extent a deliberate desire to believe in the threat of harkis joining the OAS (as opposed to a 107 108 Messmer, interview. Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 151. 105 miscomprehension of the few ties that actually existed between harkis and OAS members) influenced the government’s evaluation that the harkis wanted to continue to fight for a French Algeria. But it is apparent that this appraisal served as a reason to view repatriating harkis to France as a potentially dangerous move and therefore to exercise tight controls over its boundaries to limit the process. The perception of a dangerous harki-OAS link was primarily fueled by two factors. First, throughout the war Army officers had relayed to their superiors that Algerian natives had willingly joined the French cause because they supported a French Algeria. And second, after the ceasefire, reports from military commanders supporting repatriation requests made by harkis whom they had commanded, like those on pages 92 and 93 above, lauded these former soldiers devotion to the French cause. In their quest to save these men’s lives against the impending FLN violence, soldiers (a minority of whom was affiliated with the OAS) actually increased public and governmental anxiety about the “repatriation” of the violent Franco-French war because officials chose to interpret the harkis’ pro-French sentiments as extremist. In spring 1962, Army reports fed government officials’ assumptions that some of the harkis would cling to their supposed vision of a French Algeria and disturb the peace if repatriated to metropolitan France. As explained in the introduction, the need for jobs in the face of the warravaged agrarian Algerian economy, forced recruitment by French soldiers (enrôlement) with orders from the government to promote the appearance that Algerians were opposed to independence, and the quest for weapons to protect themselves and their families against FLN violence proved more important factors in the decision of Algerian natives to fight for the French cause.109 In fact, over the course of the war an unquantifiable number of Algerian natives fought for France and later for the FLN (or vice versa); some even served both sides concurrently.110 As mentioned in the previous Charbit, Les harkis, 30-31 and Hamoumou, Et ils sont devenus harkis, 63. For example, through her voyage to Algeria to gather information to write her memoir, harki daughter Dalila Kerchouche learns that her father served simultaneously as a harki and as an FLN informant. Mon père, ce Harki. 109 110 106 chapter, from summer 1961 onward army officials expressed concerns over desertions, fearing in particular that French weapons would be passed to ALN members who would then use them on French soldiers. 111 The government distrusted the harkis’ loyalty to France and used this apprehension as a reason for expeditiously disarming harkis who returned to their villages during the war or after the ceasefire. Nevertheless, when the government could no longer avoid taking a stance on repatriating the harkis, it chose to privilege as exemplary the atypical case of staunchly pro-French BeniBoudouane tribal leader Bachaga Boualam over its concerns that the harkis would side with the FLN.112 The majority of the men among the fifteen thousand tribe members living in the Bachaga’s mountainous fief near Chlef (midway between Algiers and Oran) did engage as harkis.113 However, the complex situation of customary obligations to follow their leader was a principal factor in these men’s decisions. 114 The reason that the Beni-Boudouanes joined the harkis, like other Algerian natives, could not be reduced to allegiance to French Algeria, in contrast to projections by French Army and government officials in discussions about repatriating the harkis. Once the military operations ended, these individuals, therefore, did not mourn the end of French Algeria in the same way as the extremist pieds-noirs who prolonged the conflict with terrorist acts toward the French government. Since few harkis held a strong conviction for the French cause during and after the war, their conjectured participation in the OAS maquis was tenuous at best. SHAT, 1H 2467/3 bis, État-Major Interarmées, 3ème Bureau, “Fiche,” July 10, 1961. Based on documents in the 1H 1598/1 carton, Charles-Robert Ageron contends that 10,893 Muslims deserted their positions as harkis or soldiers in the French Army during the war, an undetermined number with their weapons. Ageron, “Les supplétifs algériens,” 17. 112 Bachaga is an Arabic word signifying high Arab dignitary. In late May, the military organized the evacuation of 140 of the Bachaga Boualam’s family members and entourage to the Mas-Thibert farm outside of Arles (the first group of 67 immediate family members arrived on May 18). This was the sole case of a collective tribal repatriation by the government. Guilia Fabbiano, “Les harkis du Bachaga Boualam. Des Beni-Boudouanes à Mas-Thibert,” in Les harkis dans la décolonisation et après, ed. Fatima Besnaci-Lancou and Gilles Manceron (Paris: Éditions de l’Atelier, 2008), 117. 113 Bachaga Boualam, Mon pays… la France! (Paris: Éditions France-Empire, 1962), 79-80. 114 Fabbiano, “Les harkis du Bachaga Boualam,” 113-16. 111 107 Without a governmental repatriation plan in place, as FLN violence escalated in spring 1962, some French soldiers and civilians in Algeria felt a moral obligation toward these former soldiers because they had risked their lives for France. These Frenchmen used their own means to provide a small number of harki families with safe passage to France.115 Among these French citizens were troops in the sections administratives sociales (SAS) whom Algerian civilians employed by France (the moghaznis) had protected during the war as they performed administrative, social, educational, economic, and military duties in the Algerian countryside. Some of these SAS troops had OAS ties. Press outlets across the political spectrum picked up on these isolated cases and published articles in late May with titles such as “Comment l’OAS tente d’installer des harkis en métropole” (Le Figaro, May 22) and “De l’entraide à l’utilisation des harkis en métropole” (Le Monde, May 23), “Harkis transférés en France ‘ratonneurs’… expulsés: Des recrues pour l’O.A.S.” (Libération, May 24), and “L’O.A.S. installe en France des ‘harkis’ pour préparer de nouveaux crimes” (Humanité, May 23). These inflammatory pieces provided fuel for government officials’ anxieties over the potential for the harkis to serve as a means to “repatriate” OAS violence to France, though none reported that the repatriated harkis actually carried out subversive actions. Periodicals including France-Observateur (the predecessor to Le Nouvel Observateur), Libération, and Le Monde honed in on two particular instances. The leftist Libération reported in a May 26 article, “Des réserves pour l’O.A.S. dans la Vienne?,” that ninety harkis had arrived on a property near Poitiers owned by a former secretary of state under Vichy government leader Marshal Pétain whose son served as a colonel in the SAS and A 1963 report by the Minister of Interior titled “Aspects du problème des harkis en France” presented detailed biographical information for twenty-four individuals who had actively participated in these “individual initiatives.” Some of these men led associations created to help the harkis to settle in France, such as the “Comité National de Solidarité pour les Français Musulmans Rapatriés” founded on July 10, 1962, and presided over by Alexandre Parodi. The report argued that such actions “complicated” the harkis’ adjustment to life in metropolitan France because: “Les intéressés eux-mêmes [les harkis], peu au fait de la réglementation métropolitaine, ne connaissant pratiquement pas le territoire français, enclins, comme la plupart de leurs coreligionnaires, à des pérégrinations fréquentes, ont échappé dans une certaine mesure à un contrôle généralisé.” The harkis’ adjustment to life in metropolitan France, including living under the strict supervision of camp officials, is the focus of Section Two of this dissertation. AN, F1a 5017, Direction des Renseignements Généraux, Ministère de l’Intérieur, Report: “Aspects du problème des harkis en France,” 1, 1963. 115 108 reportedly disagreed with President de Gaulle’s policies on Algeria. The same piece related that 138 harkis were camped on the grounds of a chateau outside of Limoges whose proprietor, an excolonel in the SAS, had been imprisoned in April for publishing pro-OAS tracts on this site. In line with Libération’s continual opposition to de Gaulle’s policies in Algeria (and his policies in general), the article concluded by vilifying his government: “Et n’est-il pas scandaleux que les pouvoirs publics continuent à fermer les yeux sur la constitution en France de groupes dont certains pourront le cas échéant fournir des hommes ‘d’élite’ aux commandos O.A.S.”116 These words posited a strong link between the OAS and the harkis, and suggested the former auxiliary soldiers’ potential for violent actions. These journalists were not alone in their concerns about the OAS trying to use harkis toward political ends. High-level government officials demonstrate similar apprehensiveness in their correspondence written at the same time. By examining side by side a pair of articles published on May 22 and May 24 in Le Figaro and a confidential letter sent from Minister of Interior Frey to Minister of Armies Messmer on May 15, this fact becomes clear. Based on interviews conducted among harkis repatriated through unofficial channels, Le Figaro reporter Serge Bromberger, who had recently returned from Algeria, pronounced that these ex-soldiers did not in fact feel threatened in Algeria and only migrated because their superiors and pieds-noirs encouraged them.117 This claim echoed concerns that Frey expressed in his letter just a week before: “Il me paraît même probable que, dans certains cas, des harkis ont été incités à franchir la Méditerranée, sans qu’ils aient été précisément menacés.”118 Bromberger’s May 22 article continued, “Dans un certain nombre de cas précis, il est évident qu’il s’agit d’une tentation tendant à faire entrer en métropole des éléments SPDP, dossier: Harkis, “Des réserves pour l’O.A.S. dans la Vienne?” Libération, May 26, 1962. SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Serge Bromberger, “Comment l’OAS tente d’installer des harkis en métropole,” Le Figaro, May 22, 1962. 118 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Directives concernant les harkis), letter from Minister of the Interior Roger Frey to Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer, 2, N° SN CAB 2924, May 15, 1962. 116 117 109 indésirables ayant la pratique des armes, et destinés à servir de moyens… à l’O.A.S.”119 Similarly, Frey’s letter continued, “Il y a là un danger certain, car il ne faut pas se cacher que la plupart des personnes qui essaient, en ce domaine, de se substituer aux autorités, sont politiquement très orientées et que le désordre qui préside, du fait de leur interférence, à la reconversion des harkis, ne peut être que générateur de troubles.”120 Yet, while Bromberger and Frey expressed analogous concerns, their proposed solutions to the problem differed and demonstrated the government’s apprehension over repatriating the harkis. Whereas Frey simply asked Messmer to remind his officers that “individual initiatives” were prohibited, in his May 24 article Bromberger argued that to thwart OAS efforts to turn the harkis into “shock troops,” the government must step up its efforts to repatriate the harkis.121 The press’s assessment was correct. While these “individual initiatives,” as the government called them, started in April, the first military vessel carrying harkis did not embark for France until June 9.122 Instead of—and before—establishing and implementing a procedure for the harkis to migrate to France, government officials focused on exerting control over how the harkis should not be repatriated, that is, to ensure that the government’s OAS adversaries would not be involved in transporting the harkis and providing them housing in France. In an April 18 letter, Minister Joxe gave the High Commissioner in Algeria, Christian Fouchet, stern instructions to monitor the repatriation process: “… il conviendra de veiller à ce qu’aucun retour ne soit effectué sans avoir mon accord préalable afin que l’accueil en Métropole soit assuré dans des conditions satisfaisantes.”123 However, this letter and other documents failed to specify what these “satisfactory conditions” Bromberger, “Comment l’OAS tente d’installer…” SHAT, 1K 744, letter from Frey to Messmer, 2. 121 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Serge Bromberger, “Aider au reclassement des harkis,” Le Figaro, May 24, 1962. 122 AN, F1a 5140, Cabinet Director of the Secretary of State for Repatriates, “Note sur le rapatriement des Français Musulmans,” 1, June 20, 1962. 123 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: “Directives concernant les harkis”), letter from Minister for Algerian Affairs Louis Joxe to the High Commissioner in Algeria, Christian Fouchet, Objet: “Situation des personnes engagées en Algérie aux côtés de l’Administration ou de l’Armée,” Apr. 18, 1962. 119 120 110 would be, leaving the door open for “individual initiatives” by soldiers and civilians in Algeria who believed that France had a moral responsibility not to “abandon” the harkis. As one Army official from the Oran Army Corps wrote to the Zone Commanders in his region: “Généraux Commandants Zones feront tout ce qu’il est possible de faire pour FSNA qui ont servi a nos côtés afin qu’en aucun cas ils puissent avoir sentiment que nous les avons abandonnés – Agir avec maximum sollicitude est un devoir pour nous et aussi dette reconnaissance dont il faut s’acquitter…”124 Officials in France, fearful of “repatriating” the Franco-French war, had yet to form a plan for the harkis, which led some soldiers to substitute themselves for the French authorities. “Security” over Movements of (Post) Empire In the face of this situation, the government sought to use what Michel Foucault terms a “technology of security” over a sliver of its population whom it deemed a threat to metropolitan safety. Foucault’s description of this technology inherent to modern governance illuminates why the government did not prepare for and sought to limit the harkis’ repatriation. Foucault writes that the technology of security “brings together the series of random events that can occur in a living mass, a technology which tries to predict the probability of those events (by modifying it, if necessary), or at least to compensate for their effects. This is a technology which aims to establish a sort of homeostasis not by training individuals, but by achieving an overall equilibrium that protects the security of the whole from internal dangers.”125 Interior Minister Roger Frey expressed his great concern to Messmer over reports of groups of harkis arriving in Marseille and being directed to locales around southern France “dans des SHAT, 1H 4194/1, “Notification n° 107/RT/CAO/MOR du Corps d’Armée d’Oran et R.T.” This notification is written on the same document as a June 1, 1962 “message postalisé” from Army Headquarters in Reghaia to the Oran Army Corps. 125 Michel Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended.” Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975-1976, ed. Mauro Bertani and Alessandro Fontana, trans. David Macey (New York: Picador, 2003), 249. 124 111 conditions assez anarchiques” and over inquiries from military officers with possible OAS links to prefects about housing groups of harkis and moghaznis in their department.126 To take control of the situation, Frey and other cabinet members sought to exercise a “technology of security” (state regulation of populations) because these officials believed that the harkis threatened metropolitan safety.127 On May 12 Frey issued to prefects across France a telegram (following up on a telegram written to these administrators several days prior), which gave detailed orders of how to police the repatriation of groups of harkis by non-government channels: Primo: Adresser à mon cabinet, lundi 14, liste nominative de tous éléments harkis arrivés dans votre département en précisant exactement lieux et conditions leur hébergement et en indiquant identité précise des personnes ayant pris initiative de ces installations – Secundo: Adresser à mon cabinet tous éléments en possession vos services police et administration sur projet telles installations – Tertio: Ne pas manquer me donner toutes informations sur nouvelles initiatives de cet ordre que vous pourriez déceler dans l’avenir – Quarto: Vous renouvelle devez vous opposer à tous projets dans ce domaine en dehors mesures adoptées par secrétariat aux rapatriés.128 Frey penned yet another telegram five days later with nearly identical language to reiterate his third and fourth points, and added an additional preventative measure: “Vous demande d’informer de ces directives toute personne ou groupe en cause.” 129 And a few weeks later, once the Army was preparing to open a military camp to receive the harkis arriving through the government’s repatriation procedure, he wrote an additional telegram to once again remind prefects to inform him SHAT, 1K 744, letter from Frey to Messmer, 1. Examples of these letters include: SHAT, 1R 367/7, Sergeant André Jekabsons to the prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes department (attached to the May 15 letter from Frey to Messmer) and CAC, 19910467/2 (dossier: Harkis I), Lieutenant François Le Breton to the prefect of the Alpes-Maritimes department, Apr. 28, 1962. Lieutenant Le Breton sent the same letter to the prefects of the Gers, Hérault, Pyrénées-Orientales, Pyrénées-Basses, Tarn, and Garonne departments. 127 Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended,” 249. 128 Frey references a previous telegram (n° 263) in the present document. However, I have been unable to locate it in the archives. The number of the telegram leads me to conjecture that Frey wrote it in late April or early May. ADBR, 137 W 460, Roger Frey to All Departmental Prefects, telegram n° 288, May 12, 1962. 129 ADBR, 137 W 460, Roger Frey to All Departmental Prefects, telegram n° 301, May 17, 1962. 126 112 and the Secretary of Repatriates of harkis arriving in their departments with the help of groups that “vous paraîtront politiquement dangereux.”130 The succession of three telegrams over the space of approximately two weeks (and the telegram in early June) as well as Frey’s words in themselves signal that the government sought to use a “technology of security.” Part of controlling the harkis’ access to metropolitan soil was to hide them from the general population during and after the repatriation process, thereby indicating that harki repatriates were unwelcome in French society. When the government did finally start repatriating the harkis, they were sent to the Larzac military camp located in the Midi-Pyrénées region and the Bourg-Lastic military base in Auvergne, both located in sparsely populated corners of France (see figure 4). On their way to these “transit camps,” the harkis imperceptibly passed through Marseille after arriving from Algiers, Nemours, Bône, and Mers-el-Kébir on Navy vessels, a trip that lasted upwards of eighteen hours. The first ship carrying 200 harkis and their family members (totaling 651 people) arrived in Marseille on June 11, 1962, and the transfer was expected to continue at a rhythm of approximately one boat per day until July 1, the eve of Algerian independence.131 As depicted in figure 5, the harkis’ transport to Cap Janet, the section of the port that is located the furthest from the city center and was used for container ships, most often transpired at night—to hide them from public view. Indeed, the National Police reported that 960 harkis and their family members who had debarked in Marseille the evening of June 23 arrived at the Clermont-Ferrand train station at two o’clock the following morning, where they were subsequently transported by train and military trucks to the Bourg-Lastic camp.132 As the image in figure 6 shows, after arriving at the port, the harkis waited in an adjacent hangar or on the dock itself for the trains ADBR, 137 W 460, Roger Frey to All Departmental Prefects, telegram n° 347. This telegram is not dated, but based on its reference to the Larzac camp being prepared by military authorities to receive the harkis arriving in France, I estimate that Frey wrote the document in early June. 131 ADBR, 138 W 3, SCINA, “Synthèse… journée du 14 juin 1962,” N˚ 1 706. 132 ADBR, 138 W 3, SCINA, “Synthèse… journée du 27 juin 1962,” b, N˚ 1 715. 130 113 that would hurry them off to the camps. While the military held the sole responsibility for watching over the harkis (in principle, the government sent three officers per one hundred persons),133 the captain of the port, Albert Payan, deemed it necessary to put into place extra police officers to patrol Cap Janet and the surrounding railroad tracks.134 Bourg-Lastic Larzac Figure 4: The Bourg-Lastic and Larzac transit camps located in rural southern France. Source: Google Maps. SHAT, 1H 3077/2, Genesuper Reghaia to the Oran Army Corps, “Objet: Transfert en métropole supplétifs FSNA menacés et leurs familles,” N° 1407/CSFA/EMI/MOR, June 1, 1962. 134 ADBR, 137 W 460, “Communication téléphonique de M. Payan,” June 9, 1962. 133 114 Figure 5: Harkis arriving in Marseille on June 12, 1962. Source: Agence France-Presse Archives. Figure 6: Harki families waiting in the Marseille harbor to be transported to the Bourg-Lastic camp on June 23, 1962. Source: Agence France-Presse Archives. 115 The harkis’ repatriation contrasted with that of the pieds-noirs, also organized by the state. Eighty percent of these French citizens were housed in the Phocaean city in HLM buildings, hotels and school dormitories requisitioned by the government, emergency shelters run by the Prefecture, and housing centers operated by charitable organizations such as the Catholic Relief (Secours Catholique), and the Red Cross.135 In contrast, the government, heeding explicit concerns that the prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône department expressed on May 24 about the dangers posed if the harkis settled in his capital, made no housing provisions for them in Marseille. As the Chief of Muslim Affairs for the Interior Ministry wrote to the prefect on June 15: “Il est apparu qu’en raison du grand nombre de rapatriés affluant à Marseille, le transit dans cette ville des refugiés musulmans devrait être réduit à la plus courte durée possible et que ceux-ci seraient, en conséquence, acheminés vers des centres de grande capacité situés dans d’autres départements.”136 Indeed, while national and local government agencies and private organizations worked together to house the “repatriates” in France’s third largest city, national and local government officials planned to hide the “Muslim refugees” in the French countryside secured away from the rest of the French population. The government initially planned to house the five thousand harkis whom it estimated would briefly transit Marseille before July 1137 in tents and barracks on the grounds of the Larzac military camp,138 which had originally been constructed to house a maximum of three thousand Jordi, De l’exode à l’exil, 66-67. On the pieds-noirs’ arrival in Marseille, see pp. 68-97. Their living conditions were not ideal, however, the government never housed them in tents on campgrounds. For an analysis of the pieds-noirs’ emergency housing situation, see Scioldo-Zürcher, Devenir métropolitain, 197-215. 136 ADBR, 137 W 460, G. Lamossoure (Chief of Service of Muslim Affairs) to the Prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône, “Objet: Transit à Marseille et dispersion en Métropole de réfugiés musulmans,” SAM N˚ 341200, June 15, 1962. Lamossoure references a May 24 letter (N˚ 6901) that the prefect wrote to him. 137 SHAT, 9R 450/6, Corps du contrôle de l’Administration de l’Armée, “Rapport d’information sur l’hébergement des Harkis au Camp du Larzac,” 2, N° 15 RC/62, Oct. 15, 1962. This report cites a May 29 document written by Army officials in France (N° 9463 EMA/I.O./DR.SC.), which estimated that five thousand FSNA would arrive at the Larzac camp by July 1. The first one thousand inhabitants were housed in thirty-two military barracks and all subsequent arrivals resided in “villages” of tents (pp. 3-4 of the report). 138 Larzac had been the largest camp for FLN prisoners in France during the Algerian War for Independence, interning approximately ten thousand of them from 1959 to 1962. Marc Bernardot, “Être interné au Larzac: La politique d’assignation à résidence surveillée durant la guerre d’Algérie (1958-1962),” Politix 24, no. 69 (2004): 40. The analysis of 135 116 people.139 However, after just over one week, the camp, which had received the first harki families on June 13, reached almost full capacity.140 To absorb what Messmer later described as an influx of former auxiliary soldiers that reached much greater than expected proportions,141 on June 23 the Army established a second “transit camp” on the Bourg-Lastic military base with space to house an additional six thousand harkis in canvas tents (see figure 7).142 On June 25, with 8,500 harkis in the camps or in transit to the camps,143 the Army predicted that by July 1 (the date that Algerians would vote on the self-determination referendum), Larzac would house approximately six thousand people and that Bourg-Lastic, opened just one week prior “un peu ‘en catastrophe,’” would reach nearly five thousand people.144 These figures reflected more than double the initial estimate. And, there were still harkis waiting in relocation camps to cross the Mediterranean as Algerian independence loomed and violence toward the former French soldiers escalated. the Rivesaltes camp in chapter three addresses continuities with the colonial era in the use of spaces to house harki families and in methods of governance. 139 Charles-Robert Ageron, “Le ‘Drame des harkis,’” 4. 140 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: “Premières mesures d’accueil en France”), letter from Pierre Messmer to Louis Joxe, N° 19586 MA/CC, July 19, 1962. 141 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: “Premières mesures d’accueil en France”), letter from Pierre Messmer to Robert Boulin, N° 1710 MA/CC, June 21, 1962. 142 SHAT, 14T 92, Army Corps General Conze (Military Governor of Lyon), “Objet: Organisation de l’accueil des supplétifs et de leurs familles au Camp de Bourg Lastic,” 1, N° 4996/EM.8/4.ETG, July 2, 1962. 143 SHAT, 1R 336/8, telegram from Genesuper Reghaia to the Minister of Armies (Paris), “Objet: Rapatriement harkis et moghaznis,” N° 1536/CSFA/EMI/MOR, June 25, 1962. 144 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Premières mesures d’accueil en France), “Note pour M. le Ministre,” June 28, 1962. The phrase “un peu ‘en catastrophe’” appeared in SHAT, 14T 92, handwritten note by Ministry of Armies official, 1, July, 19, 1965. 117 Figure 7: Harki families residing in canvas military tents at the Bourg-Lastic camp in summer 1962. Source: La Montagne regional newspaper.145 Violence and Nationality In the midst of this violence, the new post-1962 governments on both sides of the Mediterranean questioned the harkis’ French and Algerian nationalities. These uncertainties each contributed, in their own ways, to harki deaths. The decisions that French government officials made at this moment when the harkis’ lives were in mortal danger clearly indicated whom they believed belonged—and did not belong—within the boundaries of the French post-imperial space. The harkis, like all other Algerians with local civil status, were governed by the July 21, 1962 ordinance, which required them to make an official declaration in front of a metropolitan French judge as the final step to becoming a French citizen. Consequently, the government did not give all of the harkis who wanted to migrate to France the freedom to cross the Mediterranean, because they 145 The photograph appears in Leïla Sebbar, Mes Algéries en France (Paris: Bleu autour, 2004), 194. 118 were officially “Algerians” with no legal link to France after the self-determination vote. The fact that the harkis were Algerian—and not French—citizens became particularly salient at this time. As explained in chapter one, per international law, because the harkis did not have French nationality the Army had no recourse to intervene in Algerian internal affairs to rescue the harkis from violence perpetrated against them by their compatriots after independence. Concurrently, FLN leaders questioned the harkis’ Algerian nationality and, in some cases, stripped them of it owing to their role in torturing other Algerians during the war. This included the actions of “harki police” in Paris (Force de police auxiliaire or FPA) in the October 17, 1961 “Paris massacre” or “Battle of Paris,” which particularly marked Algerian consciousness on both sides of the Mediterranean.146 On this fall evening, thirty thousand pro-FLN Algerians protested peacefully against the new curfew imposed on North Africans in metropolitan France by marching from shantytowns and lodging houses in the banlieues to the center of Paris. Under the orders of prefect Maurice Papon, police killed as many as two hundred Algerians (the precise figure is elusive), some of whom they pushed into the Seine, and rounded up approximately ten thousand others and interned them in the Palais des Sports at the Porte de Versailles and the Stade Coubertin in the sixteenth arrondissement.147 In the days that followed, FPA officers assisted French police as they questioned and tortured the prisoners to extract information about FLN activities in metropolitan France. The place of the harkis in torturing their compatriots in France and Algeria, the extent of which is not clear, caused a backlash from FLN members following the ceasefire, who questioned whether the harkis merited Algerian nationality. One intelligence report in June 1962 disclosed For historical accounts of the October 17, 1961 massacre, see: Joshua Cole, “Remembering the Battle of Paris: 17 October 1961 in French and Algerian Memory,” French Politics, Culture & Society 21.3 (2003): 21-50; Jean-Luc Einaudi, La bataille de Paris: 17 octobre 1961 (Paris: Seuil, 1991); and House and MacMaster, Paris 1961. While Cole and Einaudi refer to the October 17 event as a “battle,” House and MacMaster’s account labels it a “massacre” because “it was the bloodiest act of state repression of street protest in Western Europe in modern history” (1). 147 On debates about the precise number of Algerians killed see: House and MacMaster, Paris 1961, 6-13 and Cole, “Remembering the Battle of Paris,” 25-29. 146 119 information about a trial of a former harki soldier for “crimes contre le peuple algérien” presided over by two FLN judges. Three former harkis who had recently joined the ALN—known as marsiens, those who rallied to the FLN cause right before the March ceasefire—were tasked with searching the countryside near Orléansville, one hundred miles west of Algiers, for their ex-comrades in arms. After capturing this particular harki, the new ALN members showed him photographs of harki cadavers with no eyes and ears. They then gathered the signatures of forty witnesses who attested that the harki acted in opposition Algeria and they escorted him and three of the witnesses to testify at the trial before FLN judges.148 Another report from the French National Police revealed the existence after independence of an Algerian “purge commission” (commission d’épuration), which revoked Algerian nationality from harkis convicted of minor offenses and forced them to leave the territory.149 The Algerian government created this commission in November 1962 to adjudicate on Algerians who exhibited “anti-national behavior” during the war.150 These actions were a direct violation of the Evian Accords. The salient question is not whether the new Algerian government violated the Evian Accords by not stopping the violence carried out against the harkis and by forcing certain harkis to leave Algeria while preventing others from emigrating. It undeniably breached in multiple ways Chapter Two of the General Declaration, specifically the clauses seeking to safeguard “Muslims” and “Europeans” who remained in Algeria after independence from imprisonment, prosecution, and discrimination owing to their allegiances and actions during the war. But rather, what is pertinent for this historical examination is whether President de Gaulle and his government knew about these breaches of the Evian Accords, how they reacted, and what motivated their actions. SHAT, 1H 1793/1, 10e Région militaire, CAA, ZOA, Secteur d’Orleansville, “Bulletin de renseignements: Circonstances de l’enlèvement de [MB],” N° 479/SO/OPR/R.SC, June 21, 1962. 149 ADBR, 138 W 6, SCINA, “Synthèse… journée du 6 février 1963,” N˚ 1 840. 150 MAE, SEAA 152, Secretariat of State for Algerian Affairs, “Note sur les supplétifs de l’Armée française en Algérie,” 5, Nov. 26, 1962. 148 120 In late March 1962 when the government mandated a policy of requiring approval from Ministers Messmer or Joxe for each individual harki who requested repatriation to France, there were minimal retributions against the harkis for their support of the French cause. These acts did increase in the following months, according to reports from soldiers and harkis themselves, yet still remained relatively isolated. In fact, this was a calculated strategy on the FLN’s part. An April 10 directive from the fifth military region in Algeria (wilâya 5, situated in the western third of Algeria) cautioned ALN members against exacting revenge on the “traitors” too soon: “le cessez-le-feu n’étant pas la paix, nous saurons user de tact et agir avec souplesse afin de les gagner provisoirement pour ne pas leur donner l’occasion de faire encore le jeu de l’ennemi […]. Leur jugement final aura lieu dans une Algérie libre et indépendante devant Dieu et le peuple qui sera alors responsable de leur sort […].”151 FLN leaders wanted to lure the harkis into a false sense of security and have them believe that their support of France during the war was forgiven so that they would not migrate to France and could be brought to justice. However, once Algerian citizens voted for their state’s independence on July 1, in direct violation of the Evian Accords, civilians and ALN members escalated dramatically their assaults on the “enemy” harkis. At this time, the prevailing struggles for control of the government among factions within the Algerian independence movement became more pronounced. The GPRA (led by Benyoucef Ben Khedda), which had represented the Algerian people during the peace negotiations as the official FLN organ of government, was rivaled by the État-major général (EMG) headed by future presidents Ahmed Ben Bella and Houari Boumediène. Inspired by Franz Fanon’s revolutionary program, the EMG had a radical vision of the Algerian state. Its leaders desired an Algeria with a strong Muslim Arab identity and whose independence would be accompanied by a popular social SHAT, 1H 1786/1, Le commandement de la wilâya 5, Directive n° 442, Apr. 10, 1962. Quoted in Harbi and Meynier, Le FLN: Documents et Histoire, 535. 151 121 and economic revolution to forge the new state.152 This conception was not adopted during the May 28 to June 7, 1962 meeting of the FLN’s governing assembly, the Conseil national de la Révolution Algérienne (CNRA), which favored a program that omitted any reference to an Islamic republic. As fighting among leaders of the EMG and GPRA intensified, Ben Khedda dissolved the EMG on June 30. On July 22, this latter group’s leaders—which, in addition to Ben Bella and Boumediène, included pre-war Algerian nationalist leader and ousted GPRA president, Ferhat Abbas—formed the “Bureau politique,” also known as the Tlemcen group for the northwestern Algerian city where the leaders declared the group’s charter. The Tlemcen group supplanted the GPRA in discussions with the interim governing structure, the Exécutif provisoire, which on August 2 granted the Tlemcen group the power to prepare lists for the upcoming elections. The GPRA floundered on the sidelines, but its supporters across the country continued to combat the Tlemcen group’s dominance, leading to bloody clashes, arrests, and pillaging. Order was finally restored after the September 20 elections for the Algerian Assembly. All of the victors were partisans of the revolutionary Tlemcen group.153 While this factional strife played out in Algiers and in the countryside, the absence of a viable governing structure allowed chaos to prevail among Algerian residents. In particular, some Muslim Algerians fervently believed that the harkis did not merit a place in independent Algeria. Cleavages existed both between Muslims and Europeans and within each of these groups that led to Algerian residents killing other Algerian residents, violence reminiscent of that during previous internal conflicts, which French Army officials readily cited. In the midst of this tumult in July and August, civilians and ALN members carried out a “purge” (épuration) of the harkis, as General de Brébisson worded the telegram to Messmer cited in the epigraph to this chapter. The harkis’ actions to support Thénault, Histoire de la guerre, 260-61. Fanon outlined his program in Les Damnés de la Terre (Paris: Librairie François Maspero, 1961). 153 Thénault describes in detail the complex factional strife for control of the Algerian government that began in June 1961 at the first Evian peace talks in Histoire de la guerre, 259-63. 152 122 France led certain Algerians to seek to purge the population of harki “collaborators” against Algeria, much as occurred during the 1944-45 “épuration” of Vichy sympathizers in France. During this bloody phase of the Franco-French Vichy conflict, between eight and nine thousand collabos were extra judicially killed.154 The use of “épuration” was significant for the parallel top-echelon Army officials drew between these two conflicts opposing populations of the same nationality (Resistance fighters and collaborators, harkis and FLN members). These groups’ battles after the end of the military conflict with Germany during the Second World War and that with France during the Algerian War for Independence led to internal divisions that would long influence their respective postwar societies. One officer reported on July 22 about the explosion of violence since July 2 by using a reference to an earlier Franco-French conflict, the Saint Bartholomew massacre. In 1572 Catholics massacred thousands of French Protestants in Paris because they viewed the Protestant religion as incompatible with being a French citizen. In retaliation, Protestants attacked their Catholic aggressors after which the violence soon spread to the provinces where it claimed the lives of thousands more. With this massacre in mind, the officer wrote: “…[C]’est une ‘Saint Barthelemy’ qui a une allure particulière en ce sens qu’elle peut s’étaler. Son accélération toutefois devient très inquiétante. A ce train là, d’ici trois mois, tous les musulmans qui ont été compromis avec nous, et qui n’ont pu rejoindre la Métropole, seront massacrés ou périront dans des camps.”155 The camps to which the officer referred were created by the ALN and its successor, the ANP, which took over posts abandoned by the French Army and established detention camps. Their members tortured, murdered, and forced ex-harkis to perform tasks such as loading and unloading trucks and cleaning after what one report called rulings that were “a travesty of justice.”156 Henry Rousso, “L’Épuration en France: Une histoire inachevée,” Vingtième siècle. Revue d’histoire no. 33 (Jan.-Mar. 1992): 84. 155 SHAT, 1H 1793/1, Lieutenant Colonel Gallouet to the General Commanding the CAA and the General Commanding the CAT, “Objet: Massacres des Musulmans Francophiles,” N° 831/2.S, July 22, 1962. 156 ADBR, 137 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse… journée du 9 novembre 1962,” d, N˚ 1 778. Several documents in carton 1H 3155/5 of the Army Archives describe the harkis’ forced labor. See, for example, 24° Corps d’Armée, Groupement “G,” 154 123 As they carried out these punishments, some of the men bore shaved heads and wore vests with a large “H” on the back, branding them as outcasts in the new Algerian state and thereby questioning whether they belonged as “Algerians.”157 Indeed, alarming reports of imprisonment, torture, and killings by Algerians who sought to “purge” their population of presumed traitors streamed into officers at the military barracks where the harkis took refuge. The Army Archives include lists with the location of detention centers and precise testimonials from harkis who were witnesses and victims of violence.158 These include an account from a harki who escaped incarceration and torture and, on August 13, sought asylum at the Lodi military base south of Algiers.159 He described a four and a half hour interrogation during which two ALN leaders and eight or nine soldiers (djounouds) and policemen intermittently questioned and tortured him and three other captured harkis. ALN members employed tactics such as the supplice d’eau (forcing water down prisoners’ throats with a hose until they could not breathe). He reported that the officers fired questions about how many civilians and ALN soldiers (moudjahidine) the harkis had killed, how many women they had raped, and why they did not listen to FLN calls to desert the French Army and turn over their weapons. The officers vowed that the prisoners’ children would soon be orphans. In the middle of the questioning, one of the harkis was led out of the room and was “presumably executed” after he admitted to killing six men and one “Bulletin de renseignements,” Oct. 13, 1962. Another carton, 1H 2745/1, contains reports from doctors who examined tortured harkis, including photographs of their wounds. 157 This situation is reminiscent of that of European Jews and other groups such as homosexuals branded as “enemies” who were forced to wear a Star of David sewn to their upper left side of their shirts during the Holocaust. The French Vichy regime took this symbolic action a step further for its Jewish population, even before the April 29, 1942 laws requiring Jews in Occupied France to display the star. As mentioned in footnote 93 above, an October 7, 1940 law stripped all 110,000 Jews residing in Algeria of their French nationality and a July 22, 1940 law resulted in 7,000 Jews in metropolitan France becoming foreigners over the course of the war. Weil, “Histoire et mémoire,” 9-10. Another resonance with the situation of Jews during the Holocaust was that guards shaved the heads of all prisoners upon their arrival in the concentration and extermination camps in Central and Eastern Europe. 158 See, for example, SHAT 1H 3155/5, “Liste des Lieux de détention d’anciens supplétifs des F.A.F. par l’A.L.N,” Aug. 1962. This carton also contains a detailed map with the location of camps in the Oran region drawn by members of the Oran Army Corps (CAO). 159 SHAT, 1H 1793/1, Colonel De Nadaillac (Commandant le 20º Division d’Infanterie Groupement E), “Audition du nommé AA venu se réfugier le 13 août 1962 auprès des Forces Armées à Lodi,” Nº 1230/GE/2/S. The full text is reproduced in Appendix C. 124 woman during a protest in Medea commemorating the November 1 outbreak of the Algerian War for Independence (no year was given). After the official interrogation was completed and the ALN leaders departed, the police once again beat the three remaining harkis and tied their hands and feet with electric wire. However, when the guards fell asleep one of the harkis was able to escape and immediately fled to the Lodi military base where officers recorded his story and sent it to their superiors, who then transmitted the report to General de Brébisson.160 The document does not indicate whether the harki asked to be repatriated to France and it is not clear whether he was aware of the procedure in place, that is, he would need to demonstrate that his life was “severely threatened.” Convincing French authorities of, on the one hand, the impending danger to himself and, on the other, the magnitude of the violence toward his fellow harkis was a necessity for his own repatriation and a legitimization of rumors of violence. It is also impossible to glean whether he told the story in French, Arabic, or Berber and, therefore, what was lost—or added—in translation to French either by the military officers or the translator, who was possibly an Algerian native working for France, a harki himself. Nevertheless, this document and the myriad others like it demonstrate that the French government received grisly reports of violence and needed, based on this information (in whatever form it came), to adjudicate whether to allow individual harkis onto French soil.161 The Army Archives contain summary reports, like that in Appendix B, which enumerated fifty separate instances of violence with brief descriptions of the acts that occurred across Algeria between July 11 and August 6, 1962. A July 11 account from a small town near Algiers related, “Enlèvement d’un Moghazni, son épouse et ses deux enfants. Relâché le 12, l’épouse a déclaré que son mari avait été Ibid. Brigadier General Lève of the 23º Corps d’Armée transmitted this report to de Brébisson on Aug. 22, 1962 (document Nº 2246/23ºCA/B2). 161 French newspapers, tilting both right and left, occasionally printed articles about the harkis’ imprisonment and torture by Algerians. See, for example, SPDP, dossier: Harkis, “Le cas des harkis,” Le Monde, Sept. 22, 1962; SHAT, 1H 1170, “Un ancien harki fait le récit des tortures qu’il a endurées,” Le Figaro, Nov. 11, 1962; SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Pierre VidalNaquet, “La guerre révolutionnaire et la tragédie des harkis,” Le Monde, Nov. 11, 1962; SHAT, 1H 1170, “Livre blanc de notre honte et de la passion des harkis,” La Nation Française, Nov. 14, 1962. 160 125 exécuté.” 162 An August 4 report from the eastern town of Lambèse revealed, “Environ 70 prisonniers ex-harkis, moghaznis et civils musulmans ayant coopéré avec la France sont actuellement internés à la Centrale de Lambèse et gardés par des militaires de l’ALN. Ils sont maltraités et astreints à des travaux de force. Leur état de santé paraît déficient et ils semblent sous-alimentés. Certains portent des traces de sévices.”163 These reports were compiled into one document—located in Messmer’s personal archives—addressed from General de Brébisson directly to Messmer himself. Therefore, it is clear that top echelon army officials in Algeria kept their counterparts in Paris apprised of these situations. Despite such violations of the peace treaty, French soldiers and military police continued to relay these instances of imprisonment, torture, and slayings and to try, often in vain, to negotiate with local ALN leaders. One July 31 intelligence report encapsulates the Army’s lack of military action to combat the violence toward the harkis. In the body of the document the author wrote, sometimes offering precise details, that ALN soldiers were capturing harkis and putting them into forced labor camps where some of them were tortured and executed. His concluding remarks, “Mesures prises: Diffusion Autorités Gendarmerie,” suggest that the Army could now only assume a passive role to hinder the brutality.164 In turn, according to the author of the July 22 report quoted above, the FLN tried to exploit the Army’s lack of action to instill fear among the harkis. He communicated to his superiors: “La terreur qui se lit sur le visage des musulmans, à leur arrivée dans les postes militaires où ils se réfugient, est insigne. Ces musulmans sont persuadés que toute fuite leur est rendue impossible. Le FLN fait en effet courir le bruit que, dans ce domaine, l’Armée SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Situation des harkis en Algérie), General de Brébisson to Minister of Armies Messmer (cabinet), “Objet: Situation des ex-harkis en Algérie depuis le cessez-le-feu,” Aug. 17, 1962. 163 Ibid. 164 SHAT, 1H 1793/1, Gendarmerie Captain Brachet, “Objet: Bulletin de renseignements sur exactions des éléments de l’ALN contre les anciens harkis et moghaznis,” N° 381/4.R, July 31, 1962. 162 126 française n’a plus aucune possibilité d’action, et d’autre part, que les quais d’embarquement sont tenus par l’ALN.”165 The Army’s inaction was based on orders from Messmer and ultimately de Gaulle, who did not want to reignite the war, now that he had shifted his full attention away from the Algerian War for Independence against the FLN and toward the Franco-French war with the OAS. He wanted to forget immediately French Algeria, exclude Algerians from the new French nation-state, and focus on building a strong post-imperial France devoid of vestiges of its colonial empire. The harkis served as reminders of France’s fall from colonial dominance. They were symbols of both collaboration—they continue to be associated with the word “traitor” and “collabos” on both sides of the Mediterranean—and France’s loss of a Third World nation it claimed as a vital part of its own territory for 132 years. In a series of interviews conducted with journalist Philippe de Saint Robert between late 2001 and early 2003, Messmer revealed that he questioned de Gaulle about what action the Army should take in the face of the “massacres de harkis”: “‘Est-ce que vous autorisez des opérations coup de poing de l’armée française pour récupérer les harkis sur telle ou telle zone que nous avons évacuée?’ Le général de Gaulle refuse! Il refuse en disant: ‘Vous allez rallumer la guerre d’Algérie’ – ce qui est un risque qu’il refuse de prendre.”166 Messmer distanced himself from this position, and from de Gaulle whom he claimed “n’a pas eu pour les harkis beaucoup de considération, ni de commisération,” by contending, “A mon avis, on aurait pu faire ces opérations et courir ce risque. Il y aurait sans doute eu quelques batailles rangées, mais je ne crois pas que la guerre d’Algérie aurait recommencé, je ne le crois pas.”167 Messmer’s recounting of de Gaulle’s firm stance against French military officers saving the harkis from danger resonated with words that the President had spoken SHAT, 1H 1793/1, Lieutenant Colonel Gallouet, “Objet: Massacres des Musulmans Francophiles.” Pierre Messmer, Ma part de France: Entretiens avec Philippe de Saint Robert (Paris: François-Xavier de Guibert, 2003), 119. 167 Ibid. 165 166 127 during the July 25, 1962 Council of Ministers meeting cited above: “On ne peut pas accepter de replier tous les musulmans qui viendraient à déclarer qu’ils ne s’entendront pas avec leur gouvernement!”168 In these conversations, it is clear that de Gaulle viewed the harkis—who, for him, remained Algerian Muslims—as outsiders to France, much like the new Algerian government viewed them as outsiders to Algeria. As a result of the president’s consistent position, the French military was constrained in the help that it could offer the threatened harkis. The French government’s policy of forbidding military officers from carrying out any rescue operations that risked reigniting the war with the FLN aimed to minimize the number of harkis in the relocation camps. For, once in these spaces, they only needed to overcome one last administrative procedure. Upon the harkis’ arrival, Army information officers interviewed them and submitted a “demande de rapatriement.” This form included the ages, birthplaces, birthdates, and vocation of the harki and all of his family members to migrate with him, information about his military service, the “motif détaillé des menaces,” his current place of residence, and the officer’s opinion about whether the harki was “worthy” of being repatriated. In one case, the agent described the situation of a harki in the Oran region: “AG semble sérieux dans ses déclarations… Il semble que les menaces dont il est l’objet soient réelles. S’il est vrai, l’exemple de l’enlèvement des épouses de ses amis [A] et [M] pourraient en confirmer l’importance. En conclusion, il semble que son cas soit digne d’intérêt.”169 Other examples included mentions of the harki’s honorable service, his good comportment, his ability to speak French, and his state of mind. These reports—with stamps such as “très vraisemblable,” “recoupé,” “intéressant,” and “douteux”—were then passed onto the officer’s superiors, and eventually worked their way across the Mediterranean for final judgment by Ministers Messmer or Joxe. Therefore, similar to the process for Algerian Muslims to obtain French Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 209. AG, A, and M are the initials of the harkis. SHAT, 1H 3229/6, Lieutenant Jimenez (20° Bataillon de Chasseurs Portes), “Objet: Demande de Rapatriement, [AG],” 3, N° 737/O.R./20° BCP, May 7, 1963. 168 169 128 nationality during the colonial era described in chapter one, officers’ opinions about whether the harki was sufficiently threatened played a role in whether he and his family could surmount the second obstacle to French nationality.170 Despite reports like those cited above with references such as “Saint Barthelemy” and “épuration” to relate the severity of the situation to de Gaulle’s cabinet members, as anarchy increasingly reigned in the Algerian countryside, the government upheld its policy of strictly monitoring the repatriation process. In summer 1962 high-level government officials continually reminded officials in France and Algeria of the procedure that every harki required individual authorization to migrate to France. For example, on July 23, 1962, Joxe wrote to the newlyappointed French Ambassador in Algeria, Jean-Marcel Jeanneney: “Je vous serais obligé de me tenir étroitement informé, ainsi que le Secrétaire d’État aux Rapatriés, des demandes de migration de musulmans qui vous seraient présentées et de ne mettre personne en route avant d’avoir les directives du Ministre des Armées ou de moi-même.”171 And on August 11 Messmer wrote to the Regional Army Commanders in France, “Aucun acheminement sur les camps d’ex-supplétifs ou de familles venus d’Algérie hors-plan…”172 Put simply, the government did not welcome the harkis to freely cross the Mediterranean to escape the violence. The government’s response to the violence toward the harkis demonstrated that post-1962 France wanted to sever the connection between French and Algerian post-imperial spaces and populations. The intensification of brutality in Algeria, which pushed the harkis who survived imprisonment and torture to seek refuge at French military barracks, did not influence the French government to open its borders to accept more harkis. Instead, the circumstances on Algerian soil, Cartons 1H 3229/6 and 1H 1793/1 in the Army Archives (SHAT) contain many examples of the “demandes de repatriement,” the majority of which were favorable to repatriation. 171 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Rapatriement des harkis), Minister Joxe to Ambassador Jeanneney, “Objet: Envoi en France des supplétifs musulmans,” N° 187/CAB, July 23, 1962. 172 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Rapatriement des harkis), Minister Messmer to the Generals Commanding the First through the Seventh Military Regions in France, “Objet: Ex-supplétifs FSNA et leurs familles repliées d’Algérie,” 1, N° 7736/EMAT/4-PO, Aug. 11, 1962. 170 129 of which government officials in France were fully apprised, engendered increased resistance to allow the harkis safe passage to France. For example, in early July when the Bourg-Lastic and Larzac camps reached beyond full capacity, exhausting the Ministry of Armies’ budget and resources, Messmer—who received frequent updates about the perilous situation in Algeria from his subordinates—relayed to his counterpart in the Ministry of Algerian Affairs that it was “out of the question” for the Army to house any more harkis. But beyond the practical considerations of space and human and physical materials, Messmer argued, in spite of the massacres, that “few individuals” should be allowed access to metropolitan France, thereby ignoring the actual situation of violence on Algerian soil and limiting the movements of these now Algerian citizens: Il semble d’ailleurs que, les intéressés ayant eu le temps et la possibilité d’apprécier les conditions de leur reconversion en Algérie, les options pour la Métropole qui pourraient aujourd’hui se manifester, ne devraient être le fait que de quelques rares individus, pourvu que soit vérifiée soigneusement la justification du départ sollicité et que soient déjouées toutes manœuvres, inconscientes ou mal intentionnées, pour maintenir le courant des départs.173 He then requested from Joxe a rapid intervention from Jeanneney to stop the flow of harkis to France.174 Messmer’s words strongly discouraged the harkis’ migration to France and once again demonstrated Messmer’s insistence on exerting control over the “courant des départs.” A month later, after the many reports cited above about the surge of violence toward the harkis, Messmer firmly held his position of limiting France’s responsibility toward the former soldiers in response to an appeal from a top general stationed in Algeria. General Frat provided details of ten separate episodes of torture and slayings, explained that Army officials tried unsuccessfully to negotiate with local Algerian officials, and argued that the continuation of the retributions would lead to the “extermination” of all the Muslims who had demonstrated sympathies SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Premières mesures d’accueil en France), letter from Pierre Messmer to Louis Joxe, N° 019588 MA/CC, July 19, 1962. 174 Ibid. 173 130 for France.175 When he received the plea, Messmer handwrote at the top of the letter a note for one of his cabinet members to relay to General Frat: “Nous atteindrons alors au chiffre de 20 000 supplétifs et parents transportés en France, ce qui est considérable à tous égards.”176 Messmer’s words here, and those in the letter cited above, minimized France’s role in defending the harkis against retaliatory actions perpetrated by Algerians, and distanced the harkis from French nationality. Becoming “French” Citizens Despite the government’s efforts to limit the harkis’ movement to within the new geographical boundaries of France, an estimated 100,000 harki men, women, and children reached metropolitan France during the 1960s, whether through government repatriation or “individual initiatives.” After successfully arriving within the geographic boundaries France—thereby overcoming the second obstacle to French nationality posed by the July 21, 1962 legislation—the harkis needed to surmount one last hurdle to become French citizens, one that would allow them to cross over into the figurative boundaries of the French polity. As per the ordinance, individuals who had been French with local civil status needed to present themselves in front of a magistrate with a series of documents and “se faire reconnaître la nationalité française.” While this administrative procedure posed numerous logistical problems, it was arguably the least arduous of the three obstacles to surmount. Of the nearly seventy thousand adult harkis who requested French nationality between 1962 and 1970, the government accorded it to 86 percent of them (see table 3).177 However, the very existence of the process provoked its greatest defect, for it created a lasting psychological distance between the harkis and other French citizens because they needed ask for SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Rapatriement des harkis), letter from General Frat to Minister of Armies Messmer, 1, Aug. 25, 1962. 176 Ibid. 177 ACNMF, 6, Jean Servier, “Enquête sur les Musulmans Français,” Part 1, 13, 1972. The Ministry of Labor and the CNMF commissioned sociologist Jean Servier to compile statistical data about the harki population’s size, geographical distribution, living conditions, nationality, and social composition, information that he used to author a 114-page report. 175 131 French nationality in the first place. French with common civil status—the tiny number of Muslim Algerians who had become full French citizens during the colonial era and pieds-noirs—were automatically granted French nationality, no matter where they resided. In contrast, the July 21 ordinance stipulated that Muslim Algerians living in Algeria lost French nationality on July 2, 1962 (the day after the self-determination vote), and those living in the metropole were French only until the arbitrary date of January 1, 1963. After this time, their passports and identity cards expired and in order to become French citizens, they would need to make a “déclaration recognitive de la nationalité française” in front of a magistrate (juge d’instruction) in the metropolitan French department where they resided. The precise language in the July ordinance left Algerian Muslims’ nationality status when they arrived in France up for interpretation: were they becoming or re-becoming French citizens? The first paragraph of the article that addressed Muslims with local civil status stipulated that they could “se faire reconnaître la nationalité française” once in France and its second paragraph specified that they would not be able to “établir leur nationalité française” unless they followed the conditions outlined in article 156 of the Nationality Code.178 Both these phrases suggest that Algerian Muslims had lost French nationality. When asked about the continuity in the French nationality status of those who made a declaration after January 1, 1963, government officials offered varied responses. Most often they maintained that these Algerian Muslims legally never had never been deprived of their French nationality. However, the Minister of Repatriates wrote in a June 17, 1963 circular that Algerian Muslims who had not yet undergone the process outlined in the July ordinance had “une présomption de ‘nationalité étrangère.’” 179 They held what amounted to a virtual nationality during this liminal Article 156 is one of the six articles comprising Title VII of the French Nationality Code. This title, “Des effets sur la nationalité française des transferts de souveraineté relatifs à certains territoires,” was added to the Code in 1960 to address the nationality of French citizens born or residing in former colonial holdings. 179 CAC, 19770391/8, circular from the minister of Repatriates to departmental prefects and subprefects and regional delegates of the ministry of Repatriates, “Objet: Conséquence de l’application de l’article 2 de l’ordonnance nº 62-825 du 178 132 moment until they appeared before the magistrate because they did not have the rights and benefits bestowed on French citizens. Most notably, they were ineligible for diplomatic protections when traveling outside of France (for example, if they returned to Algeria to get family members that they had left behind) and social welfare laws including the 1961 Boulin Law that granted concrete financial assistance to repatriates from former colonies and protectorates.180 Quite simply, as had been the case during the colonial period, native Algerians had to wade through a legal quagmire in order to acquire full French citizenship. For over four months after de Gaulle issued the ordinance, no legal text followed to explain the procedure. Finally, on November 27, 1962, Prime Minister Georges Pompidou issued a decree; however, the text remained vague about which documents Algerian Muslims needed to procure.181 A February 1963 circular from the Minister of Interior to the Departmental Prefects and Regional Military Inspectors (IGAME, who were the interlocutors with the camp directors) worked toward clarifying the procedure. It stipulated that the Algerian Muslims’ dossiers needed to include a birth certificate to demonstrate that they were at least eighteen years old, an identity card to prove their French nationality on the date of the self-determination vote, the birth or death certificate of at least one parent, and proof of current residence in France. If applicable, harkis also had to provide a marriage certificate and minor children’s birth certificates. Husbands and wives each had to furnish their own documents and minor children were exempt from this process as their nationality was determined by that of their father or their widowed mother. If the dossier was incomplete, the judge gave the harki a certificate (attestation) valid for six months, which was not proof of nationality, and 21 juillet 1962, relatif à la reconnaissance de la nationalité française des personnes de statut civil de droit local originaires d’Algérie pour l’attribution aux musulmans algériens la qualité de rapatrié,” 1, Nº 63-100 AL/Reg, June 17, 1963. 180 At the same time, some harkis delayed requesting French nationality until after their wives and children safely made it onto French soil as they feared repercussions for these family members if Algerians from their villages learned that they chose to be French citizens. ACNMF, 15/13, Colonel Schoen, Report: “Reconnaissance de la nationalité française par les Musulmans d’origine algérienne,” 22, Jan. 21, 1964. 181 JORF, “Décret n° 62-1475 du 27 novembre 1962 relatif à la procédure de reconnaissance de la nationalité française prévue à l’article 2 de l’ordonnance n° 62-825 du 21 juillet 1962,” Dec. 7, 1962, 12012. 133 instructed the harki to return with the appropriate documentation. If the dossier was complete, the judge handed the harki a receipt (récépissé) and then he was required to send the dossier the same day for approval to the Ministry of Public Health and Population, which had six months from this date to make a decision.182 This ministry’s Naturalization Office had four options for the harkis’ applications. The first was “refus en l’état.” Even though the local judge had accepted the harkis’ dossier as complete, the Naturalization Office could determine that it was missing documentation. The harki was then asked to submit the proper documents to the local court and the six-month waiting period would restart. The second possibility was “un ajournement,” if officials disagreed about whether to accept the request. In this situation, the Ministry could delay the decision until after July 22, 1965, during which time no appeal was possible. Third, the state could oppose the request, “une opposition,” because the harki was judged “indigne de la nationalité française,” for reasons such as financial debt or inability to prove that he was a “repatriate” who first arrived in France after the end of the war. The harki had six months to appeal this decision by furnishing evidence to the contrary. If the state denied the appeal, the harki was indefinitely refused French nationality. For the first 40,000 applications (until April 30, 1965), the state handed down 1,800 refusals as is, 1,600 deferrals, and 800 oppositions.183 However, as was the case for the vast majority of the harkis, the state approved their dossier and, often within six months, a nationality certificate was mailed to the local judge’s office for them to pick up.184 As the chart in table 3 reveals, 59,864 of the 69,303 harkis who sought French nationality between 1962 and 1970 became French citizens. The state rarely deferred nationality requests and even more rarely deemed individuals unworthy of being French citizens. AN, F1a 5125, Minister of Interior, Circular n° 104: “Notice relative à la Nationalité Française des personnes de statut civil de droit local originaires d’Algérie,” Feb. 12, 1963. 183 CAC, 19920149/5/17, Colonel Schoen (CNMF), “Questions de nationalité (Renseignements donnés par M. Ahriche, et commentaries,” 5-6, Nº 370/S, Apr. 30, 1965. 184 ACNMF, 15/13, Colonel Schoen, Report: “Reconnaissance de la nationalité française…,” 14-15. 182 134 Instead, the majority of the fourteen percent of refusals were linked to logistical impediments such as dossiers not containing the required documents and confusion over the modalities of the process.185 Year Number of Harkis Requesting French Nationality Number of Harkis Granted French Nationality Number of Harkis Refused French Nationality 1962 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 { Total from 1962 to 1965: 58,000 } 6,725 4,002 304 156 116 ______ 69,303 100 16,926 19,575 10,260 6,775 4,002 1,294 545 298 ______ 59,864 { Total from 1962 to 1965: 8,099 } 50 0 990 298 182 ______ 9,619 PERCENTAGE 86% 14% TOTAL Table 3: Harkis age eighteen and older requesting, granted, and refused French nationality from 1962 to 1970 based on data from the Ministry of Population’s Naturalization Office. A comparison of the first column (requests) with the second and third columns (decisions) reveals that the delay was often greater than six months, particularly toward the end of the decade. Source: ACNMF, 6, Servier, “Enquête sur les Musulmans Français,” 13.186 While the preceding paragraphs succinctly outline the process, in actuality it remained obtuse to local government officials and the harkis, particularly those residing outside the camps. In some cases the harkis did not realize that they did not have French nationality until they needed to provide a nationality certificate for job applications, welfare requests, or other official procedures.187 In an effort to aid local administrators understand the texts he believed to be “difficult to understand,” in early 1964 the General Secretary of the CNMF issued a twenty-seven-page document.188 This text also sought to address the principal problems that the harkis had hitherto encountered, the two most Ibid., 26. In an article written in 2000, Charles-Robert Ageron estimated that the number of harkis who requested French nationality from 1962 to 1967 was 84,000, which is nearly 15,000 more than Servier. However, Ageron does not specify a source for this figure, instead writing that 84,000 is a “generally accepted” estimate. Ageron, “Le ‘drame des harkis,’” 5. 187 Heinis, “L’Insertion des Français Musulmans,” 42. 188 ACNMF, 15/13, Colonel Schoen, Report: “Reconnaissance de la nationalité française…,” 1. 185 186 135 prevalent of which were trouble procuring official documents and not having a fixed residence. Both of these complications required the harkis to interact more often with the state. These dealings were particularly difficult owing to linguistic barriers, concerns over identifying themselves publicly as harkis, and unfamiliarity with the French bureaucratic system. The first problem arose because many harkis who fled in haste to military bases to escape the violence did not bring their identity papers with them. Meanwhile, others who were imprisoned in ALN or ANP camps were stripped of their papers. Recognizing that many individuals abruptly leaving Algeria—whether pieds-noirs, harkis, or labor migrants—would encounter difficulties requesting copies of official documents from the new Algerian government, President de Gaulle issued an ordinance on July 16, 1962 to facilitate the procurement of civil records issued in Algeria. This text allowed birth certificates and identity cards to be substituted by presenting their official family record book (livret de famille) or their family civil status record (fiche familiale d’état civil) or through an affidavit process whereby three people over the age of eighteen attested to the individual’s identity in front of a magistrate (acte de notoriété).189 Many harkis needed to resort to this latter option, which added an extra step to completing the nationality process. Second, those harkis who did not have a fixed residence encountered several additional difficulties in becoming French citizens. As noted in a 1963 report by the security branch of the national police force (Renseignements Généraux), the harkis exhibited a “mobilité quasi continuelle,” most often because they were in search of employment or felt threatened by other Algerians in the community. The harkis did not always inform authorities when they relocated either because they feared interacting with state agents or did not realize that they should keep officials apprised of their movement.190 This mobility posed a problem if the Naturalization Office had any questions about JORF, “Ordonnance n° 62-800 du 16 juillet 1962 facilitant la preuve des actes de l’état civil dressés en Algérie,” July 17, 1962, 7005. 190 AN, F1a 5017, Direction des Renseignements Généraux, Report: “Aspects du problème des harkis en France,” 13. 189 136 their dossier since officials contacted the harkis by mail at the address given on their application. If the harkis did not respond within six months, then their request was refused. Moreover, when a magistrate required harkis to procure additional documents for their initial request, if they had moved, the harkis then needed to submit these papers to the magistrate in their former place of residence. The same was true when picking up their nationality certificate as this document was mailed to the magistrate in front of whom the harkis had made their request.191 Finally, frequent movements posed a problem because to initiate the entire process the harkis had to furnish proof of residence. Whereas a certificate from the camp director sufficed for the encamped harkis, the harkis residing outside of the camps needed to ask their landlord for a letter or provide a utility bill in their name. Furthermore, temporary housing such as emergency shelters and nursing homes—where elderly and wounded harkis resided—were not considered permanent domiciles. These disabled harkis, some of whom were among the most destitute and without possibility for employment owing to their physical and/or psychological conditions, could not set in motion the nationality process, and therefore were ineligible for the social welfare benefits they desperately needed.192 191 192 ACNMF, 15/13, Colonel Schoen, Report: “Reconnaissance de la nationalité française…,” 8 and 15. Ibid., 10. 137 Figure 8: Makeshift courtroom set up for nationality ceremonies at the Rivesaltes camp. Source: “C’étaient les harkis.” Figure 9: A harki in front of the magistrate during a nationality ceremony in summer 1963 at the Rivesaltes camp. Source: “C’étaient les harkis.” Indeed, the harkis in the camps had an easier time logistically in becoming French citizens than those outside of the camps. Camp officials kept them informed of the necessary steps they 138 would need to take; affidavits were easier to obtain since they lived among thousands of other harkis who could act as witnesses; and the camp director furnished them with a certificate of residence and submitted ahead of time the requisite dossier of documents. A report broadcast in July 1963 on France’s public television station’s ninety-minute weekly political news journal, 5 colonnes à la une, provides the only known film footage of the weekly nationality ceremonies.193 As pictured in figure 8, the opening scene of the fifteen-minute piece titled “C’étaient les harkis” showed a makeshift courtroom, unadorned except for a bust of Marianne symbolizing the Republic and a photograph of President de Gaulle, set up in one of buildings at the Rivesaltes camp. A magistrate and a court reporter traveled fifteen kilometers from Perpignan on Wednesday mornings to officiate the procedure. In a process that often took less than a minute, the judge called each person and asked: “Vous désirez garder la nationalité française?” Wives were summoned immediately following their husbands and the men would sometimes serve as translators for those who could not understand French. The documentary also showed that when all else failed, court officials and harkis interacted with hand signals, such as motioning for a signature. After responding “Oui, Monsieur le juge,” as did the harki in figure 9, the “new” citizen was asked to sign a declaration like that of Mohamed M. pictured in figure 10. “C’étaient les harkis,” 5 colonnes à la une, dir. Jean-Claude Bringuier, RTF (July 7, 1963). 5 colonnes à la une is a reference to the traditional five columns appearing on the front page of newspapers. The program was journalistically innovative as the chief reporter always appeared on site and his role was a combination of a director and a journalist. It ran from the day after de Gaulle reascended to the presidency on January 9, 1959 to May 1968 when its directors stopped production shortly before de Gaulle stepped down to protest the government’s actions during this period of social unrest. The series often tackled delicate political issues, including the Algerian War for Independence and its aftermath, for which it was censured several times. Francis James, “5 colonnes à la une ou le journalisme total,” Cinémaction no. 84 (1997). “C’étaient les harkis” presented an overall positive vision of the harkis’ situation, which contrasts with that expressed in first-person narratives by former camp residents. For example, the show included multiple interviews with harkis who avowed their thankfulness to be living in France and none who said that they wished to return to Algeria. 193 139 Figure 10: Copy of Mohamed M.’s nationality declaration submitted on October 22, 1963, and approved on June 1, 1964. Source: Archives du Service des Rapatriés des Bouches-du-Rhône (hereafter ASRBR), social welfare file of Mohamed M., Nº B338126. This document, which would be required for future interactions with the state, included the date, his name and birthplace, and the names and birthplaces of his parents. The judge’s signature and his official stamp (surrounded by a black square on the image) attested to Mohamed M.’s submission of an notarized deed in lieu of his birth certificate, proof of French nationality on July 3, 1962, and a certificate of residence from the Rivesaltes camp director. Since he did not know how to write in French, Mohamed M. was not required to sign his name; instead, the declaration was marked “ne sait pas signer” (“ne sait pas signer,” surrounded by a black oval on both panels of the image). He then received a receipt for this document and the original was sent to the Naturalization 140 Office in Paris for approval. Although there is no indication of the reason for the delay, and the judge approved that he had submitted the proper documentation, Mohamed M.’s request took eight months instead of the six months prescribed by the legislation. All harkis who took part in this ceremony faced a lasting psychological hurdle to being included into the French community. The requirement to undergo the administrative procedure to become French citizens and the question that they needed to answer—“Vous désirez garder la nationalité française?”—confused the harkis’ past, present, and future relationship with the French state. The harkis at the Rivesaltes camp and elsewhere were asked if they wanted to “keep” their French nationality when, in fact, they had technically lost this designation on July 3, 1962 when Algeria became independent. Therefore, when they arrived in front of the judge their legal relationship with France was not clear. Moreover, the procedure to become French citizens again was akin to the one in place for all foreigners and was the exact same for all former French with local civil status, including those who had fought against France during the Algerian War for Independence. The state did not view the harkis’ previous military service, long considered a crucial component in building French citizens, as a reason to grant them automatic French nationality in 1962. After the end of the war when the French Army no longer needed their services on the battlefield, in terms of their future legal relationship with the state, the harkis were foreigners and “Algerians” like any others. They were neither “Franco” (the pieds-noirs who automatically became French citizens) nor “French.” De Gaulle’s focus on rapidly ending the Franco-French war obscured the harkis interests, and their inclusion within French society. Conclusion: Harki Citizens Government actors in the French government both before and after Algerian independence distanced the harkis from French citizenship—legally and in practice—just as those in the imperial 141 French government had done with Algerian Muslims. The July 21, 1962 legislation required French with local civil status, the colonial citizenship category to which almost all harkis belonged, to undertake an obstacle-ridden process to become French citizens. High-level officials delayed enacting a repatriation plan for harkis in spite of the extreme FLN violence. They enacted strict control over which harkis could be repatriated. And government policy dictated placing harkis asking for government assistance in refugee-like camps once they arrived in France. In the aftermath of the loss of French Algeria, the last vestige of France’s colonial empire, President de Gaulle and his government turned their attention inward to focus on “Franco-French” problems (i.e., its lingering battle with the OAS and efforts to reassert France’s strength in the world) and “Franco-French” citizens (i.e., French repatriates and metropolitan French).194 The harkis, for de Gaulle and others in his cabinet, were “Algerians” and not “French.” Muslim French citizens from Algeria, whether they fought for or against France during the “affaire d’Algérie,” were legally indistinguishable after Algerian independence. For the French government, they were “Algerians,” Berbers and Arabs with restricted access to the physical and metaphorical interior of France’s new post-imperial geographic boundaries. Alluding to his statements in May 1962 about “Muslims massacr[ing] each other,” de Gaulle one again reinforced the divide between Algerians and “us” after the October 9, 1963 Council of Ministers meeting. This time, in reference to the recent power struggle between Arabs and Kabyles, he declared to his Minister of Information Alain Peyrefitte: “S’ils s’entre-tuent, ce n’est plus notre affaire. Nous en sommes dé-bar-ras-sés, vous m’entendez? Les Arabes, les Kabyles, c’est une population fondamentalement anarchique…”195 De Gaulle’s regarded all Algerians—Arabs or Kabyles, harkis or FLN fellaghas—as “one population” (an uncontrollable one at that). 194 195 Robert Aldrich, Greater France: A History of French Overseas Expansion (London: MacMillan Press, 1996), 1. Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 1038. “Dé-bar-ras-sés” is italicized in the original text. 142 Those harkis who surmounted the three obstacles posed by the July 21 legislation—their colonial status, repatriation, and the administrative procedure described above—and obtained French nationality were often treated by government officials as second-class citizens. They were “harki citizens” who would never be considered fully French owing to their ethnic differences and association with Algeria. These “harki citizens” were marginalized in relation to the French community because the government opted to tuck away those who needed housing assistance— approximately half of the one hundred thousand harkis who migrated to France—in locales such as those that are the subject of the next section: the Rivesaltes camp in French Catalonia and the Fuveau forest hamlet near Aix-en-Provence. In these spaces, they lived only with other harkis. This isolation impeded their inclusion into the surrounding community—that is, their social citizenship— because it afforded them few opportunities to interact with other French citizens, except for the camp directors who strictly oversaw the harkis’ everyday lives. The state agents employed governing methods reminiscent of those in colonial Algeria, which treated “harki citizens” as inferior. The July 1, 1962 self-determination vote ended France’s governance of the Algerian territory and the populations who remained there. De Gaulle’s France had “turned the corner” and ended French Algeria, yet imperial legacies were immediately discernable in metropolitan France, perhaps nowhere more visibly than the French government’s policies that marginalized its harki citizens. The next section focuses on the daily lives of camp-dwelling harkis who remained under state supervision, reminiscent of that during colonial Algeria. 143 SECTION 2 Harki Citizens’ Exile in France La plupart de nos réfugiés musulmans [les harkis] ont perdu tous leurs biens. Exilés de leur terre natale, brinqueballés de droite et de gauche depuis plus de dix-huit mois, souvent en deuil de certains de leurs proches, traumatisés au physique comme au moral, ils sont à la recherche d’une patrie, prêts à se donner à la France. Logement et travail, c’est ce qu’il leur faut avant tout. Mais ils ont aussi besoin, pour retrouver le goût de vivre et la force d’espérer, de se sentir pleinement accueillis dans la cité française: sur le plan juridique, c’est l’affaire des juges d’instance et du Ministère de la Santé Publique et de la Population. Sur le plan moral, l’administration n’y saurait suffire: il y faudra aussi l’aide fraternelle et généreuse des Français de souche… Mais du point de vue sociologique, ils constituent aussi pour nous, du fait de leur manque d’instruction et de leur inadaptation aux conditions de la vie moderne, une sorte de “minorité nationale”…1 - General Secretary Colonel Schoen, National Committee for the Muslim French (CNMF), January 21, 1964 As they sailed across the Mediterranean—which no longer served to geographically unify “Greater France”—former harki soldier Mohamed K., his wife Ferhat, and their five children arrived in an unwelcoming post-imperial France. Yet they could not return to Algeria without fear of persecution. The family had been pushed from its mountainous region midway between Algiers and Oran after witnessing FLN insurgents torture and execute other “pro-French” harkis, including two of Mohamed’s brothers. Moreover, the war-ravaged economy had interfered with the patriarch’s ability to provide basic necessities for his family, who often went hungry. They were pulled onto the 1 ACNMF, 15/13, Colonel Schoen, Report: “Reconnaissance de la nationalité française…,” 27. 144 unfamiliar shores of Marseille in July 1962, after a two-day boat ride from Algiers, buoyed by French government officials’ promises of a safe haven from the increasing violence perpetrated by FLN members who deemed Mohamed and his family traitors and “collaborators,” like the French citizens who supported the Nazi enemy regime during the Second World War. With their Algerian nationality in question, the K. family believed that by migrating to France they would obtain French nationality and be treated like other French citizens. Nevertheless, as will be shown in this section, their French citizenship would be unique.2 On the evening the K. family disembarked the cargo ship they had shared with other harkis and livestock, Mohamed and Ferhat sought a place to live, a place to put down roots, and a community of French citizens to join. Instead, in the words of the General Secretary of the CNMF (a joint public-private rescue committee founded in 1962 to aid harkis in Algeria and in France), harki families like this one were “brinqueballés de droite et de gauche” through a succession of camps, where the government hid them from public view.3 The K. family moved from the BourgLastic transit camp in Auvergne, to the Rivesaltes camp in French Catalonia, to an abandoned village at the foot of Mont-Lozère (Bagnols-les-Bains), before settling in December 1964 at the Fuveau forest hamlet in Provence. Mohamed, Ferhat, and three of their nine children still live today in this isolated development situated in a forest clearing.4 The K. family is but one of the nearly twenty thousand harki families who migrated to France between 1962 and 1969. There is no universal “harki experience.” Nevertheless, each harki who crossed the Mediterranean experienced an exile in France, an exile that was concurrently Ferhat recounted her family’s story in an interview with the author on July 25, 2008 in Fuveau. ACNMF, Colonel Schoen, Report: “Reconnaissance de la nationalité française…,” 27. 4 Mohamed’s personal file at National Office of Veterans and War Victims local branch in Marseille (hereafter AONACBR) confirms the family’s places of residence, Mohamed’s service as a harki soldier from Oct. 1959 to July 1962, and the date of their declaration to become French citizens. Payroll records at the National Forestry Office’s departmental office in the Bouches-du-Rhône (hereafter AONFBR) certify that Mohamed began his employment as a forestry worker in Fuveau on Dec. 10, 1964. 2 3 145 physical and cultural and that existed between them and France and between them and Algeria.5 I emphasize exile from both nations because we must view the harki population within the geography of the French colonial empire, even after it legally ceased to exist. Harki citizens’ physical exile from Algeria arose out of their divide from the homeland they were forced to escape and that from France resulted from their spatial isolation from the native French population’s living spaces. Approximately 55,000 harkis and their family members resided, at least briefly, in camps housing only other harki population members. The government offered three practical reasons for their encampment. Foremost, the post-Second World War housing crisis, compounded by the concomitant frenzied “exodus” of nearly one million pieds-noirs, meant that there were few places to lodge the fleeing harkis.6 While the government did not want, or expect, this massive migration of pieds-noirs either, it lodged these repatriates of European and Jewish origins initially in requisitioned hotels, school dormitories, and emergency shelters and eventually in newly-constructed HLM. Directives from local and national government officials consistently affirmed a preference for using available housing for pieds-noirs over the harkis. For example, in March 1963 the Prefect of the Pyrénées-Orientales department, home to the Rivesaltes camp, wrote: “Parmi les difficultés qui freinent le recasement des harkis, la principale est, sans contestation possible, celle du logement. L’arrivée dans le Département des Pyrénées-Orientales, de 6.200 familles rapatriées d’Algérie, a donné au problème de l’habitat une acuité toute particulière. Tout ce qui pouvait constituer un abri, même précaire, a été aménagé et occupé et il reste peu de locaux disponibles.”7 Government officials fervently maintained that the largely peasant harki population By “physical exile” I mean the geographical or symbolic separation of a population and by “cultural exile” a separation based on different customs, social behaviors, and physical characteristics of a population. 6 Moreover, during the previous decade the government resettled approximately 275,000 French repatriates from Indochina, Egypt, Morocco, and Tunisia. Colette Dubois, “La nation et les Français d’outre-mer: Rapatriés ou sinistrés de la décolonisation?” in L’Europe retrouvée. Les migrations de la décolonisation, eds. Jean-Louis Miège and Colette Dubois (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1994): 91. 7 CAC, 19920149/4 (dossier: Travaux de la Commission départementale), Prefect of the Pyrénées-Orientales to the Minister of Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des supplétifs musulmans réfugiés en France,” 2, Mar. 28, 1963. 5 146 had to be rehoused in rural settings, yet they found limited solutions. In a 2004 interview Pierre Messmer, the Minister of Armies from 1960 to 1969 and Prime Minister from 1972 to 1974, revealed to me his unwavering perception of the housing problem: “…on [ne] peut pas donner de propriété rurale aux harkis parce qu’il y a des propriétaires. La France n’est pas un pays que l’on peut coloniser.”8 At the same time, amidst the same housing crisis, the government found alternative solutions for the pieds-noirs, thereby segregating the “French Muslims from Algeria” from the “French from Algeria,” as it had during the colonial era. Second, government officials viewed this “disoriented” population as unprepared to enter directly into French society. (The French word dépaysé, with the root “country,” seems to more accurately describe their situation.) In the same interview Messmer, whose Ministry was responsible for transporting the harki population from Algeria and overseeing the camps, contended that the harkis were “totalement incapables” of working the machines that the rural French men and women as “très évolués,” in his opinion, used in farming techniques.9 The camps would therefore serve transitional spaces to become “French citizens.” Here, instructors would teach harki population members the French language, provide training in the necessary skills for France’s more technologically advanced job sector, and assist them in grasping metropolitan “ways of life.” One Ministry of Interior report explained the fundamental goal of the camps as allowing the harki population to overcome its very superficial knowledge of “nos mœurs”—the same term used in determining whether Algerian natives were worthy of French nationality during the imperial era (as discussed in chapter one).10 Government discourse consistently was tainted with racial undertones. Finally, officials believed that placing the harki population in concentrated spaces would be the best means for military personnel, on the one hand, to protect it and, on the other, to control its Messmer, interview. Ibid. 10 AN, 5 AG 1/22, Minister of the Interior, “Rapport sur l’application de la loi du 26 décembre 1961…,” 104. On French nationality requirements for Algerian natives, including exemplifying “bonne vie et mœurs,” see chap. 1. 8 9 147 potentially subversive actions. This military surveillance aimed to both curb reprisals by FLN members in France against harkis because they had fought for France during the war and hinder the infiltration of the camps by non-harki Algerians fleeing to the metropole (whom government officials called “false harkis”). It also intended to inhibit the recruitment of harkis into pro-FLN factions and limit their contacts with OAS members whom, as the previous chapter detailed, the government and media outlets believed posed safety threats on metropolitan soil. Beyond these practical reasons, two other unstated explanations emerge for physically exiling harki families in camps. The first is the harkis’ inextricable link to the painful loss of the Algerian War for Independence, which, as demonstrated in chapters one and two, the French government sought to immediately forget. According to de Gaulle’s Minister of Information, Alain Peyrefitte, by late August 1962 Algeria no longer was a weekly discussion topic at the Council of Ministers meeting, though when the subject was evoked, “on avait toujours le cœur serré.”11 This ambivalent relationship with a territory that France had incorporated into its system of departments for over one hundred years led the government to push out of mind and sight reminders of the war. The camps where the government chose to house harki families served this function. The second explanation for putting harkis and their families in camps derives from their ambiguous status when they arrived in France. Were they refugees or repatriates? Legally, the harkis were “repatriates” and thus eligible for measures in the December 1961 Boulin law providing loans, special access to HLM housing, and social assistance to all repatriates from former French colonies. However, as Todd Shepard has demonstrated, the government rarely employed this term for the harkis. Instead—and in contrast to the nomenclature government officials consistently used for the pieds-noirs—the government almost exclusively used “refugees” to describe the harkis.12 To offer Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 260. For a detailed discussion of the harkis’ status after the Evian Accords, see Shepard, “Chapter 9: Rejecting the Muslims,” in The Invention of Decolonization, 229-242. 11 12 148 just one example of this tendency, in 1963 the Conseil économique et social published Problèmes posés par le rapatriement des réfugiés d’Algérie authored by professor of medicine Robert de Vernejoul. Despite the word “refugiés” in its title, this term only appeared in the report for the pieds-noirs to describe their arrival in the Bouches-du-Rhône department from Algeria13 as well as in the subject heading “Le nombre de réfugiés,” a reference that included the harkis.14 For de Vernejoul, the pieds-noirs were “rapatriés” and the harkis relegated to the status of “réfugiés.” Throughout the report he paid careful attention to distinguish these two populations based on ethnic origin and status. For example, in the section concerning the “number of refugees” he writes: “624.957 personnes de souche européenne auraient quitté l’Algérie pour la France. Àce chiffre, il convient d’ajouter 27.000 musulmans réfugiés politiques.” 15 The government’s de facto categorization of the harkis as “refugees”—even though they were never accorded legal refugee status—influenced what type of housing the government provided for them both upon their arrival in France and, more importantly, after their initial residence in the camps. An abundance of examples demonstrates that during the twentieth century European host governments often housed refugees in camps. For instance, the French government had encamped Armenian refugees who escaped the genocide during the early 1920s, Spanish refugees fleeing Francoist Spain in the late 1930s, Central Europeans fleeing the Nazi threat in the early 1940s, and Indochinese refugees following the fall of Diên Biên Phu in 1954.16 By classifying the harkis as refugees when they arrived in France, the government justified its choice to house them in camps. At the same time, the harkis continued to be considered refugees beyond their Conseil économique et social, Problèmes posés par le rapatriement des réfugiés d’Algérie, prepared by Robert de Vernejoul (Paris: JORF, 1963), 176. 14 Ibid., 177. 15 Ibid. 16 On camps for Armenian refugees in France see Cyril Le Tallec, La communauté arménienne de France: 1920-1950 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2003). On camps for Spanish refugees in France see Michael R. Marrus, The Unwanted: European Refugees from the First World War through the Cold War, 2nd ed. (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2002), 189-93 and Schor, Histoire de l’immigration en France, 142-50. For a detailed analysis of camps in France from 1938 to 1946, including those for Spanish refugees and Jewish refugees from Central Europe, see Denis Peschanski, La France des camps. L’internement, 1938-1946 (Paris: Gallimard, 2002). On camps in France for Indochinese refugees see Van Thao, “Le retour des rapatriés d’Indochine,” 29-38. 13 149 initial residence in France—and even after they became French citizens (12,597 acquired French nationality while in the camps before August 1964).17 Living in these spaces linked to refugees reinforced the government’s categorization of the harkis as such. The harki population’s cultural exile ensued from its rejection by, and isolation from, the Algerian community in France and from its categorization as “Arabs” by the French population. This public opinion questioned whether the harkis were indeed French citizens. Aspects of the harki population’s exile did allow individuals to retain—to varying degrees—their Algerian customs, which mitigated their dépaysement in France. Nevertheless, the exile simultaneously excluded them from their surrounding community (whether native French or Algerian), hindering their integration into French society, and from Algeria, to which they could not safely return. This complex exile defines the uniqueness of the harki population’s situation: no other population migrating to France from its former colonies was placed into camps, unable to return home, and rejected by the French population and their native community alike.18 The physical distance between the K. family, whose story is described above, and Algerian soil constituted a painful exile that challenged its entire way of life. The couple recognized that geographical separation from Algeria constituted the only way to protect their children’s and their own lives. However, Mohamed had to leave behind his life as a farmer working the small parcel of earth that he owned outside of Chlef, situated in the Ouarsenis Mountains between Algiers and Oran. CAC, 19920149/5/12, Chef du 13º Bureau bis de la Sous-Direction des Naturalisations (Ministère de la Santé Publique et de la Population), “État numérique des déclarations enregistrées pendant la période du 1er juillet au 31 juillet 1964,” Aug. 10, 1964. 18 The only other colonial population that the French government placed into camps was the diverse group of refugees from Indochina (Vietnamese, Franco-Vietnamese couples, and mixed race children, métis) who migrated to France following the end of the Indochinese War in 1954. Upon their arrival, the government sent 12,000 of the 15,000 refugees in the first wave (35,000 total would arrive between 1954 and 1960) to centres de transit, including the same Larzac camp where harki population members were sheltered in 1962. Van Thao, “Le retour des rapatriés d’Indochine,” 30-33. One of the camps, the Centre d’accueil des Français d’Indochine in Sainte-Livrade, still housed over half a century later in 2010 one hundred Indochinese refugees—primarily elderly women, unemployed and handicapped individuals. Dominique Rolland, “Indochine: les oubliés de Sainte-Livrade,” L’Histoire no. 356 (Sept. 2010): 77. 17 150 Mohamed and his family also needed to adapt to unfamiliar surroundings in France devoid of family ties and the accustomed hierarchical structure of their society. In the Algerian bled, they had lived on the Beni-Boudouane tribal territory. Colonial settlements had not reached this eighty by fifty kilometer fief that the Bachaga Boualam administered.19 Their home was a cob hut (consisting of a mixture of clay and straw) located among their fifteen thousand fellow tribesmen. In France they first resided in canvas military tents, next in one of the four twenty square meter rooms in a restored military barrack, then in an abandoned stone house. Finally, they settled permanently in a 37.5 square meter metal and wood prefabricated house grouped into clusters of four. Arabs, they resided side-by-side with Kabyles, Chaouias, and other Arabs, who had been distanced from each other by as much as one thousand kilometers in Algeria. Mohamed and his family were separated from almost all of their one thousand fellow tribesmen who had also been repatriated. After their passage through temporary camps, only two other Beni-Boudouane families would settle with them at the Fuveau forest hamlet, thereby rendering impossible the recreation of their established social life. The disruption of the hierarchical structure of the K. family’s social fabric was not unique, however, as the government placed harki families into forest hamlets and public housing projects constructed specifically for the population (known as cités urbaines) often with little regard for their region of origin in Algeria. Arguably, this disruption could help foster harki families’ integration. But the stated objective of the government’s policy for forest hamlets and cités urbaines was integrating harki families into the French community, not into the harki community. The K. family simultaneously sustained a physical exile from the neighboring French community. Family members’ “déracinement” from Algeria was not accompanied by an “enracinement” in France as during the first two and a half years in their adopted country they resided in four camps located in sparsely-populated corners of southern France. This perpetual 19 Fabbiano, “Les harkis du Bachaga Boualam,” 114. 151 movement challenged their inclusion into the French community. In its efforts to immediately consign the Algerian War for Independence to the past, the government, by pushing the harkis out of public view in the camps, did not give them the opportunity to put down roots and familiarize themselves with—or become a part of—their surroundings. Their provisional residences of tents and military barracks at the Bourg-Lastic and Rivesaltes camps represented a rupture with the surrounding architecture of rural farmhouses, which isolated them even further from the French lifestyles. In addition to this literal, spatial distance, the harki population encountered a symbolic separation from the French community when they arrived in France, which challenged whether it belonged on French territory. The government impeded its members from being “pleinement accueillis dans la cité française” because, as detailed in the previous section, it did not grant them automatic French nationality. Mohamed and Ferhat, like approximately 7,500 other harki adults, applied to become French citizens while living in the Rivesaltes camp.20 After spending eighteen months in an abandoned village with other harki families and a camp director in the Lozère, the K. family settled on the outskirts of the 2,500-person village of Fuveau.21 However, its situation did not improve as it continued to reside in a community entirely comprised of harki families and to live under surveillance. Its frequent mobility reversed into immobility and isolation at this microcosm of the Rivesaltes camp. The only native French people ever to live side by side with the K. family were the military officers, social counselor, and camp directors who watched over them. The Fuveau forest hamlet—like the seventy-one other similar forest hamlets primarily located in southern France—was imperceptible to town residents. This prefabricated development is CAC, 19920149/5/12, Ministère de la Santé Publique et de la Population, Sous-direction des Naturalisations, “Déclarations recognitives de la nationalité française souscrites au titre de l’article 2 de l’Ordonnance n° 62-825 du 21 juillet 1962 par d’ex-harkis hébergés dans des camps d’accueil,” Aug. 3, 1964. Mohamed and Ferhat made their nationality declaration on Dec. 29, 1962; their request was not granted until May 1964. A copy of the certificate is located in his personal file at the AONACBR. 21 K. family, interview. 20 152 located three kilometers south of the town center in a forest clearing off a two-lane highway, on land previously used for coal mining. As the image in figure 11 shows, even to this day there are few streets and houses near the harkis’ residences. While some forest hamlets were located less than one kilometer from a town (such as Curcuron in the Vaucluse), others were situated as far away as fourteen kilometers (Le Capelude in the Var).22 By isolating the harkis and obscuring them from public view in camps, the government limited the possibility for any form of “aide fraternelle et généreuse des Français de souche,” which Colonel Schoen argued was imperative to their integration into French society. According to the social counselor in charge of the Roque d’Anthéron (Bouchesdu-Rhône) forest hamlet from 1969 until it closed in 1976 and the Fuveau town councilwoman who served as a liaison to the harki population in the Cité Brogilum from 1989 to 1995, town residents rarely if ever visited the forest hamlets.23 Despite the occasional “adaptation to metropolitan life classes” from the on-site social counselors, the geography of the harki population’s camp living arrangements did not facilitate its interactions with other French citizens to experience, or learn, “French” ways of life. ACNMF, 6, Servier, “Enquête sur les Musulmans Français,” Part 2, 38-39. In Les harkis, une mémoire enfouie, JeanJacques Jordi and Mohand Hamoumou write “aucun des soixante-quinze hameaux forestiers n’est implanté à proximité du village métropolitain!” They proceed to cite Les Peyrouas as the forest hamlet closest to a town, at one and a half kilometers from Saint-Maximin in the Var, and list the distance between the Fuveau forest hamlet and the town as six kilometers. Jordi and Hamoumou, Les harkis, 97. These distances, ostensibly given to support their statement above, are incorrect. My travels by car between the Fuveau town hall and the forest hamlet, on the same roads that existed in 1964, showed that the distance is three kilometers. Moreover, Servier’s report, based on site visits, enumerates the distance between seventeen of the thirty-six forest hamlets open in 1972 and their respective town centers. Nine of these are less than 1.5 kilometers apart and he correctly lists the distance between Fuveau and the forest hamlet as three kilometers (38-41). 23 Raymonde Guillet (monitrice sociale du hameau de la Baume), interview with the author, Dec. 18, 2007, la Roque d’Anthéron and Marie-Josephe Haupt (adjointe spéciale aux harkis pour la commune de Fuveau), interview with the author, Dec. 5, 2007, Fuveau. 22 153 Figure 11: Present-day map of Fuveau. The forest hamlet is represented by the three rectangles located near the bottom of the photo. Source: Fuveau village map, Boulevard Loubet. Photograph by the author in 2007. This ignorance of “French customs,” which social counselors would teach them, was one of the principal factors contributing to the K. family’s cultural exile from the French population. The harki population encountered doubts about its “Frenchness” from its neighbors owing to what Colonel Schoen described as “[son] inadaptation aux conditions de la vie moderne.” The population’s cultural alterity and the fact that its members were, in the words of Colonel Schoen, a “minorité nationale” justified secluding them to camps, which, in turn, challenged their belonging in the French nation both upon their arrival, and even today.24 In Algeria, Mohamed and Ferhat’s life rarely included electricity, cars, and other “modern” inventions. Their food primarily came from their land, not grocery stores. When they arrived in France, their lack of knowledge about using machines, speaking French, and customs for interacting with shopkeepers erected a barrier between them and the rest of the French population that deemed their new neighbors’ ways of life inferior. 24 ACNMF, 15/13, Colonel Schoen, Report: “Reconnaissance de la nationalité française…,” 27. 154 Individual harki population members’ responses to their situation varied based on numerous factors, including proximity to “French” communities, age, previous knowledge of French language and French conventions, and personal nature. By and large, few adult harkis— especially those in the camps—adopted metropolitan practices, and almost never inside their homes. Women, in particular, were slow to adopt French language and customs, if they ever did. The former social counselor who lived at the Roque d’Anthéron forest hamlet related during an interview with the author that none of the approximately forty harki wives knew more than a few words of French, nor had much interest in learning the language (her language classes were sparsely attended). She conducted courses about metropolitan ways of cooking, cleaning, and childcare, yet during her regular home visits she saw that few women used these practices.25 Indeed maintaining Algerian customs served as a means to keep alive the link with—and memory of—their homeland and retain their cultural identity. Further, it demonstrated that these ways of life remained deeply ingrained. This preservation simultaneously represented a subtle form of revolt against the imposition of French norms, which sometimes reached into the private sphere for harkis living under state control. Some of the rules that the social counselors and camp directors enforced conflicted with Algerian traditions. The photograph in figure 12 shows Ferhat K. dressed in classic Algerian garb baking the traditional Algerian bread, kesra, over a fire in the wood shed behind her house at the Fuveau forest hamlet in 2000 (almost a decade after the social counselor moved away from the development). This ritual method of cooking over an open flame indoors was practiced in Algeria where her home was not constructed with flammable materials. Guillet, interview. Mrs. Guillet resided in Algeria from 1946 to 1962 and was a SAS during the Algerian War for Independence. 25 155 Figure 12: Ferhat K. preparing kesra. Photograph taken by and used with the permission of her daughter, Aïcha. Harki population members faced an additional source of cultural exile from the French community owing to their physical features since many of them—particularly those of Arab descent—had a darker skin tone than that of their neighbors. While the majority of Algerians in France distinguished between those who had served as harkis and those who had fought for the FLN (two categories that were not mutually exclusive as pointed out in the previous chapter), French natives most often saw all Algerians as “Arabs” (and “Berbers,” if aware that such a distinction existed). Consequently, harkis such as Mohamed and Ferhat K., like other North African immigrants on French soil, were often regarded with suspicion and became victims of racism owing to their skin color, a “stigma” that was always perceptible. The “visibility” and perception of their bodies’ difference shaped these non-white migrants’ social identity as the “Other” in their 156 communities.26 This posed a particular problem for the harki; whenever seen in public, he could not lay claim to his “pro-French” link. He was viewed as “Algerian,” not French. However, many Algerians believed Mohamed (like other “pro-French Muslims”) was a traitor no longer worthy of Algerian nationality, even though he joined the French Army owing to economic factors and tribal obligations, and not because he had an allegiance to France.27 Owing to questions surrounding Mohamed’s October 1959 choice to engage as a harki soldier, the K. family would also experience a lasting exile from other Algerians on both sides of the Mediterranean because they were isolated from their native culture.28 Mohamed and Ferhat were indeed “en deuil” for their family members—including an aunt, two uncles, and three siblings—whom FLN members executed after the ceasefire. This history rendered difficult their assimilation into the same Algerian community that believed they and their family members were traitors. The killing of pro-independence Algerians and harkis at each other’s hands on Algerian soil generated an enduring rift between the two groups, tensions that migrated with them across the Mediterranean. In France, harkis like Mohamed still feared for their lives as members of the Amicale des Algériens en France (ADAF), the metropolitan arm of the FLN, sought them out. The police reported many incidents of ADAF members threatening—and even murdering—harkis, both inside and outside of the camps, and Minister of Interior Frey even sent a circular in September 1962 to all Department Prefects asking them to exercise a “surveillance vigilante” in areas where harkis settled, The concepts of “stigma” and “visibility” are developed by Erving Goffman, Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity, First Touchstone ed. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986 [1963]). For Goffman’s discussion of visibility see pp. 48-51. Sander Gilman also discusses the notion of “visibility” as it relates to differences, and perceptions of difference of Jews’ bodies. See Sander Gilman, “Chapter 7: The Jewish Nose: Are Jews White? Or, the History of the Nose Job,” The Jew’s Body (New York: Routledge, 1991), 169-93. 27 K. family, interview. 28 A Sept. 9, 1992 certificate of military service from the Bureau central d’archives administratives militaires in Pau confirms Mohamed’s engagement as a harki soldier in the 2/10˚ RAMA harka from Oct. 1959 until July 1962. This document is located in his personal dossier at the AONACBR. 26 157 given these reports of violence.29 The FLN in Algeria had ordered its metropolitan comrades to make all Algerians in France, including the harkis, contribute money each month to rebuild their homeland, which also served as a means to monitor their movements. To cite one example, on February 6, 1963, several ADAF members visited the residence of nine harkis each of the first three nights after they arrived from Rivesaltes to work in a factory in Reims. The ADAF members questioned the harkis about their role in the French Army and why they had migrated to France, and then issued the following threat: “Les dossiers des harkis sont à l’étude. Bientôt leurs photos nous parviendront. Les jugements d’Algérie seront exécutés en France. Les traîtres seront égorgés.” Therefore, the ADAF members (who at moments “[ont] feign[é] d’ignorer le passé des anciens militaires”) tried to force the group of harkis to give thirty francs on the spot and pay subsequent monthly dues of ten francs to join their organization. The harkis refused and noticed a few days later that these men were closely watching over them; as a result, they decided to return to Rivesaltes to escape the threat.30 Such events distanced the harkis from their native Algerian community. Understanding the uniqueness of the harki population’s exile in France allows us to ascertain the challenges it faced in its post-imperial French citizenship. The same factors that induced the harki population’s exile in France simultaneously led to its fluctuating status, which contributed to its exclusion from French society. That is, harki population members were an amalgam of repatriates, refugees, and immigrants. Legally, they were repatriates like the pieds-noirs, even though this label that colonial powers created during decolonization to identify this specific class of migrants was a misnomer for all of the harkis and the vast majority of the pieds-noirs.31 They were rarely “returning” to their home country. However, ethnic and cultural differences—their visible characteristics and Archives Départementales du Bas-Rhin, 544 D 173, Minister of Interior to Department Prefects, Circulaire n˚ 545, “Objet: Sécurité des anciens supplétifs musulmans,” SN/CAB N˚ 5444, Sept. 1, 1962. 30 ADBR, 138 W 6, SCINA, “Synthèse… journées des 16-18 février 1963,” 6-7, N˚ 1 847. 31 Andrea L. Smith, “Introduction,” in Europe’s Invisible Migrants: Consequences of the Colonists’ Return, ed. Smith (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003), 19. According to Smith, it appears that several colonial powers began to use this term independently of each other. 29 158 Algerian ways of life—confused their de jure status. The circumstances in which the harki population left Algeria were in fact similar to those of the pieds-noirs (who experienced an analogous physical exile from Algeria). Owing to the harki population’s alterity, however, the French community most often viewed its members as Algerian immigrants. At the same time, government officials and others, including Colonel Schoen, most often referred to the harkis as “réfugiés,” a term inextricably linked to exile. This designation, however, is not correct for them because, among other reasons, unlike refugees once the harki and their family members arrived in France they could obtain French nationality through a pro forma procedure.32 Therefore, none of these three terms alone—repatriate, immigrant, or refugee—can accurately describe the harki population’s status, which is due in large part to its unique exilic situation. They were harki citizens. This section analyzes government housing and integration policies for harki families and their living conditions in two isolated locales supervised by French government representatives. Exiled from Algerian, French, and pied-noir communities in France and geographically separated from Algeria, they did not fully belong to French society. My inquiry goes beyond the local level to investigate within the same analytical field both the national creation of state policies toward the harkis and their local implementation. Chapter three focuses on the state’s use from 1962 to 1964 of the Rivesaltes camp as a powerful physical and psychological tool to isolate, control, and re-educate members of the harki population. Chapter four presents the rationale behind and development of the government’s policy to rehouse harkis and their families in forest hamlets. Chapter five investigates the daily lives of harki families living in the Fuveau forest hamlet, which opened in 1964 and remains open today. Chapter six places this case study within the national context by analyzing To become French citizens, political refugees need to present a dossier to a special commission (Office français de protection des réfugiés et apatrides), which judges whether they fall under the definition of refugee outlined in the 1951 Geneva Convention on the status of refugees. If so, they benefit from a special status that accords them all the same rights as French citizens except for voting rights. This status is not the same as French nationality. Patrick Weil, La France et ses étrangers: l’aventure d’une politique de l’immigration de 1938 à nos jours, new ed. (Paris: Seuil, 2004), 335-37. 32 159 new measures proposed by the government in the mid-1970s to address its admittedly failed integration policies and the violent protests of harki children and supporters of the population. It returns to the case study under examination in chapter five to evaluate the impact of these policy changes on the Fuveau forest hamlet. These fours chapters explore harki citizens’ fluctuating status—among refugees, repatriates, and immigrants—to demonstrate that despite the heterogeneity of individual harki’s experiences in France, all endured a similarly unique exile. Government practices and public perceptions challenged their legal status as French citizens. 160 CHAPTER 3 Refugees? The Harkis’ “Univers Concentrationnaire” at the Rivesaltes Camp Or les camps ne constituent pas une formule d’avenir. Leur organisation fut-elle sans reproche, ils restent marqués de la tare de tout “univers concentrationnaires.” Non seulement le système favorise le développement des épidémies…, mais il contribue à la démoralisation des hommes [supplétifs], qui y perdent leur raison d’être. En outre sur le plan politique il offre une cible facile à l’opposition.1 - Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer, March 2, 1963 Of the estimated 100,000 harkis who traversed the Mediterranean Sea, 20,000 experienced internment in the Rivesaltes camp between September 1962 and December 1964. This space, located on the outskirts of the Catalonian town of Rivesaltes, had previously housed refugees fleeing over the Pyrenees from Francoist Spain and Jews prior to their deportation to extermination camps during the Second World War. At its most densely populated, during the first week of December 1962, the Rivesaltes camp’s 8,885 harkis2 dwarfed the town’s 6,262 inhabitants3 from whom the newly-arrived Algerians were separated by barbed wire. The French government’s encampment of the harkis contributed to the complicated exile discussed in the introduction to this section: the Rivesaltes camp physically and culturally separated them from their homeland and from their adopted country, calling into question whether they belonged in or to either nation. Even after the SHAT, 10T 549/3b, Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer to Minister of Rapatriates François Missoffe, “Objet: Problème des ex-supplétifs,” 2, Mar. 2, 1963. 2 SHAT, 1R 337/1 (dossier: Camp de Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise). A graph in this carton shows the camp’s weekly population statistics from Dec. 1, 1962 to Mar. 30, 1963. 3 Archives Communales de Rivesaltes (hereafter, ACR), “Evolution de la population depuis 1881.” 1 161 harkis surmounted the obstacles to becoming French citizens, the camp living space fostered an exilic and isolated existence, which challenged their inclusion within French society. In the epigraph to this chapter, Messmer—whose ministry oversaw the harkis’ daily life— evoked a parallel between the harkis’ exile at the Rivesaltes camp and that of Nazi prisoners living in concentration camps during the Second World War. For him, the Rivesaltes camp remained “marqués de la tare de tout ‘univers concentrationnaires,’” a reference to the earliest firsthand account written about Nazi camps, penned by French Resistant and Trotskyite David Rousset.4 Messmer’s comparison significantly positions the Rivesaltes camp into the Nazi concentration (and extermination) camps’ “system” of excluding and isolating its inhabitants from society. 5 The concentration camp universe, as defined by Rousset and to which Messmer alludes, was a system linked to political and moral conceptions of racial superiority that imposed a forceful domination over its internees. Rousset further contended that the camps were plagued by health epidemics, unsanitary conditions, insufficient healthcare, promiscuity, and an elevated rate of mortality, which demoralized their populations. Messmer’s choice of the polysemic term “tare”—which can be defined as a grave defect, staining someone’s honor, diminishing someone’s or something’s value or merit—perfectly captures this essence of concentration camps generally, and of the Rivesaltes camp. The Rivesaltes camp did not include the starvation and the forced labor experienced by Nazi prisoners and was not an extermination camp. However, the health epidemics, unsanitary conditions, demoralization, and other characteristics listed by Rousset abounded in this space. The Rivesaltes camp “concentrated” the harki population for several reasons. First, the French government viewed them as unable to adapt to life in metropolitan France without first being given “une connaissance David Rousset, L’univers concentrationnaire (Paris: Éditions du Pavois, 1946). Rousset argues that “Entre ces camps de destruction et les camps ‘normaux’, il n’y a pas de différence de nature, mais seulement de degré” (57). 4 5 162 plus approfondie de la langue française et de nos mœurs.”6 As the National Police claimed in an internal report in October 1962, the re-education centers at the camp would “dégrossir les anciens supplétifs,” in other words, to knock off the rough edges off these unrefined individuals and reeducate them.7 Second, the government sought to hide from sight any reminders of the painful loss of French Algeria. Finally, the post-imperial government maintained these individuals’ inferior status as “harkis”—an ethnic category that the colonial French government created for Muslim auxiliary soldiers during the Algerian War for Independence—but it also added the element of social exclusion as a key component in defining post-imperial harki citizens, which now included women and children. The government treated them like refugees. Yet the harkis were not legally refugees. Following mass migratory movements resulting from World War Two, the 1951 United Nations Geneva Convention defined this term as a person forced from his home country fearing persecution owing to race, nationality, membership in a social group, or political beliefs.8 During the discussions leading up to the publication of this document, as the European country with the greatest number of refugees in 1950, France actively advocated that the denomination be restricted to forced migrants from Europe and those who were victims of events taking place before January 1, 1951 (in opposition to Great Britain and the United States, both of which pushed for a broader definition).9 While the French position prevailed on the latter point, individual countries were permitted to choose whether to include only Europeans or those AN, 5 AG 1/22, Minister of the Interior, “Rapport sur l’application…” 104. ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse…, journées des 5, 6, 7 & 8 octobre 1962,” e-f, N˚ 1 765. 8 The Geneva Convention’s focus on refugees forced from their homeland for political and humanitarian reasons represented a departure from the 1933 Bretton Woods system, concentrated on labor migration. Since 1951 the meaning of refugee has continued to evolve to account for new types of forced migration, including those provoked by the end of empires. While the meaning of refugee has changed, its legal definition has undergone only minor modifications. Anthony M. Messina and Gallya Lahav, “Introduction: The Evolution of an International Refugee Regime,” in The Migration Reader: Exploring Politics and Policies, ed. Messina and Lahav (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006), 199201. 9 Gérard Noiriel, Réfugiés et sans-papiers: La République face au droit d’asile (Paris: Hachette, 1998), 140-47. 6 7 163 from “Europe and elsewhere.”10 In 1961 when the High Commission for Refugees, the United Nations body responsible for overseeing international refugee law, reevaluated its mission and contemplated reorienting its focus toward Asian and African refugees, French officials restated their opposition, fearing that this supranational commission would interfere with its colonial affairs.11 The last major European power to decolonize, France received pressure from the Soviet Union and the United States, which converged in their anti-colonial positions. French officials, however, wanted to keep Algeria and Algerians an internal matter. Historian Matthew Connelly asserts that France’s attempts to contain the Algerian War as an internal conflict actually caused it to have international repercussions. He argues that the war “was distinctively diplomatic in nature, and… its most decisive struggles occurred in the international arena.” 12 Attributing legal refugee status to the harkis (or the pieds-noirs, for that matter) would have been a tacit admission that the Algerian War for Independence was an international affair and allowed international organizations such as the High Commission for Refugees to be involved in administering the harkis. The government’s 1962 decision to relegate the fleeing harkis to camps isolated from the general population was a powerful indicator of how government institutions and their representatives wanted to interact with this population of Arabs and Berbers from that moment forward. Faced with the crisis of the end of the Algerian War for Independence, the government chose to view the harki population as a collective mass of foreigners and refugees whom it then exiled and excluded from the national community, even after they became French citizens. While maintaining the goal of rehousing the harkis as soon as possible, once it became apparent that this task would not be easily accomplished government documents in fall 1962 and winter 1963 semantically shifted from “transit camp” to “housing camp” to describe the Rivesaltes camp (which Ibid., 146. Ibid., 150. 12 Connelley, A Diplomatic Revolution, 4-5. 10 11 164 did not close until December 31, 1964), thereby putting into question the temporary nature of their living situation. The state often regarded the harkis with suspicion because of their Arabicity, that is, their different customs and their perceived racial differences. The harkis could never escape government and public categorization as “others” in their new homeland, which meant that they could never fully belong within France. Their placement into the Rivesaltes camp symbolized that they were outsiders, indeed de facto refugees, who required not only shelter, but also surveillance. The encampment and the duration of the harkis’ stay were not the only problems posed by the Rivesaltes camp. The harkis’ lived reality in this closed space, particularly in regard to the flow of power between the population and the state, limited possibilities for the harkis to interact with other metropolitan citizens and demonstrated continuities with colonial practices. Power in the Rivesaltes camp flowed from the state representatives responsible for the harkis’ day-to-day encadrement, from French government institutions, and from national-level politicians responsible for creating the camp’s policies down to the harkis. Encadrement, the term the government employed to describe the meticulous control over the harkis by state agents, left little space for the harkis to appropriate this power and escape their exile.13 These officials oversaw all aspects of the harkis’ lives and taught classes about job skills, French language and customs, and hygiene to prepare them for their reclassement, a complex term signifying their integration into French society through access to housing and employment.14 In multiple, and sometimes subtle, ways the Rivesaltes camp acted as a physical and psychological tool for the state to control and educate its “undesirable” harki population. The Rivesaltes camp’s architecture, insalubrious living conditions, isolation from other French citizens, military oversight, and “reeducation” classes, beyond functioning as powerful symbols, reinforced— Encadrement is most often translated into English as “surveillance,” “regimentation,” or “supervision.” These translations do not fully capture the great extent to which army and civilian officials used military-style tactics to closely supervise the harkis’ lives; therefore, encadrement and its verbal form encadrer are left in their original French. 14 Reclassement does not have a succinct English translation; for this reason, it is left in French throughout the text. 13 165 and contributed to—the government’s treatment of the harkis as unwanted residents of France. Over the twenty-seven months that it functioned as a camp for harkis, it fostered an exilic existence for the harkis and socially excluded them from French society. The organization and functioning of the Rivesaltes camp set a precedent for exclusionary policies that would remain in place for harki citizens in other locales long after it closed in December 1964. A Camp for “Foreigners” The Rivesaltes camp, also known as the Joffre camp, is located on a vast plot measuring four by two kilometers straddling the Rivesaltes and Salses municipalities in rural Catalonia. The camp takes its name from one of Rivesaltes’ most famous native sons, Maréchal Joseph Joffre, World War One general and member of the Académie Française, born in a house that once stood on the land. Its southernmost border sits five kilometers north of the Rivesaltes town hall, thirteen kilometers north of downtown Perpignan, and thirty-five kilometers north of the Franco-Spanish border. Fifteen kilometers eastward lies the Mediterranean Sea, the passageway to France’s former colony of Algeria (see figure 13). Vineyards with Muscat grapes, the local specialty, skirt the camp’s periphery. Today, all that remain of the camp are the crumbling cement and wood shells of eighty-square-meter barracks, hollow outhouses with Turkish-style toilets, remnants of a flag pole where its internees once stood at daily attention, occasional pieces of barbed wire intertwined with weeds, and a dilapidated sign bearing “C mp J ffre de Rivesaltes.” 166 Figure 13: Geographical location of Rivesaltes. Source: http://www.cg66.fr/culture/memo rial/renseignement.htm The harkis were not the first, nor the last, population to inhabit the Joffre camp. However, the government’s placement of harkis in the Rivesaltes camp signaled an important departure from the legal categories of individuals the camp had previously sheltered. Three months after the Third Republic government opened the first of the two hundred internment camps for “undesirable foreigners,” refugees, and prisoners that would dot the French countryside during “the Black Years,” it inaugurated Rivesaltes in May 1939.15 As a camp, by definition this space would separate and distance its inhabitants from the rest of society. 16 Divided into military and civilian sections, Rivesaltes was unique for the diversity of foreign populations that it would house. The camp’s initial mission was to lodge colonial troops awaiting assignment during the war, yet its principal vocation quickly shifted as the events of the war caused an international refugee crisis.17 General Franco’s 1936 coup d’état in neighboring Spain forced over half a million people to escape over the Pyrenees. From 1940 to 1942 the military section of the Rivesaltes camp was primarily used as a training The French government opened the first camp of this period, Rieucros (Lozère), in February 1939. Denis Peschanski, La France des camps. L’internement, 1938-1946 (Paris: Gallimard, 2002), 15. On the French government’s policies and rationale for opening camps at this time, see pp. 28-35. 16 For an analysis of the function, definition, and sociology of camps for foreigners, see Marc Bernadot, Camps d’étrangers (Bellecombe-en-Bauges, France: Éditions du Croquant, 2008). 17 Peschanski, La France des camps, 111. 15 167 facility for groups of refugees (Compagnies de Travailleurs Etrangers) who would fill jobs vacated by metropolitan workers enlisted in the French Army.18 The Rivesaltes camp’s vocation, however, very shortly shifted to housing prisoner and refugee populations. One month after being broken into civil and military sections, on January 14, 1941, the “Centre d’Hébergement de Rivesaltes” run by the Ministries of Interior and Labor was inaugurated on six square kilometers and would remain open until November 25, 1942. 19 The change in the camp’s purpose followed the opening of ninety-three camps between spring 1939 and May 1940 20 to absorb the massive influx of Spanish republican refugees—450,000 crossed the Pyrenees in February 1939 alone21—and foreigners, notably Jews escaping the Nazi regime, fleeing central Europe on the eve of the Second World War. On May 31, 1941 Spaniards accounted for more than one half of the 6,475 internees; however, this group was rounded out by fifteen other nationalities, the majority of whom were foreign Jews fleeing from Eastern Europe.22 These Jews, whom the government classified as “refugees” and not as political prisoners, comprised approximately one third of the camp’s population between May 1941 and June 1942.23 This changed when a new portion of the camp, baptized “Le Centre de Rassemblement des Israélites de Rivesaltes,” opened in August 1942 as a way station for Jews awaiting deportation. Historian Serge Klarsfeld attributed to the camp the title “Drancy de la zone libre,” a weighty descriptor given that A March 1939 letter from the Ministries of Interior and Labor stated the reason for creating the groups was to “transformer cette masse inorganisée et passive que constituent ces réfugiés en éléments utiles à la collectivité nationale.” This policy was officialized the next month by an April 12, 1939 decree, which required all foreign males between the ages of twenty and forty-eight living on French soil whom the state deemed as refugees or stateless persons to serve on work details equal in length to French citizens’ national service. Joël Mettay, L’Archipel du mépris: Histoire du camp de Rivesaltes de 1939 à nos jours (Canet: Éditions Trabucaire, 2001), 19. 19 Archives départementales des Pyrénées-Orientales (hereafter ADPO), 1419 W 109, Service départemental des Renseignements Généraux, Rapport n˚ 107 de la Sûreté Nationale, “Historique du camp de Rivesaltes,” Jan. 8, 1958. 20 For a map of “les camps de rassemblement et d’internement français pour étrangers” that opened during this period, see Anne Grynberg, Les Camps de la honte. Les internés juifs des camps français, 1939-1944 (Paris: La Découverte, 1991), 8. 21 Nicolas Lebourg, “Histoire générale du Camp de Rivesaltes” (Journées du Patrimoine, Camp de Rivesaltes, Sept. 15, 2007), 1. 22 Ibid., 2. 23 Anne Boitel, Le camp de Rivesaltes, 1941-1942: Du centre d’hébergement au “Drancy de la zone libre” (Perpignan: Presses Universitaires de Perpignan/Mare Nostrum, 2001), 219. 18 168 Drancy was the major transit point in France for the Auschwitz extermination camp. Of the 5,174 foreign Jews interned at the Rivesaltes camp between August and November 1942, 2,313 were sent to the extermination camp Auschwitz via Drancy.24 During this time, Rivesaltes housed its foreign refugees and prisoners in 150 military-style barracks, some without roofs, which divided the men from the women and children. Internees lived in deplorable conditions including their only water supply being tainted by feces, no heat in the barracks, and showers available only once every two weeks. 25 A web of Ministry of Interior employees—including local civil officials, military officers, healthcare workers, police inspectors, and schoolteachers—subjected prisoners to a strict discipline. These state representatives acted in concert to oversee and control the day-to-day life of the prisoners.26 Following the 1942 German Occupation of the Free Zone, the Rivesaltes camp once again changed vocations. At the same time, the camp continued its characteristic “Tower of Babel” hodgepodge of nationalities and linguistic groups and its overlapping mini-camps within the camp, which were structured by the sixteen housing blocks. Gypsy refugees fleeing from Eastern Europe, German soldiers, and German and Italian prisoners of war comprised the majority of population in the camp’s military portion. The German soldiers left on August 19, 1944, days after the landing of Allied forces on the shores of Provence. With this evacuation, the military section of the camp returned to its original vocation of a training facility, though few troops entered it over the next ten years. As for the camp’s civil section, from September 1944 to December 1945 the Centre de séjour surveillé de Rivesaltes detained a total of three thousand presumed Vichy collaborators as part of the post-Liberation Purge.27 Still residing in this section of the camp at this time were German and Ibid., 20. In existence from 1941 to 1944, the Drancy internment camp, located in the northeastern suburbs of Paris, was France’s principal deportation camp. 25 Lebourg, “Histoire générale du Camp de Rivesaltes,” 2. 26 Peschanski, La France des camps, 19. 27 ADPO, 1419 W 109, “Historique du camp de Rivesaltes.” 24 169 Italian prisoners, who worked during the day outside of the camp in an effort to rebuild areas destroyed by the war, and the Madagascan colonial soldiers who oversaw them.28 The civil section of the camp closed on May 1, 1948 and lay vacant until the Centre de formation professionnelle accélérée pour les nords-africains opened on December 1, 1951 to provide job training for North African colonial subjects living in the metropole. With racial tensions flaring at the onset of the Algerian War for Independence, the center was reorganized in December 1954 to balance the North Africans with fifty percent “metropolitan” students.29 In January 1958, on the initiative of the Minister of Algeria, the center further expanded its vocation to provide sixmonth job training courses for French Muslim military personnel returning to civilian life in France. The Centre militaire de formation professionnelle (CMFP) N˚1 trained French Muslim and French students in one of the following specialties: tiling, bricklaying, pouring concrete, plaster works, rubble work, and surface coating.30 The Center’s motto, “Bâtis notre pays,” alluded to the vocation of French Muslim migrant laborers during France’s Trente Glorieuses (a period of economic growth and prosperity from 1944 to 1974). An image from a pamphlet issued by the Ministry of Labor (figure 14) shows a uniformed soldier arriving at the enclosed center just north of the Pyrenees Mountains prominently displaying a French flag and a graduate of the program in civilian clothes with his diploma in hand ready to enter the metropolitan French job force. Lebourg, “Histoire générale du Camp de Rivesaltes,” 5. ADPO, 1419 W 109, “Historique du camp de Rivesaltes.” 30 For a pamphlet describing the center, see CAC, 19970391/3, “Centre militaire de formation professionnelle n˚ 1 Rivesaltes.” 28 29 170 Figure 14: Image of the CMFP N˚ 1 from a pamphlet issued by the Ministry of Labor. CAC, 19970391/3. During the Algerian War for Independence, the military portion of the camp served as a stopping point for officers awaiting deployment to Algeria. In 1957, the state also envisaged opening an internment camp here similar to those that had sprung up during the war in both the colony and the metropole since the beginning of the war.31 However, the prefect of the Pyrénées-Orientales fought against and succeeded in quashing this proposal. Talks of a new project to intern war prisoners arose in late 1961 and thus was created a “centre pénitentiaire;” however, it would only stay open for a little more than one month, from March 9, 1962 to April 18, 1962. Of the 527 incarcerated prisoners, 487 were “French Muslims,” 12 percent of whom were sentenced to death for “anti-national activities” that threatened the security of the French state, that is, activities in favor of Algerian independence.32 This prisoner population is particularly significant when contrasted to the harkis who would arrive just five months later at the Rivesaltes camp owing to its relationship to For a description of internment camps during the Algerian War for Independence, see Sylvie Thénault, “Personnel et internés dans les camps français de la guerre d’Algérie. Entre stéréotypes coloniaux et combat pour l’indépendance,” Politix 24, no. 69 (2004): 63-81. 32 Lebourg, “Histoire générale du Camp de Rivesaltes,” 6. 31 171 Algeria: “French Muslims” incarcerated for pro-Algerian independence activities instead of “proFrench Muslims” who aided French war efforts against an independent Algeria. After the war ended, the Rivesaltes camp housed troops still in service who were awaiting reassignment including the First Regiment of Tirailleurs Algériens who were repatriated from Algeria. The 1,700 soldier regiment arrived at the end of May and in early June 1962; they were accompanied by the families of 125 of these men.33 When the harkis arrived at the camp in September 1962, they shared the grounds with a small number of these reserve troops and their families. The Rivesaltes camp, therefore, came to be known for housing, on one hand, individuals who were foreigners (étrangers)—a legal status defined as a person living in France who does not have French nationality—and, on the other, French citizens whom the government removed from society. The Joffre camp’s history reveals how France interacted with those it viewed as foreigners during what historian Denis Peschanski labels “the century of camps.” 34 The first camps for foreigners opened at the turn of the twentieth century and the peak of this phenomenon was during the années noires of the Vichy regime when two hundred camps interned six-hundred thousand people.35 According to sociologist Marc Bernadot, this new spatial relationship between France and its foreigners had the principal objective of: “contenir ou… retarder l’entrée et la dispersion de certains groupes d’individus dans les sociétés dites ouvertes.”36 With the exception of Jews who were marked for deportation between August and November 1942, Bernadot’s statement well describes the non-military populations in the Rivesaltes camp. As Bernadot reminds us, by creating this physical barrier between from the general French population, the camp served to strip individuals of their liberties, often in the name of preserving the pubic order. 37 The Rivesaltes camp was ADPO, 1419 W 109, Bulletin des Renseignements Généraux du 22 mai 1962, “Implantation à Rivesaltes d’un Régiment de Tirailleurs Algériens.” 34 Peschanski, La France des camps, 17. 35 Ibid., 15. 36 Bernadot, Camps d’étrangers, 13. 37 Ibid., 43. 33 172 exceptional in how long it remained open, spanning three Republics and the Vichy regime. It continually housed transient populations who most often remained for less than one year and sometimes for as little as a few weeks. Examining the camp’s previous populations places the experiences of harkis at the Rivesaltes camp within a larger context of marginalizing foreigners from French society, thereby providing a clear indication of how France regarded the harkis—as foreigners and not as the citizens that they were. In contrast to the prisoners and many of the refugees who were not free to leave the Rivesaltes camp, the harkis were permitted to come and go while they resided there. But this distinction between open and closed camps becomes less significant when considering the continuities in the physical space, which maintained its function of separating of the camp’s inhabitants from French society.38 As the rest of this chapter demonstrates, the Rivesaltes camp that harkis knew had continuities with its previous iterations. First, the camp was transitory; the very use of camp de transit and centre d’hébergement throughout its history underscores its ephemeral nature. Second, it provided shelter in poorly-constructed buildings which dominated the populations they housed and contained unsanitary living conditions. Third, the camp was almost exclusively used for those the state deemed as “foreigners,” many of whom were labeled as “refugees.” Finally, all of the camp’s populations were subject to strict military surveillance. Tents and Barracks On September 15, 1962, the Rivesaltes camp received eight hundred harkis arriving directly from the Tefeschoun refugee camp located outside of Algiers.39 Over the next nine days, the entire harki population from the Bourg-Lastic transit camp, which had numbered 5,083 people on August On the similarities and differences between open camps and closed camps, see Caroline Intrand and Pierre-Arnaud Perrouty, “La diversité des camps d’étrangers en Europe: présentation de la carte des camps de Migreurop,” Cultures & Conflits no. 57 (2005): 73-78. 39 ADPO, 1419 W 109, “Arrivées d’Algérie au Camp de Rivesaltes.” 38 173 30, was sent by train to Rivesaltes and grouped into villages of tents on the camp’s vast plain (their arrival at the Rivesaltes train station is depicted in figure 15). 40 Military officers responsible for the encadrement of the harkis accompanied the disoriented population on their five-hundred kilometer journey to Rivesaltes. Here, the soldiers continued to encadrer the same families they had supervised at Bourg-Lastic. Other officers transferred to the Rivesaltes camp from Algeria—who were, therefore, familiar with the “Muslim milieu”—met the arrivals at the train station and shuttled them by military convoy the five kilometers from the center of town to their new home.41 Similar to previous refugee and prisoner populations in this isolated corner of the commune, the harkis had little or no contact with the town’s other residents. By October 3, with harkis from the Larzac transit camp who had been transferred to Rivesaltes, the population swelled to 7,700 harkis and a small number of tirailleurs algériens still stationed at the camp.42 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Camps–Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise), Ministre des Armées Messmer (signed by Général Lagarde) au Gouverneur Militaire de Lyon, au Général Commandant la 5ème Région Militaire (Toulouse) et au Général Commandant la 9ème Région Militaire (Marseille), “Transfert des ex supplétifs du Camp de Bourg-Lastic au Camp de Rivesaltes – Aménagement du Camp de l’Ardoise,” 2659/EMIT/1.O and 8621/EMAT/4.P.O, Sept. 11, 1962. 41 “Connaissances des ‘milieux musulmans’” is a phrase continually repeated in documents to specify the desired credentials for agents to oversee the harkis. For example, a Dec. 19, 1962 letter from the Minister of Repatriates to all seventy-five departmental prefects, the director of the Rivesaltes camp, and the Minister of Armies introduces the role of the departmental inspectors of the chantiers de forestage housing the harkis with the following clause: “Ces fonctionnaires choisis pour leur connaissance approfondie des milieux musulmans auront essentiellement pour tâche…” CAC, 19920149/3 (dossier 1: Chantiers de forestage, octobre 62 – juin 65), 2, N˚ 2175 SFIM/MG. 42 ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse..., journées des 5, 6, 7 & 8 octobre 1962,” e, N˚ 1 765. 40 174 Figure 15: Harkis arriving in Rivesaltes from Bourg-Lastic on September 16, 1962. Source: Agence France-Presse Archives. On September 18, 1962 Minister of Armies Messmer issued a ten-page memo to the Regional Military commander for southwestern France, which enumerated “general rules” for the Rivesaltes camp’s structures, discipline, and cleanliness.43 Among the provisions, Messmer urged that each tent house only one family, collective toilets and sinks be installed, lighting be provided inside the tents, pipes be laid to vacate wastewater, and efforts be made to immediately reconstruct three blocks of barracks, most recently used to house prisoners during the Second World War.44 Yet these orders were not heeded. SHAT, 7T 253/3, Minister of Armies to the General Commanding the 9th Military Region, “Objet: Camps d’hébergement d’anciens supplétifs,” 7, Sept. 18, 1962. 44 Ibid., 3 and 5. 43 175 Below are accounts from a representative of the Ministry of Repatriates who visited the camp on a rainy October 15, retired General Secretary of the Ministry of Armies General Jean Olié who toured Rivesaltes one month later, and former Vice-President of the Algerian National Assembly Bachaga Boualam who visited his comrades just before Christmas 1962. The Repatriates official observed: … Tous les harkis… sont sous des tentes, le camp est boueux, l’eau coule sous les tentes. Une certaine amélioration de l’installation sanitaire a été effectuée mais les douches ne marchent pas encore faute de personnels compétents pour les faire fonctionner… Il ne semble pas que des ordres aient été donnés pour faire commencer les travaux de restauration de baraques réservées aux harkis… Il est impossible que cette situation soit maintenue plus longtemps… Il importe que les travaux de restauration soient entrepris immédiatement: les questions de devis ne pouvant huaminement [sic] retarder l’installation des familles dans des bâtiments durs…45 General Olié reported at a November 19 meeting of the CNMF: En résumé, Rivesaltes n’aurait jamais dû exister. Cette situation est indigne de la France; pitoyable: des êtres sont malheureux de notre fait. Malgré les efforts déjà accomplis, ils vivent dans des conditions matérielles navrantes, aggravées par l’oisiveté… Il faut loger ces malheureux qui sont actuellement sous des tentes sans chauffage ni électricité, dans des bâtiments en dur, éclairés et chauffés. Hygiène: les installations sanitaires sont très insuffisantes. Il faut des W.C., des douches, des salles de petits soins, un personnel médical plus nombreux (il y a une naissance par jour)… Les installations du camp s’améliorent… [mais] il reste néanmoins beaucoup à faire pour résorber un lourd handicap logistique et pour transformer totalement la vie du camp.46 Finally, the Bachaga Boualam, a Muslim notable who fought for France during the Algerian War for Independence, published the following account: Mille tentes de campagne où se retrouvaient à chaque crépuscule, serrées les unes contre les autres pour se préserver du froid… ÀRivesaltes, 2 500 harkis, des maires, des notables vivaient et dormaient sous des tentes déchiquetées par le vent avec ceux qu’ils ont pu sauver de leur famille, femmes, vieillards, enfants. 12 000 pauvres bougres entassés par dix, par douze, sous une tente, sans feu, sans CAC, 19920149/1 (dossier 6: Comptes rendus des tournées, décembre 1962-septembre 1965), Service d’accueil et de reclassement des Français d’Indochine et des Français musulmans (SFIM), “Compte rendu de la tournée au camp de Rivesaltes,” 1-2, Oct. 15, 1962. 46 André Wormser, Pour l’honneur des harkis, 1 an de combats, 45 années de lutte (Marseille: Éditionss Sillages, 2009), 12. The words “indigne” and “pitoyable” were underlined in the original text, a ten-page summary of a Nov. 19, 1962 meeting of the CNMF. 45 176 lumières. 5 000 gosses jouant avec des cailloux qui, le long des tentes, écorchaient leurs petits pieds nus. Oui, ils étaient là grelottants, ne comprenant rien à ce qui leur arrivait, accrochés à leur mère, en robe d’été…47 These firsthand testimonies differ in tone, which is necessarily linked to their authors. The first was a representative of the government that was responsible for the placing the harkis into such abysmal living conditions. The second was a member of an association created to aid the harkis and who had served in Algeria alongside of these men. And finally, the emblematic “pro-French Muslim” was trying to attract public attention to the plight of his brethren through the publication from 1962 to 1964 of three books, which decried the camps where the government housed harkis. Nevertheless, all of the excerpts provide a snapshot of unhygienic, cold, dark, overcrowded, and indignant living space, which they all agreed must be improved immediately. The government was not oblivious to these defects. To address the harkis’ poor living conditions, a group of local and national government and military officials who met on October 24, 1962 in Perpignan laid out a program for a joint effort to reconstruct by January 15, 1963 three blocks of crumbling barracks comprising 1,400 housing units. 48 The officials at the meeting underscored their desire to be able to use these reconstructed barracks for future populations which might later inhabit the camp, thereby emphasizing what they hoped would be a transitory experience by the camp’s harkis.49 However, in addition to a steady stream of new arrivals from Algeria, the Service d’Accueil et de Reclassement des Français d’Indochine et des Français Musulmans (SFIM)— the arm of the Ministry of Repatriates responsible for finding the harkis jobs and housing— encountered greater than anticipated difficulties in the successful reclassement of the harkis, which is detailed later in this chapter. As the population swelled from October to December 1962, which is Boualam, Les harkis au service, 268. SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Accueil à Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise, Rivesaltes, et Bias), Bureau Spécialisé de la Défense Nationale de la Préfecture des Pyrénées-Orientales, “Centre d’hébergement des supplétifs musulmans de Rivesaltes. Séance plénière de travail tenue à la Préfecture des Pyrénées-Orientales le 24 octobre 1962 à 10 H,” 2. 49 Ibid., 4. 47 48 177 depicted in figure 16, these officials were forced to augment the initial number of barracks. In the end, 1,554 twenty to twenty-five square meter housing units (cellules) were reconstructed between November 1962 and February 1963.50 Rivesaltes Camp Population, October 1962 - February 1964 10,000 9,000 8,000 Population 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 12 /2 10 10 /3 /6 2 9/ 62 /8 12 /6 /3 2 1/ 2/ 62 2/ 6 3/ 3 2/ 6 4/ 3 6/ 5/ 63 12 / 6/ 63 8/ 6 7/ 3 6/ 8/ 63 3/ 6 9/ 3 7/ 10 63 /5 / 11 63 /2 11 /6 /3 3 0 12 /6 /2 3 8/ 2/ 63 1/ 64 0 Figure 16: Monthly population statistics of the harkis residing 51 at the Rivesaltes camp from October 3, 1962 to February 1, 1964. However, torrential rain and floods in early November and initial difficulties finding masons to construct the barracks pushed back the project’s start by two weeks. To compensate for the latter, officials at the October 24 meeting decided to employ harkis in the renovation projects. This action would also address concerns SFIM Director Yves Pérony had about “l’inactivité prolongée [qui] SHAT, 13T 286, “Rapport du Colonel CASSAN Directeur des Travaux du Génie, relatif au Camp de Rivesaltes Hébergement des ex-supplétifs. Bilan des dépenses. Demande de crédits supplémentaires,” 2, N˚ 4018/Te, May 13, 1963. 51 The statistics from Dec. 8, 1962 to Dec. 28, 1963 were gathered from the compte-rendus hebdomadaires in SHAT 1R, 336/8 and SHAT 1R 337/1. The Oct. 3, 1962 figure is from ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse..., journées des 5, 6, 7 & 8 octobre 1962,” e, N˚ 1 765. And the Feb. 1, 1964 figure is from ACNMF, 3/2, “Situation des Rapatriés Musulmans au 1er février 1964.” 50 178 risque de dégrader le moral de ces personnes,”52 concerns that were later echoed many times by Messmer when he referred to Rivesaltes as a “univers concentrationnaire.” The state decided, however, that it would remunerate them at a rate inferior to that of local workers. Owing to their lower daily pay, which two weeks later was set at six new francs (the equivalent of approximately eight euros today when adjusted for inflation), 53 Pérony cautioned: “Il faut, cependant, faire attention aux contacts avec les ouvriers qui travailleront sur les chantiers. Ceux-ci, auront un salaire normal. La différence entre les deux systèmes pourrait être mal interprétée.”54 Separating the harkis from metropolitan workers on the campgrounds further inhibited their contacts with and implied their inferiority to other French citizens. On November 21, 1962, Prime Minister Georges Pompidou penned a letter to Messmer underscoring the persistence of problems. He asked about the specific measures that Messmer’s ministry would pursue to ameliorate the harkis’ “conditions de vie… très défectueuses,” which were aggravated by a particularly cold, rainy spell and a meager supply of warm clothing.55 At this time, all of the harkis—unused to the harsher French climate—still lived in tents without running water and electricity. Unsupervised harki men even resorted to scavenging wood from the adjacent vineyards, which they used to build fires to keep their families warm.56 Furthermore, there was no means to dispose of waste from the latrines, which led to problems with mosquitoes.57 This disorganization SHAT, 1K 744, Bureau Spécialisé de la Défense Nationale de la Préfecture des Pyrénées-Orientales, “Centre d’hébergement des supplétifs musulmans de Rivesaltes,” 3. 53 Letter N˚ 1738/SRIM/MG, Nov. 7, 1962 from the Minister of Repatriates, which provides this figure, is cited in: SHAT, 14T 92, 4e Bureau de l’État-Major de l’Armée (Terre), “Fiche relative à la réunion au Cabinet du Premier Ministre le 20/12/62 au sujet des Rapatriés (Camp de Rivesaltes),” 2, N˚ 309 EMAT/4/PFP, Dec. 21, 1962. Six new francs in 1962 was converted to eight euros in 2010 using a calculator on the website <http://inflation.free.fr/calcul.php>. 54 SHAT, 1K 744, Bureau Spécialisé de la Défense Nationale de la Préfecture des Pyrénées-Orientales, “Centre d’hébergement des supplétifs musulmans de Rivesaltes,” 5. 55 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Accueil à St. Maurice l’Ardoise, Rivesaltes et Bias), Prime Minister Pompidou to Minister of Armies Messmer, Nov. 21, 1962. 56 Ibid. 57 SHAT, 1K 744, Bureau Spécialisé de la Défense Nationale de la Préfecture des Pyrénées-Orientales, “Centre d’hébergement des supplétifs musulmans de Rivesaltes,” 6-7. 52 179 existed on multiple levels and did not end in January 1963 once all of the harkis were moved to hastily renovated buildings two to three kilometers from the tents that once sheltered them. Although the barracks that housed previous prisoner and refugee populations at Rivesaltes were dilapidated and filth-ridden, historians who have written about these internees disclose that they that lived in permanent structures (bâtiments en dur) during their time at the Rivesaltes camp.58 In contrast, harkis resided in canvas military tents—which some sources indicated were holdovers from the American military stationed in France during the Second World War—from September 15, 1962 until January 8, 1963 when the construction of permanent buildings was completed. As the chart in figure 17 indicates, three months after the camp opened, 75 percent of the population was still sheltered by tents, which offered little protection from December snowstorms, a rare occurrence for this region. Number of inhabitants Harkis’ housing at the Rivesaltes camp December 10, 1962 - January 8, 1963 8632 8062 7834 7032 5028 3588 Tents Buildings 1763 837 823 12/10/62 12/15/62 12/22/62 12/31/62 0 1/8/63 Figure 17: Housing of harkis at the Rivesaltes camp in tents versus buildings. 59 Boitel, Camp de Rivesaltes; Emmanuel Filhol, La mémoire et l’oubli: L’internement des Tsiganes en France, 1940-45 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2004); and Peschanski, La France des camps. 59 Sources: SHAT, 1R 336/8 and SHAT 1R 337/1, Weekly bulletins for Dec. 12, 1962, Dec. 15, 1962, Dec. 22, 1962, Dec. 31, 1962, and Jan. 13, 1963. 58 180 The tents were divided into two distinct areas in the military portion of the Joffre camp, located in the western zone of the camp (see figure 18). Based on experiences at the Larzac and Bourg-Lastic camps, Messmer issued a detailed memo to the Commander of the military region that encompassed Rivesaltes enumerating the general rules for the organization and functioning of the newly-opened camp. 60 He gave orders to break each area into villages, which were to house a maximum of five hundred people. The villages were further divided into ilôts (housing blocks) grouping two to three villages. The first set of villages (represented by the top two blue squares in figure 18) grouped harki soldiers and their families who had been transferred from Bourg-Lastic along with the new arrivals from Algeria who disembarked in Marseille or in nearby Port-Vendres. A second group of villages contained those transferred in late September from the Larzac camp (the blue quadrilateral located south of the Bourg-Lastic villages in figure 18). The placement of the harkis into tents was significant because this physical separation reinforced the overriding separateness and segregation of the harkis from their surrounding community. SHAT, 7T 253/3, Minister of Armies to the General Commanding the 9th Military Region, (signed by General Lagarde), “Objet: Camps d’hébergement d’anciens supplétifs,” 7, N˚ 8.864/EMAT/4-P, Sept. 18, 1962. 60 181 Figure 18: Sketch of the Rivesaltes camp in the fall of 1962. Source: SHAT 1R 336/8. Photograph of the document taken by the author with special permission. Between the northern and southern groups of tents were an officer’s mess hall and two villages made of permanent structures. Block M housed the 124th military company of metropolitan conscripts who trained on the grounds. Block N sheltered active duty tirailleurs algériens and their families who were awaiting transfer to the Franco-German border; they numbered 148 people on November 10.61 Placing the harkis next to these soldiers proved perilous. A December 1-3, 1962 police report indicated that “un antagonisme certain” existed between the harkis and the Algerian soldiers because some of the latter had allegiances to the FLN, whose members’ violence toward the harkis was one of the principle factors that had pushed them from Algeria. The same report additionally revealed that a group of tirailleurs raped an unspecified number of twelve to fifteen year SHAT, 14T 92, General Le Puloch, Chief of Staff of the Army, to the Military Cabinet of the Minister of Armies, “Objet: Camp de Rivesaltes,” 1, N˚ 10775 EMAT/CB, Nov. 10, 1962. 61 182 old harki daughters.62 The proximity to the tirailleurs algériens, who were housed in buildings and not tents, also served a reminder of the harkis’ inferior status as auxiliary soldiers during the colonial era. During the Algerian War for Independence, unlike the tirailleurs who had six-month contracts, the April 1956 directive issued by the Resident Minister in Algeria Robert Lacoste officially creating harkas cited these new troops as “formations militaries temporaires” under the Prime Minister who were only eligible for renewable one-day contracts.63 Consequently, the harkis were not eligible for valuable social advantages given to the tirailleurs, such as welfare benefits for their families (allocations familiales) and health insurance (sécurité sociale).64 The camp’s civil section, under the authority of the Interior Ministry while being staffed by military officers and civilian employees, was located across the road that bisected the camp, as depicted in figure 18. The supplies corps (intendance), containing food, linens, and other supplies for the harki families, was situated at the northernmost portion of the camp. Just to the south was the camp direction (40e Compagnie de Camp). Located in block J, it contained amenities not present in the buildings constructed for the harkis. The remnants of the director’s house and the barracks for camp officers, which are still visible today, include tiled floors, building frames made of bricks, painted yellow exterior walls, large windows, and sinks for running water. Deciduous trees protected the officers’ houses from la tramontane—a violent, cold northwesterly wind gusting up to 120 kilometers per hour—and provided shade during sweltering summer days. Further, these barracks were less densely populated than the tents or permanent structures the harkis inhabited, thereby affording the residents more personal space. ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse..., journées des 1, 2 et 3 décembre 1962,” d, N˚ 1 803 Ageron, “Les supplétifs algériens,” 5. The harkis were granted daily contracts for over five years until a decree issued only four and a half months before the Mar. 1962 ceasefire increased the duration to one month. JORF, Prime Minister, “Décret n˚ 61-1201 du 6 novembre 1961 portant réglementation applicable aux personnels des harkas en Algérie,” Nov. 7, 1961, 10164-65. 64 Ageron, “Les supplétifs algériens,” 6. 62 63 183 To block J’s south was the engineer corps (block P, Génie); it contained building supplies and offices for those in charge of reconstructing the camp. Just to the west of block P was a general infirmary and a maternity unit for women (Santé), which were constructed to reduce the number of harkis who were sent to the Perpignan hospital.65 Nevertheless, according to weekly telegrams from the camp director to Messmer, approximately twenty seriously ill were hospitalized per week in Perpignan during the winter and the spring of 1963.66 As a result of the large number of patients from the Rivesaltes camp, a military wing was created specifically for harkis at Perpignan’s Centre Hospitalier Maréchal Joffre in October 1963. This special unit served to divide them from the rest of the hospital’s population, just as the camp separated the harkis from their Rivesaltais neighbors. The block labeled Mangin on figure 18 was destined for schooling harki children. It contained twenty-six classrooms, an administrative building, living quarters for teachers, and four groups of outhouses, all of which were converted in late 1962 and early 1963 from their previous usage as barracks.67 Attending school buildings on the campgrounds geographically separated harki children apart from other French children and served as a physical impediment to the harki children’s inclusion into the French nation, for the school was recognized since the Third Republic as a vital means of socialization allowing children to become French citizens. Blocks O and Q housed the centres de formation professionnelle accélérée (CFPA), mentioned earlier in the chapter, which provided job training for civilians and for military personnel returning to civilian life. The harkis rarely attended these FPA centers that remained open until January 1965. They had their own facility that opened in November in block K. Block K was a centre de préformation, which separated the harkis deemed unfit, owing to their rudimentary SHAT, 1K 744, Bureau Spécialisé de la Défense Nationale de la Préfecture des Pyrénées-Orientales, “Centre d’hébergement des supplétifs musulmans de Rivesaltes,” 6. 66 This figure was calculated using weekly bulletins located in: SHAT, 1R 336/8 and SHAT, 1R 337/1. 67 SHAT, 14T 92 (dossier: Travaux), Minister of Armies to the General Commanding the 9th Military Region (signed by General Pagès, Directeur Adjoint du Direction Centrale du Génie), 2, n˚ 5931 DCG/T2, Nov. 27, 1962. 65 184 educational background in Algeria and linguistic skills, to attend classes with other French citizens. The block contained seventy barracks, six of which housed the center’s instructors.68 The préformation classes are discussed later in this chapter. Rounding out the civil camp were the three blocks in disrepair located on the camp’s easternmost extremity (E, B, and F on figure 18) that were renovated to house harki families. These had last been used during the Second World War for prisoners and refugees and in the year after southern France’s liberation for suspected collaborators. The slow start to construction, which was compounded by delays in available funds, however did not delay moving the harkis into these permanent structures.69 According to Messmer, thanks to expedited efforts by local construction workers in late December and early January, all harki families had migrated the one to three kilometers from their tents into the renovated barracks by January 8, 1963, even though all buildings were not completed until the end of February 1963. 70 Each distinct housing block measured approximately one square kilometer with barracks laid out in rows with as many as thirteen buildings next to each other, the same layout used during the camp’s previous iterations.71 The three blocks were divided into villages housing around 1,000 people. Each village was further split into two or three neighborhoods, each of which contained six to ten barracks.72 These structures, like the tents, were both cause and effect of the power relationship between the harkis and the French government. The cramped, unsanitary conditions in the barracks were simultaneously a means for camp officials SHAT, 1K 744, Bureau Spécialisé de la Défense Nationale de la Préfecture des Pyrénées-Orientales, “Centre d’hébergement des supplétifs musulmans de Rivesaltes,” 8. 69 SHAT, 14T 92 (dossier: Travaux), General Houssay, Commander of the 9th Military Region, “Compte rendu de mission du Chef de Bataillon LE HENAFF de la Direction Centrale du Génie,” 7, N˚ 6239 DCG/T2, Dec. 17, 1962. 70 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Point de la situation des Harkis), Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer to Deputy Pierre Bas (Paris), N˚001814 MA-CC, Jan. 22, 1963. 71 AN, F1a 5140, Génie-Direction de Toulouse, “Petit atlas des bâtiments militaires, Camp Joffre à Rivesaltes (PyrénéesOrientales).” 72 ADPO, 1111 PER 73, L’Indépendant, “Nous sommes mieux que chez nous, disent les harkis (ET C’EST VRAI),” Mar. 22, 1963. 68 185 to exert dominance over the harkis and a consequence of the government’s decision to house them in a camp. The harkis’ new homes measured between twenty and twenty-five square meters in a refurbished rectangular building, which consisted of three to five units, as pictured in figures 19 and 20. The walls dividing each unit, not shown in figure 19 (which was photographed in 2007), were located where the diagonal wooden beams stretch from midway down the wall. Barrack walls were made of painted cement blocks and the cathedral ceiling had a wood frame covered by asbestos sheets, cement, and tiles.73 Each dwelling was accessible from the outside by a wooden door, which had a small window above it; all but one per barrack had doors on the same long side of the building. Opposite each of the doors on the long side were two windows measuring one-half meter by onehalf meter, which were four meters from the ground. The other unit, however, had its door at the end of the barrack and one window on each of the walls on the long side of the building. The windows’ placement limited the light that entered the homes and, according to one harki woman named Zohra (speaking in a published 2004 interview), these small, high windows gave the barracks a prison feel.74 Electricity supplemented the natural light in the units, while a small woodstove located in a corner heated the harkis’ homes in the winter, often insufficiently. An October 15, 1963 letter to Messmer from a National Assembly deputy representing the Pyrénées-Orientales evidenced this fact. André Tourné revealed that the harkis were cutting down adjacent almond trees in order to keep themselves warm; for example, they destroyed 120 of the 300 trees on one local farmer’s property, causing him to lose at least 150,000 francs.75 The woodstoves were also used to cook their food rations since they no longer ate food that camp employees (including a small number of harkis) or by harki women for their own families in the communal kitchens set up next to the tents AN, F1a 5140, Yves Pérony (Directeur du SFIM), “Note pour M. le Directeur de l’Administration Générale et de l’Accueil,” N˚ 1708/SFIM/MG, Nov. 2, 1962. 74 Fatima Besnaci-Lancou, Nos mères, paroles blessées. Une autre histoire de harkis (Lunay: Zellige, 2006), 34. 75 SHAT, 19T 257/2, Deputy André Tourné (Pyrénées-Orientales) to the Minister of Armies, Oct. 15, 1963. 73 186 prepared. According to a camp official quoted in a March 22, 1963 article in the local newspaper L’Indépendant, which was based on the first visit ever made by the media to the camp, “Tous les jours, chaque personne reçoit 150 grammes de viande, du pain à volonté, des légumes, des conserves, des desserts. Nous distribuons donc l’équivalent de 3 NF par personne (tout étant obtenu au prix de gros).”76 This official claimed that a total of one ton of meat, four tons of bread, and twenty-three tons of wood were distributed each morning at the camp.77 Figure 19: Hollowed out barrack. Photograph taken by the author in January 2007. ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “Nous sommes mieux que chez nous, disent les harkis (ET C’EST VRAI),” L’Indépendant, Mar. 22, 1963. 77 Ibid. 76 187 Figure 20: Still shot from the July 1963 television documentary, “C’étaient les harkis,” showing the dimensions and layout of the barracks. Source: Cinq colonnes à la une, dir. Jean-Claude Bringuier, RTF (July 7, 1963). The same article described the interior of the harkis’ homes and demonstrates their attempts at appropriating these spaces. Rugs, pieces of embroidery, and the former soldiers’ military uniform—and even pictures of camels, palm trees, and tents that they had drawn themselves—hid the drab cement walls in some of the units.78 The harkis seemingly chose these items as a “tactic” (in a Certelian sense), or a type of “mimicry” (à la Homi Bhabha), to turn the stark and monotonous buildings, which exerted power over the harkis by their very architecture, into more familiar surroundings.79 The men presumably hung their military uniforms—which they were not permitted to wear on the camp grounds so that they would not be confused with enlisted French Muslim soldiers—to recall their service to, and perhaps justify their belonging in, France. The harkis’ homes had no internal plumbing. Instead, families carried water from spigots located on the camp’s perimeter, which were as much as a kilometer away from the barracks.80 Turkish-style toilets in rows of ten constructed at the same time as the barracks were contained in Ibid. For a discussion of the notions of “tactics,” see Michel de Certeau, “Faire avec: Usages et tactiques,” L’Invention du quotidien, 1. Arts de faire (Paris: Gallimard, 1990), 50-68. For a succinct explanation of mimicry, see Homi Bhabha, “Of Mimicry and Man,” in Tensions of Empire, eds. Cooper and Stoler, 152-160. 80 AN, F1a 5140, Génie-Direction de Toulouse, “Petit atlas des bâtiments militaires…” 78 79 188 rudimentary outhouses. As the photograph in figure 21 demonstrates, the stalls afforded individuals little privacy and had limited protection from the external elements. There was no sewage system for the toilets. Alternatively, a Perpignan waste management company emptied the raw sewage every two days.81 The hygiene concerns resulting from this insalubrious situation were compounded by the outdated sewerage system in the adjacent military section of the camp. Effluents flowed untreated through a pipe 250 millimeters in diameter and four kilometers in length into the nearby Agly River, also provoking questions of potential sanitary problems for the surrounding community.82 Figure 21: Outhouses with Turkish toilets on the camp grounds. Photograph taken by the author in January 2007. Discussions among government officials about whether to build a water purification plant and a sewerage system to combat these unsanitary conditions provide an example of how budgetary constraints and disagreements between the Ministry of Armies and the Ministry of Repatriates SHAT, 14T 92 (dossier: Travaux), General Houssay, Commander of the 9th Military Region, “Compte rendu de mission du Chef de Bataillon LE HENAFF de la Direction Centrale du Génie,” 5, N˚ 6239 DCG/T2, Dec. 17, 1962. 82 SHAT, 13T 286, Brigadier General PLENIER (Directeur de la Section Technique des Bâtiments, Fortifications et Travaux) to the Minister of Armies (Direction Centrale du Génie), “Objet: Camp de RIVESALTES (PyrénéesOrientales) Travaux d’hébergement des ex-supplétifs – Amélioration des installations sanitaires,” 2, July 16, 1963. 81 189 affected the camp’s physical structures and, consequently, the harkis’ living conditions. During the aforementioned October 24, 1962 meeting at the Pyrénées-Orientales prefecture, the prefect was charged with looking into constructing this system. National officials stressed that it would not only serve the current population, but also future ones that might live on the camp grounds.83 However, when the budget was submitted the next day, no previsions were made for a water purification plant or a sewerage system.84 As the weather warmed in the spring and no improvements had been made, Army officials were concerned that camp dwellers and locals alike would be susceptible to health epidemics. In addition to problems provoked by the raw sewage that remained in the latrines, these officials feared that the shallow Agly River would dry up in the summer, as it habitually did, thereby fostering the spread of disease. In a May 10, 1963 letter, Messmer wrote to Pérony that it had become urgently necessary to build a water purification plant and a sewerage system for the camp.85 With no money for these in the Army’s budget, Messmer requested 1.5 million francs from the Ministry of Repatriates, underscoring that “[c]e besoin correspond uniquement à la situation actuelle et n’est pas imposé par l’utilisation ultérieure du camp militaire qui ne saurait être ni prolongée ni massive puisque la destination militaire retenue pour ce camp est celle d’un camp de transit.”86 This request was complicated by the fact that it would take a year and a half to two years to build these facilities. By this time, it was estimated that almost all, if not all, of the harkis would have evacuated the Rivesaltes camp. Pérony replied a month later that the Ministry of Repatriates would not allocate such funds from its budget, which led Messmer to ask the Director of the Army’s Health Services whether the lack of a proper sewage system really posed a risk to camp dwellers and neighboring Rivesaltes residents, whether the Army could resort to the massive use of disinfectants and, with a SHAT, 1K 744, Bureau Spécialisé de la Défense Nationale de la Préfecture des Pyrénées-Orientales, “Centre d’hébergement des supplétifs musulmans de Rivesaltes…,” 6. 84 SHAT, 13T 286, “Rapport du Colonel CASSAN Directeur des Travaux du Génie, relatif au Camp de Rivesaltes Hébergement des ex-supplétifs. Bilan des dépenses. Demande de crédits supplémentaires,” 1, N˚ 4018/Te, May 13, 1963. 85 SHAT, 13T 286, the Minister of Armies to the Cabinet of the Minister of Repatriates, “Objet: Amélioration des installations sanitaires du Camp de RIVESALTES,” 1-2, N˚ 012052 MA/CC, May 10, 1963. 86 Ibid., 1. 83 190 new wave of harkis expected to arrive, the maximum population the current facilities would allow.87 The Director responded after a June 18 visit to the camp with an Army epidemiologist that the current system, even if it violated public hygiene laws, did not increase local residents’ risk of disease and that recourse to massive quantities of disinfectants would be a viable solution.88 The possibility of building a sewerage system and water purification plant for the harkis’ section of the camp to conform to public hygiene standards and reduce the risk of disease was thus swept away. Refusals by both the Ministry of Armies and Ministry of Repatriates to provide the necessary funds to make what Messmer had referred to in his May 10, 1963 letter to Minister of Repatriates Missoffe as “améliorations indispensables” ended the project.89 The uncertainty of the length of the harkis’ stay at the Rivesaltes camp, much like their ambiguous status, led both ministries to shift the responsibility for the camp’s upkeep onto each other. Ministry of Armies officials believed that the improvements had to be made immediately purely to address the current situation. On the contrary, Ministry of Repatriates officials claimed that they lacked the appropriate funds for facilities that would only be realized after the harkis evacuated the camp and their ministry no longer would be responsible for the camp’s maintenance. Once both ministries refused to finance the improvements, reports from Army officials in summer 1963 turned toward minimizing the health risks for the harkis and locals. For example, an army official reported after an early July visit by technical officers, “Malgré ce système d’assainissement rudimentaire la situation sanitaire de SHAT, 13T 286 and SHAT, 14T 92 (dossier: Travaux), Pierre Messmer, “Note pour le Médecin Général Directeur du Service de Santé, Objet: Amélioration des installations sanitaires du Camp de RIVESALTES,” N˚ 015046/MA/CC, June 12, 1963. 88 SHAT, 1R 337/1, Inspector general Dr. Debenedetti (Director of the Army’s Health Services), “Note pour le Cabinet de M. le Ministre des Armées, Objet: Amélioration des installations sanitaires du Camp de Rivesaltes,” 2, N˚ 2244 2/T/DCSSA, June 29, 1963. 89 SHAT, 13T 286, the Minister of Armies to the Cabinet of the Minister of Repatriates, “Objet: Amélioration des installations sanitaires du Camp de RIVESALTES,” 2, N˚ 012052 MA/CC, May 10, 1963. 87 191 ce camp est satisfaisante,” a statement in complete contradiction with the sanitary concerns expressed since the harkis had arrived at the camp the previous September.90 The harkis’ cramped living situation in the tents and barracks led to health problems, which the government ultimately chose to blame on the harkis’ inferior and foreign ways and not on the buildings. In January 1963 Dr. Aujaleu, the Ministry of Health’s public health director, warned top Repatriates official Yves Pérony of a tuberculosis epidemic sweeping through the camp. He attributed the spread of the disease to “les conditions de promiscuité dans lesquelles vivent les membres d’une même famille, et les familles de harkis entre elles, qu’elles habitent sous tente, ou dans des bâtiments en dur,” as well as many harkis’ refusal to be hospitalized when infected.91 The two-room barracks in which harki families lived well exceeded the legal population limit for public housing facilities. According to article twenty of a June 30, 1961 decree, which enumerated “population conditions” for residences constructed by the state, dwellings housing more than three occupants must contain at least three rooms.92 This requirement was disregarded when housing harkis, even after they were moved from the tents to the permanent structures. Between children and the occasional extended family members, households exceeded the three-person limit almost without exception. While in January 1963 Aujaleu wrote that the camp’s physical structures provoked these unsanitary conditions and were obstacles to his Ministry’s ability to “assurer une protection sanitaire efficace,” a few months later with tuberculosis still propagating in the camp, he shifted the blame SHAT, 13T 286, Le Général de Brigade PLENIER, Directeur de la Section Technique des Bâtiments, Fortifications et Travaux à Monsieur le Ministre des Armées, Direction Centrale du Génie, “Objet: Camp de RIVESALTES (PyrénéesOrientales) Travaux d’hébergement des ex-supplétifs – Amélioration des installations sanitaires,” 2, July 16, 1963. 91 SHAT, 1R 336/6, Director of Public Health (Dr. Aujaleu) to the Minister of Repatriates (to the attention of M. Pérony), “Objet: Lutte antituberculeuse dans les camps ou les chantiers forestiers qui groupent des harkis (dépistage, hospitalisation, vaccination par le BCG),” DGSP/HS 6, Jan. 8, 1963. 92 This passage from the June 30, 1961 decree was attached to: CAC, 19920149/1/6, SFIM, “Compte rendu de la tournée au camp de Rivesaltes,” Oct. 15, 1962. 90 192 from the physical space to the harkis themselves.93 The Director of the Army’s health services claimed that the disease was spreading not because of a lack of medical treatment: “… [I]l est nécessaire d’observer que les us et les coutumes de ces populations posaient des difficultés du même ordre aux dispensaires qui œuvraient en Algérie, et que leur transplantation en Métropole n’a pas modifié radicalement leurs traditions ancestrales.”94 Unlike the January letter that voiced concerns about the difficulties that the physical dwellings engendered for the harkis’ health, this correspondence contained no reference to their overcrowded living conditions in the barracks as a reason for the spread of tuberculosis. Instead, health officials chose to turn the disease-prone Muslims into scapegoats for the spread of tuberculosis. They would not recognize that such outbreaks were endemic to the camp space where the government opted to house the harkis. Epidemics had been consistently present throughout Rivesaltes’ history as a refugee and prisoner of war camp. The camp structures and the insalubrious living conditions they induced directly contributed to the harkis’ physical exile from the surrounding French community and, in turn, stressed that the harkis were refugees and foreigners on French soil. Portions of the Rivesaltes camp were encircled by barbed wire, a material which functioned not only to prevent people inside from leaving, but also to prevent those outside from being able to have contact with the harkis. 95 The physical and psychological constraints created by the Rivesaltes camp echoed the division between Muslims and French during the colonial era, divisions that were exemplified in North African cities by the indigenous casbah or medina juxtaposed with the rebuilt modern European city96 and in metropolitan SHAT, 1R 336/6, Dr. Aujaleu, “Objet: Lutte antituberculeuse dans les camps…” SHAT, 1R 336/6, Central Administration of the Armies Health Service to the Minister of Armies’ Military Cabinet, “Objet: Problème de la lutte antituberculeuse dans les camps,” Mar. 4, 1963. 95 On the political function and history of barbed wire, see Olivier Razac, Histoire politique du barbelé: la prairie, la tranchée, le camp (Paris: Fabrique, 2000). 96 For a description of French architectural and urban policies in its colonies, see Gwendolyn Wright, “Tradition in the Service of Modernity. Architecture and Urbanism in French Colonial Policy, 1900-1930,” in Tensions of Empire, eds. Cooper and Stoler, 322-345. 93 94 193 France by the strictly monitored dormitories (SONACOTRAL foyers) for migrant workers.97 These types of spaces often imposed a physical barrier—such as a wall or fence—as a marker differentiating French and Muslim populations. The camp’s architecture continually reminded harkis of their inferiority to other French citizens by relying on visible markers such as the barbed wire fencing, tents, and barracks that disfigured the Catalan countryside and implicitly proclaimed their power over the camp’s subjugated populations. However, how government officials used the camp’s physical space was not the only way that they exerted control over the harki population residing in Rivesaltes. An intricate network of military officers, policemen, and Ministry of Repatriates’ employees closely monitored their movements and daily life. The Power of Encadrement As mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, encadrement is the term the government employed to describe state agents’ strict control over the harkis’ quotidian life. The French verb encadrer, which means “to surround with a frame,” provides a fitting image of how the Rivesaltes camp’s physical space, state agents’ authority over the harkis, and obligatory classes to prepare them for metropolitan life created physical and psychological borders around the harkis. The military structures, especially the unused watchtowers dotting the camp’s perimeter, suggest an “architecture of domination” over the harki population who inhabited this space. In Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison, Michel Foucault demonstrates that modern Western society shifted during the eighteenth century from a “spectacle punitif” of torture and execution of the body to more disciplinary actions whose focus was henceforth on the prisoner’s soul, to the very essence of his being.98 Employing the example of the panopticon prison, Foucault contends that power is now more complex and dispersed among actors representing the state who act as disciplinarians toward the populations they 97 98 For a discussion of the history of the SONACOTRA foyers, see: Hmed, “Loger les étrangers ‘isolés.’” Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir: Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975), 14-15. 194 watch over: “… toute une armée de techniciens est venue prendre la relève du bourreau, anatomiste immédiat de la souffrance: les surveillants, les médecins, les aumôniers, les psychiatres, les psychologues, les éducateurs…”99 While the Rivesaltes camp was not a prison, the state nonetheless employed “une armée de techniciens”—doctors, policemen, social workers, and teachers—to exercise power over, and encadrer, the harkis. The relations of power in the Rivesaltes camp echo Foucault’s notion of modern “biopower,” that is, the simultaneous use of disciplinary actions over individuals exercised at the local level and the state regulation of populations, which he calls a “technology of security.”100 The Rivesaltes harki population fits into this Foucauldian paradigm since the state viewed it as an “internal danger” from which the “security of the whole” needed to be protected.101 In a December 1962 letter, Minister of Armies Messmer warned Prime Minister Pompidou that turning the camp into a more permanent residence risked endangering “la sécurité des régions avoisinantes.” 102 Another way that the biopower paradigm applies to the harki population is through the state’s housing policies that differentiated repatriates based on their ethnicity. Foucault underscores that the basic mechanism of biopower is racism, which he defines as: “The appearance within the biological continuum of the human race of races, the distinction among races, the hierarchy of races, the fact that certain races are described as good and that others, in contrast, are described as inferior.”103 Racism is a means for the state to separate and hierarchize populations, which occurred when the French government differentiated the returning pieds-noirs of European and Jewish descent from the Arab and Berber Ibid., 18. Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended,” 249-250. 101 Ibid., 249. 102 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Camps–Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise), Minister of Armies Messmer to Prime Minister Pompidou, N˚ 031038 MA/CC, Dec. 10, 1962. 103 Foucault, “Society Must be Defended,” 254-255. 99 100 195 harkis. It created different institutions to regulate their arrival and life in metropolitan France and provided different spaces for them to live.104 The government advanced several reasons to justify the strict regime of encadrement at Rivesaltes. Foremost, it believed that this type of surveillance would be a means to prevent harkis from joining two potentially dangerous groups created during the Algerian War for Independence: the FLN and the OAS. This fear—and treatment—predated the harkis’ arrival at the Rivesaltes camp. Encadrement was repeatedly invoked as the dynamic structure of relations between harki soldiers and their superiors in the French Army. François-Xavier Hautreux maintains that during the Algerian War for Independence, “les directives de l’état-major insistent sur la nécessité de l’encadrement et de la surveillance de ces nouvelles recrues [harkis], mais également de leurs familles, par le biais desquelles le FLN est censé exercer sa propagande.”105 Concern about the OAS, which was portrayed in various media outlets as actively recruiting the harkis who arrived in France (as cited in chapter two), manifested itself when hiring camp staff. The government simultaneously preferred to employ those who had lived in Algeria, whether European or Arab, because of their familiarity with “le milieu nord-africain” yet acted circumspectly with these individuals because of their possible link to the OAS. For example, an August 1962 note signed by a pied-noir Army sergeant who was employed as a contract worker at the Bourg-Lastic camp (and subsequently transferred to Rivesaltes) stated: “Je soussigné G. Angélo Agent Contractuel de la Mission des Rapatriés de Bourg-Lastic (Puy-de-Dôme) déclare sur l’honneur ne jamais avoir été pris en compte par un organisme quelconque à mon retour d’Algérie.”106 Fears about aftershocks of the recently lost war in metropolitan France, therefore, provide the primary motivation for encadrement. Frederick Cooper discusses the concept of differentiation in Colonialism in Question, 154. Additionally, Mahmood Mamdani focuses his work, Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism, (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996), on the regime of differentiation, which he defines as “institutional segregation.” 105 Hautreux, “Engagement des harkis,” 37-38. 106 CAC, 19970146/3 (dossier: personnel Angélo G.), handwritten note by Angélo G., Bourg-Lastic, Aug. 23, 1962. 104 196 The government further regarded this principle as a panacea for the grave problems encountered during the first few months that Rivesaltes was open. In particular, episodes of violence threatened the camp’s stability and endangered the security of neighboring regions, according to Messmer.107 In addition to the group of tirailleurs that raped an unspecified number of twelve to fifteen year old harki daughters mentioned above, police reports disclosed several troubling events. In October one harki beat another to death108 and a grenade exploded in close proximity to a group of harkis. 109 The next month the gendarmerie seized a 7.65 caliber pistol from a harki. 110 Furthermore, while the women spent their days tending to their children, the men did not have jobs and, in the words of Pompidou, their idleness left them to “flân[er] aux environs” and to stray as far as Perpignan.111 Pompidou directly attributed the “oisiveté” that provoked such dangerous incidents and the ability for the harkis to the absence of a camp director, and a lack of “encadrement et … contrôle de police appropriés,” that is, troops who had recently returned from Algeria.112 The tight surveillance necessary for such control was complicated by a dearth of personnel. On October 30 there were only two social workers113 and four nurses working at the camp.114 By November 8, 1962, the Army had assigned 69 military officers, some of who had not yet reported for duty, for the camp’s 8,200 harkis.115 Moreover, from the time that the camp opened there was lack of military police to guarantee the camp’s security, as the episodes of violence cited above demonstrate. SHAT, 1R 336/8, Letter from Messmer to Pompidou, Dec. 10, 1962. ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse…, journée du 17 octobre 1962,” 1, N˚ 1 772. 109 ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse..., journées des 27, 28 et 29 octobre 1962,” 1, N˚ 1 780. 110 ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse..., journée du 27 novembre 1962,” 1, N˚ 1 799. 111 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Camps–Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise), Prime Minister Pompidou to the Cabinet of the Minister of Armies, Nov. 21, 1962. 112 Ibid. 113 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Camps–Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise), M. Moullet, “Objet: Le camp de Rivesaltes,” N˚ 43219 MA/CM, Oct. 30, 1962. 114 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Camps–Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise), M. Moullet, “Objet: Service de santé au camp de Rivesaltes,” N˚ 43217 MA/CM, Oct. 30, 1962. 115 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Camps–Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise), General Lagarde, “Note pour la Direction des Personnels Militaires de l’Armée de Terre,” N˚ 3458 EMAT/1.E., Nov. 13, 1962. 107 108 197 However, the national Commander of the Gendarmerie was reticent to send more military police to the Rivesaltes camp because he believed his men should be reserved for conflicts on foreign soil: “les postes prévotales [sic] ne peuvent être installés en France, mais seulement dans des pays occupés militairement.” 116 The Commander’s position reflects the camp’s fundamental contradiction: were the space and the harkis foreign? Military police were deployed to watch over the harkis at Rivesaltes, which implies that the camp was an “occupied foreign country” (following the Commander’s reason), yet the space was located on metropolitan soil and it lodged French citizens. This ambiguity created difficulties in how to run the camp. Prime Minister Pompidou blamed these shortcomings squarely on the Ministry of Armies because, according to a August 22, 1962 Interministerial Council meeting, this ministry was responsible for providing the harkis with shelter, food, security, encadrement, leisure activities, and job training.117 In a December 8 letter to Minister of Armies Messmer, Pompidou seemed less concerned with the Ministry of Repatriate’s accountability for the camp’s failures, even though this ministry had the responsibility of paying the camp personnel’s salaries and of placing the harkis in jobs around France to ensure that the camp remained a transitory space.118 Pompidou argued that because “les refugiés … sont d’ailleurs habitués à une organisation de type militaire comportant un encadrement solide” they should be subject to stricter discipline.119 He also encouraged Messmer to implement at CAC, 19920149/1 (dossier 6: Comptes rendus des tournées, décembre 1962-septembre 1965), SFIM, “Compte rendu de la tournée au camp de Rivesaltes,” 2, Oct. 15, 1962. 117 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Conseils interministériels), “Relevé de décisions du Conseil restreint du mercredi 22 août 1962, à 10h30, au sujet des mesures à prendre en ce qui concerne les rapatriés et les problèmes de l’ordre public,” 1. The following ministers and secretaries of state were present at the meeting: Pompidou (Prime Minister), Joxe (Algerian Affairs), Frey (Interior), Giscard d’Estaing (Finance and Economic Affairs), Sudreau (Education), Pisani (Agriculture), Grandval (Labor), Maziol (Construction), Peyrefitte (Information), and Boulin (Repatriates). Oddly, Minister of Armies Messmer was not present. Yet he was later critical of the decision to require his ministry to foster so much manpower for the harkis’ sustenance and to split the costs with the Ministry of Repatriates for employing these personnel and for constructing and restoring barracks. 118 For a breakdown of the division of finances between the two ministries, see SHAT, 1R 336/8, Ministry of Armies, Financial Services Administration, “Note relative aux problèmes financiers posés par l’installation et le fonctionnement des camps d’ex-supplétifs de Rivesaltes et de Saint-Maurice l’Ardoise,” 3-4, N˚ 2952 MA/DSF/1, Nov. 22, 1962. 119 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Accueil à Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise et à Rivesaltes), Prime Minister Pompidou to Minister of Armies Messmer, Dec. 8, 1962. 116 198 the Rivesaltes camp the stricter disciplinary measures in place at the smaller Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camp. 120 Messmer responded on December 10 by asserting that there were more problems at Rivesaltes because it had double the population. Furthermore, he declared that unlike the SaintMaurice-l’Ardoise harkis, many of the Rivesaltes-dwelling harkis had arrived in France in early summer 1962, before the massive FLN violence campaign began in Algeria. Therefore, he reasoned that the atmosphere of terror that the more recently arriving migrants had experienced in Algeria made them more amenable to military discipline. Messmer defended his ministry by revealing that he had recently appointed a camp director who had served two tours of duty in Algeria and that he had given orders for more gendarmes to serve on the camp grounds. Moreover, he evoked the Ministry of Repatriates’ failure to find the harkis jobs as a major factor in the camp’s difficulties.121 Messmer did agree, nonetheless, that the Rivesaltes harkis needed more encadrement. Although he maintained that his ministry no longer considered the harkis as members of the French Army, he asserted in a letter to the Chief of Staff of the Army that “il convient de leur appliquer une organisation et des habitudes de vie militaire: fractionnement en groupes placés sous les ordres d’un Officier ou SousOfficier, entretien du camp et de ses abords, surveillance de la circulation, des entrées et des sorties, les déplacements à l’extérieur devant être limités.”122 In this way, Messmer appeared to view the Rivesaltes-dwelling harkis in the same optic as the Army had seen its colonial soldiers. A May 20, 1957 Army memorandum outlining the role of the harki units, or harkas, stressed: “En aucun cas les harkas ne doivent être engagées isolément.”123 Like the May 1957 memorandum Messmer advocated, in December 1962, that military authorities must closely watch over the movements of former harki soldiers. SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Accueil à Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise et à Rivesaltes), Prime Minister Pompidou to Minister of Armies Messmer, Dec. 8, 1962. 121 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Camps–Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise), Minister of Armies Messmer to Prime Minister Pompidou, N˚ 031038 MA/CC, Dec. 10, 1962. 122 SHAT, 1K 774 (dossier: Accueil à Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise et à Rivesaltes), Pierre Messmer to the Chief of Staff of the Army, “Objet: Camps d’ex-supplétifs Musulmans,” N˚ 48353 MA/CM, Dec. 10, 1962. 123 Hautreux, “Engagement des harkis,” 36. 120 199 The other measures taken to remedy the camp’s faults also hinged on the premises of increasing the control over the harkis’ lives and of having “une conception moins ‘civile’” of the harkis’ living situation, in essence one more in line with conceptions during the colonial era.124 The most obvious way to “maintain order” was to augment the number of officers both inside and around the camp.125 The Army reinforced this military hierarchy with a similar structure of harkis who would thus participate in their own surveillance, a function that harkis had performed in the harka units during the Algerian War for Independence and that kapos (Jewish prisoners) had performed in concentration and extermination camps during the Holocaust.126 Men chosen for these positions at Rivesaltes had to be able to converse in French with the military personnel in charge and often acted as translators with those who only spoke Berber or Arabic dialects. French-speaking harkis had fulfilled this same function during the war. To compensate for his lack of on-site presence at the camp, on November 30, 1962 Messmer sent a memo to the camp director asking him to send to Paris each Monday morning a telegram, which would serve as another tool of encadrement over the harkis. These comptes rendus hebdomadaires (weekly memos) were to contain information about the number of men, women, and children who arrived at and left the camp; their état d’esprit; their état sanitaire (including the number of births, deaths, and hospitalizations); and an update on the progress of the construction of barracks.127 The first weekly memo appeared on December 8, 1962 and by the end of month, they included information about the number of children attending school, the number of men participating in job training classes, and the number of women attending cooking, hygiene, and sewing courses. SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Camps–Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise), Ministry of Armies, Technical Adviser de Christen, “Inspection à Rivesaltes et à St. Maurice l’Ardoise des 13, 14, et 15 décembre 1962.” 125 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Accueil à Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise, Rivesaltes, et Bias), Telegram from the Minister of Armies to the Marseille Gendarmerie, “Maintien Ordre Camp Rivesaltes,” N˚ 19945/EMAT.3.EPO/DR, Dec. 29, 1962. 126 SHAT, 1R 336/8, De Christen, “Inspection à Rivesaltes….” 127 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Camps–Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise), Minister of Armies Paris (signed by Moullet) to the Commanders of the Rivesaltes and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camps, Telegram N˚ 47233/MA/CM, Nov. 30, 1962. 124 200 However this means of surveillance proved faulty. Since the correspondence was in the form of telegrams, it contained little description. Instead, information was elliptically conveyed with phrases such as “effectifs personnes arrivées au camp 99.” Interestingly, every one of the fifty telegrams found in the Army Archives—corresponding to fifty of the fifty-six weeks from December 1-8, 1962 to December 21-28, 1963—was marked “État d’esprit Bon.”128 This one-word qualification contradicts the plethora of government documents underscoring that there were grave problems with the harkis’ morale while at Rivesaltes. Moreover, while the first telegram reported that their health was “satisfaisant;” all forty-nine successive ones describe their health as “bon” or “très bon.” These judgments demonstrate a dissociation between the Panglossian impression that these telegrams gave to Parisian officials in the Ministry of Armies, including Messmer himself (who marked many of the telegrams with “Vu, PM”), and other government documents that reported, for example, the tuberculosis epidemic and unclean drinking water at the camp. To provide Messmer with such information and to remedy what Pompidou had labeled as “[des] conditions de vie très défectueuses,” the government primarily relied on a camp director. Initially, the Ninth Military Region Commander, who commanded the Army stationed on the territory stretching from Marseille to Perpignan, was charged with overseeing the camp.129 His ability to provide the organization that the camp necessitated was complicated because he was based in Marseille and was also in charge of the Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camp in the Gard Department. Therefore, after close to three months without an on-site director, on December 7, the Army The telegrams are divided between two cartons at the Service historique de l’Armée de Terre (SHAT): 1R 336/8 (dossier: Messages de Rivesaltes et Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise) and 1R 337/1 (dossier: Camp de Rivesaltes et SMA). 129 SHAT, 7T 253/3, Minister of Armies to the General Commanding the 9th Military Region (signed by General Lagarde), “Objet: Camps d’hébergement d’anciens supplétifs,” Annexe (“Note sur l’organisation et le fonctionnement des camps d’ex. supplétifs réfugiés d’A.F.N.”), 1, N˚ 8.864/EMAT/4-P, Sept. 18, 1962. 128 201 designated a veteran field officer who had served two tours of duty in Algeria to manage the camp’s daily operations.130 The camp director oversaw the two parallel structures that served to encadrer the harkis at the Rivesaltes camp: a civil section comprised of medical personnel, social workers, teachers, and administrative staff under the authority of the Ministry of Repatriates, and a military section consisting of officers and policemen under the authority of the Ministry of Armies. On the military end, the hierarchy of officers and policemen were responsible for the direct supervision and policing of the harkis and for ensuring the camp’s day-to-day functioning.131 All of the officers hired in September and October 1962 when the camp opened had served in Algeria, either in the military or in the SAS.132 Some of the officers, such as Captain Raymond M., had been stationed at harki relocation camps in Algeria133 while others, such as Pierre L., had accompanied the harkis from one of their initial stopping points in France, the Larzac camp.134 Messmer defined these men’s principal duty as “encadrement” of the “réfugiés,” and specified, “ils participent au maintien de la discipline et ils ont à traiter des problèmes humains relatifs aux réfugiés, dont ils sont les intermédiaires obligés vis-à-vis du Commandant du camp et du délégué du Ministère des Rapatriés.”135 A lieutenant aided by several noncommissioned Algerian and French officers directed each five-hundred person village of tents and a captain supervised two or three of these villages. The officers were charged with 130SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Camps–Rivesaltes et St. Maurice l’Ardoise), Minister of Armies Messmer to Prime Minister Pompidou, N˚ 031038 MA/CC, Dec. 10, 1962. 131 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Accueil à St. Maurice l’Ardoise, Rivesaltes et Bias), Prime Minister Pompidou to Minister of Armies Messmer, Nov. 21, 1962. 132 ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse..., journées des 5, 6, 7 et 8 octobre 1962,” e, N˚ 1 765. 133 AN, F1a 5138, Personnel file of Capitan Raymond M. 134 AN, F1a 5137, Personnel file of Pierre L. 135 “Problèmes humains” is underlined in the original typewritten document. SHAT, 7T 253/3, Minister of Armies to the General Commanding the 9th Military Region (signed by General Lagarde), “Objet: Camps d’hébergement d’anciens supplétifs,” Annexe (“Note sur l’organisation et le fonctionnement des camps d’ex. supplétifs réfugiés d’A.F.N.”), 2, N˚ 8.864/EMAT/4-P, Sept. 18, 1962. 202 providing for the harkis’ material needs, such as organizing the distribution of food and housing and arranging medical care from the on-site personnel.136 The Army tasked the camp’s military police with maintaining “la salubrité physique et morale du camp” and guaranteeing safety in the camp. Specifically, the officers confiscated weapons from harkis who arrived directly from Algeria, collected the harkis’ valuables to store in a safe place, surveyed residences and public spaces, disciplined those who disturbed the peace, reported the most serious problems to the local police, sought out information about interactions between harkis and the FLN or the OAS, and encouraged the men and children to participate in activities to keep them occupied.137 The military structure worked in tandem with civilian employees of the Ministry of Repatriates who staffed the headquarters and those who were course instructors. In December 1962 a director (Mr. Louis Couston), a deputy director (Mr. René Aucante), and a liaison with repatriate offices in each department of France (Mr. Robert Bourgat) sat at the top of this hierarchy. All three of these men had served in Algeria and bore the title “Administrateur des Services Civils d’Algérie” while working at Rivesaltes.138 They oversaw the twenty-one workers employed in the headquarters’ six divisions: general services (management of the camp’s finances and personnel), pensions and hospitalizations, social security, employment (matching harki men with potential employers), arrivals (the creation of family dossiers to keep track of each harki who entered the camp), and departures (the dissemination of the dossiers and train vouchers). 139 Some personnel members had been transferred from the Larzac camp, including the employment division chief Jean Filhastre and Ibid., 2. Ibid., 3-4. 138 René Aucante and Robert Bourgat’s personnel files are respectively archived in CAC, 19970146/1 and CAC, 19970146/2. 139 For a breakdown of the different offices, see AN, F1a 5138, Bureau de gestion des camps d’ex-supplétifs, “Organigramme des services extérieurs – Rivesaltes,” Dec. 1962. For a more detailed description of the responsibilities of the Mission de Liaison, see: CAC, 19970146/2 (personnel file of Robert Bourgat), Robert Bourgat to the Cabinet of the Pyrénées-Orientales Prefect, “Objet: Situation des ‘Harkis’ recasés dans les Pyrénées-Orientales,” 1-2, N˚ 835/RB/RB/3, June 27, 1963. 136 137 203 reception office agent Angelo Garrouste. Other employees—such as the director of the General Services division, André Perrault, and future director of the arrival center, Henri Tardy—were career military men. Meanwhile, the head of the departures office, Jeanine Bouchet, had worked as a municipal civil servant in Algeria.140 These individuals did not make daily contact with the harkis. Instead, state agents added to the paper trail of documents initiated in Algeria to continue to categorize, and distinguish, the harkis. Despite little and irregular in-person contact, the paper trail, which served to keep vigilant watch over the harkis, thus was another form of encadrement. After arriving at the camp from the Rivesaltes train station or from boats docking at Port-Vendres, each family passed through the “arrival center” in block J. Here, repatriate service employees opened a dossier for each family to include information such as the adults’ civil status, birthdates, birthplaces, and the males’ service in the harkas or other auxiliary force. Often, the harkis were required to provide proof of their service, such as a signed affidavit by a military official for former harkis or the SAS leader for former moghaznis, a “carte de combattant,” or a “carnet individuel de harki.” Further, the harkis who had waited in relocation camps in Algeria before setting sail for the metropole were expected to produce the “carnet familial de rapatrié” that each family head had received. One such example—that of M’hamed H. who passed through the Zeralda refugee camp outside of Algiers—is pictured in figure 22. 140 All of these individuals’ personnel files are located in CAC, 19970146/1-6. 204 Figure 22: Carnet familial de rapatrié of M’hamed H. Source: ASRBR, social welfare file of M’hamed H., nº B374286. As harkis remained in the camp, their files accumulated additional documents, which thickened the paper trail and thus the state’s surveillance of them through its local-level agents who implemented national policies. These papers included proof of military service by their commanding officer, the nationality declarations that they signed during the ceremonies discussed in the previous chapter, social security and family allowance cards issued by the state, and notes about job preferences that they expressed during brief interviews with employment counselors. Finally, when each harki family left the camp, state agents added to their dossiers a receipt for the train vouchers that the central office issued to ensure they would be able to reach their destination and details about their reclassement.141 Upon their departure, camp officials presented the harkis with a copy of these In his discussion of Polish refugees during the July Monarchy, Gérard Noiriel compares the documents used to monitor these refugees to the “feuilles de route” (travel warrants) that military personnel had to procure before going on leave. The travel warrants outlined a detailed itinerary with specific destinations and allocated only small food allowances to them at each stopover point. According to Noiriel, these “instruments essentiels de surveillance” aimed to prevent the 141 205 papers, which became surveillance instruments that the state used to closely monitor the harkis’ movements. Each time that they would subsequently apply for social welfare benefits and statesponsored financial assistance specifically for the harki population they would need to procure these documents to the Departmental Repatriates Office or the Departmental Office Nationale des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre (ONAC) in the locale where they currently resided. From the time that the harkis presented themselves to military officials in Algeria in hopes of state-sponsored repatriation to France to their arrival at the camp when they needed to produce documentation to prove that they were indeed harkis, therefore, they were the subjects of what historian Gérard Noiriel describes as a two-fold process of categorization. First, there was “une opération taxonomique,” by which the state created, and refined, the post-imperial category “harki,” which differed from the imperial definition of (almost exclusively) male auxiliary soldiers in harka units. The government enlarged the category to include these men’s immediate family members, other types of auxiliary forces, and even those who did not serve the French Army government, but whose lives were threatened because their compatriots deemed them as pro-French. And secondly, “une opération d’identification” placed certain individuals into this category and excluded others.142 This process asserted the state’s power over the harkis through its local agents’ power to apply the categorization. For example, to receive a carnet familial de rapatrié like the one pictured above, those wishing to migrate to France underwent an investigation by French soldiers in Algeria to determine whether they were indeed former harkis or former members of other auxiliary units. Concerned about non-harkis using French naval vessels to gain passage to France in the midst of the massive influx of pieds-noirs and harkis and the turbulent political end of the war, Messmer gave Army officials in Algeria the following orders: “Ce que l’on peut faire dans l’immédiat c’est apporter le refugees from deviating from their prescribed route. The harkis’ train vouchers seem to follow the same logic of ensuring that they reached their intended destination. Noiriel, Réfugiés et sans-papiers, 52-53. 142 Noiriel, “Représentation Nationale et Catégories Sociales,” 265. 206 maximum de soins aux enquêtes pour éviter qu’il ne se glisse dans les rangs des réfugiés des indésirables ou des Algériens seulement en quête de travail.”143 Therefore, the investigations and resulting documents represent the initial phase of a selection process to establish the metropolitan category of “harki,” which operated through the principle of encadrement. Once the harkis arrived in metropolitan France, these documents bearing signatures and stamps from military officials in Algeria became a tool that the Rivesaltes employees used to separate out those who had served under the French flag from “faux harkis,” a distinction that was complicated for those who fled Algeria in haste and could not access their identity papers. Through this separation, local agents implemented national-level directives, which continued to define, and refine, the social category “harki” and how it fit into the broader category of repatriates. As discussed earlier in this chapter, high-level government officials maintained that harki repatriates, unlike their counterparts with European origins, necessitated the encadrement only available at the camps. This view regarding the exigency for encadrement, therefore, served as a source of division between the harkis and the pieds-noirs. The camps, however, identified harkis into a de facto sub-class of repatriates, which closely resembled refugees. The pieds-noirs avoided relegation to camps, which—by their very geography, sheer isolation from the surrounding community, and encadrement—imposed exclusion into the definition of “harki.” Community of Exile: An Isolated Population In contrast to many of the Algerian labor migrants who flowed to and from France during the interwar period and the Trente Glorieuses in a “va et vient” fashion (which sociologist SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Directives concernant les harkis), “Accueil en France des anciens supplétifs et des Algériens menacés,” Apr. 26, 1963. 143 207 Abdelmalek Sayad has termed “le premier âge de l’émigration”144), the harkis flowed into France but rarely returned to Algeria.145 As discussed in chapter two, if the harkis returned to their homeland they risked putting their lives into mortal danger because they were sought after by FLN members who believed them to be traitors to their native Algeria, which all but erased this option. Harki citizens’ isolation from the French nation, therefore, embodied a distinct, additional layer than that experienced by other Algerians who migrated to France during the 1960s. Algerian labor migrants were free to cross the Mediterranean to visit their families and return home without facing the death and torture to which tens of thousands of harkis were subject in the aftermath of the Algerian War for Independence. While the 20,000 harkis who passed through the Rivesaltes camp came into contact with a great number of harkis speaking multiple Arabic and Berber dialects, they had little association with their neighbors. The camp had a revolving door of new arrivals and departures: on average, each week between December 1, 1962 and December 28, 1963, 207 harkis arrived at the camp and 280 harkis departed from the camp (see figure 23).146 The transient population formed a community of exile isolated from other French citizens. Even though individuals needed to overcome linguistic barriers to communicate with the neighboring French-speaking community, in reality the state’s policies inhibited the very possibility for them to interact with other French citizens, thereby relegating language to an ancillary reason for their isolation. Harki citizens’ exile at the Rivesaltes camp was primarily due to the heavy-handed state policies—limiting both their movements outside Abdelmalek Sayad, “Les trois âges de l’émigration algérienne en France,” Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 15 (Jun. 1977): 59-79. 145 Emmanuel Ma Mung, Kamel Dorai, Frantz Loyer, Marie-Antoinette Hily, “Bilan des travaux sur la circulation migratoire,” Migrations Études 84 (Dec. 1998): 2. “Noria” is often used to describe this same phenomenon, though, as sociologist Emmanuelle Saada cautions, this “image of the ‘noria’—of immigration as a circle or wheel—…persists as a comfortable if erroneous representation of Algerian immigration long after its basic constituents have changed.” Emmanuelle Saada, “Abdelmalek Sayad and the Double Absence: Toward a Total Sociology of Immigration,” French Politics, Culture & Society 18, no. 1 (2000): 35. 146 These figures were calculated using weekly bulletins from Dec. 1-8, 1962 to Dec. 22-28, 1963 sent from camp officials to Ministry of Armies officials in Paris. SHAT, 1R 336/8 and SHAT, 1R 337/1. 144 208 of the camp and outsiders’ entrance into the camps—and to the strict controls that the government placed on divulging to the public information about their life at the camp. This situation provoked myriad questions about their place in French society for harkis themselves, for the French public, and for the French government. Weekly Arrivals and Departures of Harkis Rivesaltes Camp, December 1, 1962 - December 28, 1963 1200 Number of Arrivals Number of Departures 1000 800 600 400 200 0 Figure 23: Number of weekly arrivals and departures of harkis to and from the Rivesaltes camp 147 from December 1, 1962 to December 28, 1963. Ostensibly, putting the harkis in isolated camps with tight surveillance intended to protect them from vengeful FLN members who deemed their compatriots who had joined the French cause, whether in the colony or in the metropole, traitors.148 Nevertheless, in its efforts to restrict the relationship between these two groups, the government in actuality placed the harkis into a category This chart reflects each week from Dec. 1-8, 1962 to Dec. 22-28, 1963 except Apr. 28-May 5, 1963 and Dec. 8-14, 1963 since these telegrams could not be located in either carton at the SHAT. The spike in the number of departures during the week of Sept. 1-7, 1963 is due to the 858 harkis who migrated to the camp’s newly-opened village civil. The creation of the village civil is discussed later in this chapter. Source: SHAT 1R 336/8 and SHAT 1R 337/1, Comptes rendus hebdomadaires (weekly memos), Dec. 1-8, 1962 to Dec. 22-28, 1963. 148 In his memoirs, former FLN leader Ali Haroun writes critically of the Force de police auxiliaire (FPA), Algerian natives who served in a special Parisian police brigade with the goal of dismantling the FLN in France under the authority of Prefect Maurice Papon. According to Haroun, these men, to whom he and others refer as “harkis,” “ont commis des actes ignobles” during the war, including torturing FLN supporters and aiding the Paris police in the October 17, 1961 battle of Paris. Ali Haroun, La 7e Willaya: La guerre du FLN en France, 1954-1962 (Paris: Seuil, 1986), 402. 147 209 over which the state exercised strict surveillance. The Service de coordination et d’information nordafricaine (SCINA), an arm of the Ministry of the Interior created at the height of the Algerian War for Independence in 1958 to monitor “North African” immigrants in the metropole, issued daily reports that described in eerily-close detail their movements and actions.149 Including the harkis in these police bulletins to monitor their interactions with FLN members led to the arguably soughtafter objective of increasing police supervision of the harkis. The population was now lumped into the broader—undesirable—category of North African immigrants,” which distanced them from the category of “repatriates.”150 Five SCINA reports in November and December 1962 referenced interactions between the FLN and the Rivesaltes-dwelling harkis; four of these attest to problems that arose when FLN members permeated the camp’s boundaries. For instance, the December 12 bulletin includes a report, in a rather aggravated tone, by the local military police about FLN members who arrived in France “sous prétexte de chercher du travail, [et qui] poussent l’audace jusqu’à venir au camp contacter leur famille.”151 On November 29 several Rivesaltes harkis identified as such two of these FLN agents (whose full names and place of residence in Algeria were given in the report) and, consequently, they were nearly lynched.152 The report also indicated that “les réfugiés de Rivesaltes” had further considered creating clandestine vigilante organizations to protect themselves and their “North African” was in reality a code word for “Algerians.” For a discussion of this conflation, see: Byrnes, “French Like Us?,” 24-25. 150 The SCINA reports from June 1962 to Dec. 1963—which were daily initially but tapered off to weekly in late-1963— were between four and eight pages in length. They contained precise details about Algerian terrorist activities, arrests, and violent attacks; population movements (including figures of how many Algerians entered and left France by boat and by airplane daily or weekly); the number Algerians requesting and granted French citizenship; and Algerian political parties and associations deemed threats to French security. Information about the harkis was included under the rubrics “divers,” “harkis,” or “réfugiés” (first used on Jan. 15, 1963), without any seemingly logical reason for the repartition among different sections, other than it was difficult to classify the harkis. Though never used as a subject heading, the harkis were even referred to as “rapatriés” on a few occasions (see, for example: SCINA n˚ 1 784, Nov. 3-5, 1962, 6). A full of record these bulletins d’information from this period can be found in the Bouches-du-Rhône Departmental Archives (138 W 3-8). 151 ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse..., journée du 12 décembre 1962,” d, N˚ 1 810. 152 Ibid. 149 210 families.153 Dangerous contacts with FLN members also took place when the harkis strayed outside the camp. In the November 20 bulletin, the gendarmerie reported that local FLN operatives aimed to approach all “North Africans” from the Rivesaltes camp spotted in Perpignan to convince them to join the metropolitan arm of this organization, the ADAF. Once contact was made, “Ils sont envoyés dans une gargotte [sic] ‘Au bon accueil’ avec un mot de passe qui varie suivant leur position: - ‘Je veux un couscous’, pour ceux qui acceptent de se rallier à la cause. - ‘Je veux une eau gazeuse’, pour les hésitants qu’il faut ‘travailler’ encore, - ‘Je veux une bière’, pour les récalcitrants qu’il faut ficher et éviter, ou éventuellement éliminer.”154 Evidence collected by the local military police also reveals that some harkis were involved in pro-FLN activities. The same November 20 report alleged that one harki used a car left for him near the camp by an FLN member to communicate camp activities each night around midnight to the leaders of the Perpignan FLN office who waited for him at a local bar, l’Entr’acte.155 The government’s response to these threatening interactions between harkis and FLN members was to increase efforts to seal off the camp. On December 8, 1962, Prime Minister Pompidou wrote to Minister of Armies Messmer that in order to avoid such incidents in the future, “il conviendra de soumettre les allées et venues à une certaine surveillance, les sorties du camp ne devant être autorisées que pour des motifs sérieux.”156 By trying to close the camp to FLN members (albeit with mixed success), the government simultaneously limited the harkis’ contact with another group of “outsiders,” that is, their neighbors. However, minimizing such contacts lies in stark contrast to local government policies toward the pieds-noirs arriving from Algeria. For example, in May 1962 with a horde of repatriates debarking in Port-Vendres just south of Perpignan, Pyrénées-Orientales Prefect Pierre Dubois Ibid. ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse..., journée du 20 novembre 1962,” b, N˚ 1 795. 155 Ibid. 156 SHAT, 1K 774, Letter from Pompidou to Messmer, Dec. 8, 1962. 153 154 211 addressed a letter to a host of union leaders and local politicians inviting them the first meeting of the Comité départemental d’Accueil. The Prefect saw this organization as a means of both ensuring the collaboration of public services and strengthening the link “entre nos populations et les rapatriés.”157 In order to properly welcome the pieds-noirs to the department, Dubois believed that local officials had “le devoir de les aider à retrouver la sécurité matérielle et la tranquillité morale dans un climat d’humaine compréhension.”158 Conversely, the local government did provide such a welcome for the harkis. Its actions challenged the harkis’ membership in the commune. For the entire twenty-seven months that the Rivesaltes camp was home to the harkis, there is only one reference to the population in the monthly Rivesaltes Town Council meetings. On June 21, 1963, the director of the Ministry of Repatriates branch office at the camp, René Aucante, was named “l’adjoint spécial de la section ‘Agglomération du Camp de Rivesaltes.’” 159 Subsequent meetings contained neither discussions about the camp nor reports from Aucante, which, along with his title, suggests that local officials did not consider the camp a part of their municipality. The decisions of the mayor, Doctor Émile Parès, reinforced that the harkis were outsiders. He refused to allocate local funds to compensate housing costs for the instructors who worked at the camp’s school, to which they were legally entitled, because he did not regard the school for harki children as a municipal establishment. Therefore, he reasoned, it should not draw on the Rivesaltes town budget.160 The mayor’s response to a problem of trash removal from Guinean families living on the campgrounds in 1966—they had arrived as the last harkis were vacating the premises in late 1964—reinforced his position about the harkis. The mayor insisted in a letter to a public health ADPO, 104 W 6, Letter from Prefect Pierre Dubois, May 29, 1962. Ibid. 159 Commune de Rivesaltes, Délibérations du Conseil Municipal de Rivesaltes, June 21, 1963. 160 AN, F1a 5141, Jacques Toutain, “Objet: Matériel scolaire du Groupe scolaire du centre d’hébergement de harkis de Rivesaltes (P.O.),” Feb. 11, 1963. 157 158 212 official: “Le Camp ne concerne, en effet, que géographiquement notre commune. Il est et reste un Camp militaire. L’affaire des Guinéens, comme celle des Harkis dépasse donc le cadre communal. C’est un problème national.”161 With such actions and words, the local government clearly signaled that the harkis fell outside of the communal affairs and, therefore, not within the Rivesaltes community. Similarly, the few interactions between the Rivesaltais and the harkis were often marked with strife, echoing the tone set by the government. For example, on October 28, 1962, approximately one hundred harkis and their wives, twenty-five of whom were registered to vote, walked to the Rivesaltes town hall to cast their ballot for the referendum on voting for the Fifth Republic President by universal suffrage. According to a report from the National Police, the group encountered four locals who “[ont] provoqué une certaine effervescence parmi le groupe” and tried to prevent them from voting.162 These actions demonstrate suspicion in regard to the new residents, who were, on the one hand, just another transient immigrant population succeeding those that had inhabited the camp since 1939 and, on the other, French citizens who shared the same civic rights as the Rivesaltais. The difficult memories of the recent political break-up of Algeria and France, the territories and the populations, undoubtedly was a trigger for the townspeople’s actions. However, this tumultuous interaction can also be attributed to the local population’s ignorance of who their new neighbors were. The harkis’ lives at the Joffre camp were enshrouded in mystery owing to the government’s refusal to permit media and civilians onto the campgrounds until a March 18, 1963 visit by a team of reporters from the regional newspaper L’Indépendant. Between March 22 and 28, the pro-Gaullist daily, undoubtedly selected for its political leanings, published a series of five articles about the harkis, who had hitherto been hidden behind the barbed wire encircling the camp. 161 162 ADPO 1419 W 109, Letter from Mayor Emile Parès to Madame Witté (Public Health Doctor), Feb. 3, 1966. ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse..., journée du 30 octobre 1962,” 1, N˚ 1 781. 213 Newspaper officials, whose curiosity was “aroused” by the secrecy enveloping the camp in what was now the second largest city in the department, had requested permission numerous times over five months before Minister of Armies Messmer acquiesced.163 The harkis’ first months in the camp— when they lived in tents, had no working showers, and suffered through a particularly harsh fall and winter—would, therefore, remain invisible to their fellow citizens. Nevertheless, the author of the third article offered an apology for the government’s actions to shield the harkis from the public eye by pronouncing: “Aux flottements d’une arrivée massive avec, à l’époque, un avenir pas tout à fait défini, les autorités ont préféré nous montrer les choses bien en place et un ciel bleu par-dessus le camp. Ce n’est peut-être pas très journalistique, mais c’est logique. Et quand on a vu le travail énorme effectué en quelques mois, on ne peut honnêtement en vouloir à ceux qui nous ont fait attendre.”164 Camp officials’ stranglehold on the harkis’ lives, coupled with the authors’ “not too journalistic” ways and Gaullist bias, skewed the entire series of articles. This kept the reality of their situation—and the harkis themselves—hidden from public view, which was the government’s goal. When the readers of L’Indépendant were finally allowed to peer in on their new neighbors, the articles painted a Panglossian picture of the well-oiled machine and the pleasant space that camp officials wanted other French citizens to see. The third article claimed that the public would now have a positive vision of the Rivesaltes camp and “ne considérer[a] pas plus cet ensemble comme une ville morte, vestige d’un passé assez proche, mais comme le commencement d’un futur.”165 The articles indeed projected a positive present and future for the harkis, and the last in the series even likened the harkis’ memory of their time at Rivesaltes to the memories that a child has of his or her formative school years.166 Some of the harkis’ homes were described as exquisitely decorated with ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “Le camp des déracinés de Rivesaltes avec ses 10 000 harkis est devenu la 2e ville des Pyr.-Or.,” L’Indépendant, Mar. 24, 1963. 164 Ibid. 165 Ibid. 166 ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “Prêt pour la vie civile, le harki s’en va,” L’Indépendant, Mar. 28, 1963. 163 214 luxuries such as Persian rugs and copperplates on the walls. The journalists witnessed women preparing meals of steak and fresh green beans in a “first-class” cassoulet sauce. They quoted a camp official as saying: “Est-ce qu’ils ont l’air malheureux? Croyez-vous qu’en Algérie ils avaient de la viande à tous les repas?”167 While acknowledging that most of the residents had large families, the articles make no reference to the cramped conditions the harkis endured in their twenty to twenty-five square meter units. Instead, the series emphasized the vastness of the camp and its similar geography to Algeria, thus giving the impression that these individuals had an abundance of space that felt like home. For example, as the third article in the series related, “Une vaste plaine uniforme qui ressemble comme une sœur à celles d’Algérie: une plaine qui vient mourir sur les contreforts des Corbières rappelant les montagnes de l’Aurès…” 168 While the articles do refer multiple times to the harkis’ “déracinement,” they attribute a palliative function to the physical space and order that Rivesaltes offered. For instance, the same article claims, “Ils sont des ‘déracinés’, que la terre de Rivesaltes, cette terre rouge perçant à travers les cailloux, cultivée au maximum par l’armée, va aider à prendre racine et à s’épanouir de nouveau au soleil.”169 A strict level of organization “que seule l’Armée pouvait mettre en place” was necessary to run the camp.170 The first article explained in detail the organization of the barracks into “quartiers” and “villages” and each successive article, whether referring to the infirmary or the children’s daycare facilities, used phrases such as “admirablement bien organisées.” 171 In fact, the space’s categorization as a “camp” was put into question and effaced by the second article, which preferred to call it a city: “Ce n’est plus un camp. C’est vraisemblablement une ville comme aucune en France, ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “Nous sommes mieux que chez nous, disent les harkis (ET C’EST VRAI),” L’Indépendant, Mar. 22, 1963. 168 ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “Le camp des déracinés de Rivesaltes…,” L’Indépendant. 169 Ibid. 170 ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “Prêt pour la vie civile…,” L’Indépendant. 171 ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “À Rivesaltes, l’école est un vrai plaisir pour les enfants de harkis tandis que leurs mères découvrent les humbles joies de coudre et de tricoter,” L’Indépendant, Mar. 23, 1963. 167 215 et pour une même population aucune n’a une aussi belle organisation sociale.”172 The following article in the series affirmed this classification by its very title, “Le camp des déracinés de Rivesaltes avec ses 10 000 harkis est devenu la 2e ville des Pyr.-Or.”173 In addition to questioning what kind of space the camp constitutes, the articles attribute a murky status to the harkis. The articles continually posit that the harkis feel a strong link to their adopted country and that they unquestionably consider themselves French, as one article avers: “Et vous demandez aux [harkis eux-mêmes] de quelle nationalité ils sont, ils se mettront presque au garde-à-vous et dans leurs yeux vous livrez un reproche. Sèchement, avec fierté, ils répondront: ‘Je suis Français’, comme une chose évidente.” 174 While peppering the articles with the harkis’ affirmations of being French, and even advancing the statistic that only forty of the ten thousand harkis who appeared before the magistrate refused French nationality, the newspaper puts into question their being French by continually emphasizing that the camp is a space where “les harkis apprennent la vie à l’européenne,” to cite part of the fourth article’s title. According to this piece, here they become “civilized” and learn to forego previous Muslim practices such as polygamy.175 In addition to raising doubts about the harkis’ Frenchness, the articles question the harkis’ status as repatriates. This word appears just once in the entire series, but then is immediately qualified with “expatriés volontaires, faudrait-il dire.”176 Besides qualitative positive evaluations that concealed the disorientation that camp dwellers have expressed in recently published memoirs and interviews, the articles contradicted the scores of official documents written while the camp was open about hygiene problems.177 For example, the Ibid. ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “Le camp des déracinés de Rivesaltes…,” L’Indépendant. 174 Ibid. 175 ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “En un mois : 58 naissances, 3 décès. Bilan d’un camp où les harkis apprennent la vie à l’européenne,” L’Indépendant, Mar. 25, 1963. The term “civilisé” appears in the Mar. 24, 1963 article. 176 ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “Le camp des déracinés de Rivesaltes…,” L’Indépendant. 177 Harki daughters Fatima Besnaci-Lancou and Dalila Kerchouche recount their and their family’s memories of the Rivesaltes camp in Besnaci-Lancou, Fille de harki and Kerchouche, Mon père, ce Harki. Both women have also published 172 173 216 first article, entitled “Nous sommes mieux que chez nous, disent les harkis (ET C’EST VRAI),” opened with an image contradicting the scores of letters written at the same time by government officials about the camp’s hygiene problems: “‘Rien que pour ramasser les ordures, le matin, il faut une véritable organisation, un bataillon de la salubrité’ nous a-t-on dit. Cette phrase est à l’échelle de la ville-champignon que constitue le camp de Rivesaltes.”178 The fourth article similarly claimed that sanitary conditions were excellent and that cases of illnesses indigenous to “pays chauds,” such as trachoma (which is caused by the sexually-transmitted disease Chlamydia), were becoming less and less common. 179 The article further emphasized that all harkis were x-rayed as a preventative measure and that “[d]ès qu’un cas paraît suspect, les médecins préviennent le Dispensaire de Perpignan qui prend le malade en charge.”180 As cited above, sealed government documents written at precisely the same time demonstrate that the tuberculosis epidemic greatly concerned camp health officials who encountered difficulties ensuring that the harkis sought out proper treatments. The policies that national government officials created and Rivesaltes camp agents enacted to strictly control the harkis’ daily life, therefore, masked their situation from public view and inhibited the population from interacting with their Rivesaltais neighbors. In turn, local officials declared the camp as outside the boundaries of their municipality, just as they and their predecessors had done while the camp housed refugees and prisoners. By isolating the harkis at the Rivesaltes camp from other French citizens, the post-imperial government unequivocally signaled to the harkis themselves and to the French public that these Arabs and Berbers were neither repatriates nor French citizens like the pieds-noirs. interviews with former camp dwellers, which give texture to the population’s disorientation at Rivesaltes: BesnaciLancou, Nos mères, paroles blessés and Kerchouche, Destins de harkis (Paris: Autrement, 2003). 178 ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “Nous sommes mieux…,” L’Indépendant. 179 The reference to diseases indigenous to “pays chauds” recalls Montequieu’s theory of climates whereby he contends that populations in “southern countries,” such as Algeria, are labeled as physically weaker than and intellectually inferior to those from “northern countries,” such as France. Baron Charles de Montesquieu, De l’esprit des lois, 1748. 180 ADPO, 1111 PER 73, “En un mois…,” L’Indépendant. 217 Social Advancement: Toward the Reclassement of the Harkis Despite the many limitations of the Rivesaltes camp—which, as indicated in the epigraph to this chapter, Messmer summarized as “marqué de la tare de tout ‘univers concentrationnaire’”—the government nevertheless upheld the view that it was a necessary intermediary step on the way toward their reclassement.181 In fact, in the same letter, Messmer justified the camp’s existence solely because of the opportunity it afforded the harkis to gain desperately lacking job skills: “Le séjour dans les camps ne se justifie que dans la mesure où il permet de donner à ceux qui en sont capables des rudiments de formation professionnelle.” 182 Transforming the harkis into citizens able to contribute to metropolitan France’s economy recalls the training of the Compagnies de Travailleurs Etrangers who were among the first groups to inhabit the camp in 1939. To facilitate the harkis’ reclassement, military and civilian state representatives at the Rivesaltes camp carried out a program of “Action de Promotion Sociale,” or social advancement. Messmer claimed on September 24, 1962 that reclassement efforts were necessary because: “Les ex-supplétifs et leurs familles proviennent du ‘bled’ algérien; leurs conditions traditionnelles de vie constituent pour beaucoup un très grave obstacle à un reclassement aussi bien d’ailleurs dans les campagnes que dans les villes françaises.”183 The experience gained from the first three months at the Bourg-Lastic and Larzac camps had demonstrated that only a small number of harkis were “suffisamment évolué” to immediately find work and could not even adapt to working in a rural setting. A slightly higher number could be placed into jobs after a few weeks of job training classes, but the vast majority needed to participate in a social advancement program for several months before they would be SHAT, 10T 549/3b, Minister of Armies Messmer to Minister of Repatriates Missoffe, “Objet: Problème des exsupplétifs,” 2, Mar. 2, 1963. 182 Ibid. 183 SHAT, 23R 16/2, Minister of Armies to Minister of Repatriates, (signed by Bernard Tricot, Administrative General Secretary), “Objet: Action de Promotion Sociale dans les deux nouveaux Camps d’ex-supplétifs musulmans en vue de leur reclassement,” 1, N˚ 2.264 MA/DSF/1, Sept. 24, 1962. 181 218 qualified to seek jobs.184 Messmer underscored the urgency of this program: “si l’on veut éviter soit de perpétuer en France l’existence de ‘camps palestiniens’, soit de voir dans les zônes rurales et urbaines, où seront ultérieurement placés ces ex-supplétifs, se recréer des ‘bidonvilles’: ces ‘rapatriés’ y feraient de ‘parias’ mis à l’écart, avec leurs nombreux enfants, par tous les milieux.”185 Therefore, the objective of the social advancement program at the Rivesaltes camp was to create well-adjusted metropolitan citizens out of these less “evolved” harkis from the “‘bled’ algérien.” The government wanted to avoid the fate of other immigrants in France who languished in communitarian groups in shantytowns on the outskirts of France’s major cities.186 The underlying principal, indeed the motor, of social advancement was the deployment of appropriate personnel to teach and encadrer the Rivesaltes-dwelling harkis. As Messmer claimed, “la réussite de l’action de Promotion Sociale entreprise repose avant tout sur la valeur des Cadres qui en seront chargés.”187 The first director of the social advancement program, General De Segonzac, issued a directive in October 1962 outlining how the program would function. The body of this sixpage memo did not begin with a description of what activities and classes would be offered, but rather with a description of the personnel who would encadrer the harkis. 188 De Segonzac underscored in the memo’s conclusion that the program’s success hinged on the state representatives keeping in constant close contact with the military camp commander and the head of the camp’s Ministry of Repatriates’ office, that is, exercising a “technology of security” over the harkis.189 The organization chart of the personnel employed for social advancement demonstrates an Ibid., 1-2. Ibid., 2. 186 For a discussion of immigrant bidonvilles in France, see Blanc-Chaléard, Les Italiens dans l’Est parisien; Byrnes, “French Like Us?”; Natacha Lillo, La Petite Espagne de la Plaine-Saint-Denis, 1900-1980 (Paris: Autrement, 2004); Abdelmalek Sayad and Eliane Dupuis, Un Nanterre algérien: terre de bidonvilles (Paris: Autrement, 1995); and Marie-Christine VolvovitchTavares, Portugais à Champigny: Le temps des baraques (Paris: Autrement, 1995). 187 SHAT, 23R 16/2, Minister of Armies, “Objet: Action de Promotion Sociale…,” 4. 188 SHAT, 14T 92, General de Segonzac, Directive N˚ 1, “Objet: Action de promotion sociale en faveur des exsupplétifs musulmans regroupés au Camp de RIVESALTES,” 1, N˚ 617 EMA/BIAE, Oct. 5, 1962. 189 Ibid., 6. 184 185 219 intricate web of inspectors, military officers, and secretaries in the central officers, and either nine or ten on-site monitors for each one-hundred person foyer de jeunes, foyer jeunesses féminines, female adults’ section feminine de progrès and male adults’ centre de préformation.190 Social advancement was organized around the individual’s gender and age. First, school-aged children under twelve years old attended schools set up on the camp grounds with other harki children. In March 1963 there were forty-four classes staffed by fifty-two instructors, twenty-three of whom were military men and twenty-nine of whom were civilians.191 The classes foremost had the goal of teaching these young children how to speak, read, and write French, yet they also provided a space for leisure and physical activities in the afternoons. Between the inception of the camp’s social advancement programs in December 1962 and February 1964, the government furnished 2,300 athletic outfits, 2,465 pairs of athletic shoes, and 130 balls of all sorts (for example, soccer, handball, and volleyball) for use by harki children.192 Weekly attendance tallies from February 1963 until summer vacation began on June 30, 1963 hovered around 1,300 harki children. Nevertheless, between one week and the next, attendance varied by as many as 172 students, reflecting the transitory nature of the camp’s population.193 During summer 1963, the 1,200 school-aged children continued leisure activities at an on-site summer camp where they played Monopoly, the traditional SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Promotion Sociale, Reclassements), General de Segonzac (Délégué du Ministre des Armées pour les Centres de Formation Professionnelle et les Centres de Jeunes à Monsieur le Ministre des Armées), “Objet: Action de promotion sociale en vue du reclassement à l’intérieur des deux nouveaux camps de rassemblement de supplétifs Musulmans,” Sous-dossier A, Pièce N˚ 3 and Pièce N˚ 5, N˚ 550 EMA.BIAE, Sept. 4, 1962. 191 SHAT, 1R 337/1, General Houssay to the Minister of Armies, E.M.A.T. – 1er Bureau, “Objet: Scolarisation des enfants d’ex-supplétifs des Camps de RIVESALTES et de SAINT-MAURICE L’ARDOISE,” Annexe, N˚ 5221 EFF/1, May 7, 1963. 192 AN, F1a 5140 (dossier: Gestion du camp de Rivesaltes, 1963-1966), 9th Military Region, Pyrénées-Orientales Military Subdivision, 40˚ Compagnie de Camp, Center for Social Advancement, “Liste du matériel mis en place au centre de promotion sociale, à sa création et existant à la date du 20 février 1964,” 4-5. 193 During the week of Mar. 17-23, 1963, 1,200 students attended school, whereas during the week of Mar. 24-30, 1963, 1,372 students were in attendance. The attendance figures can be found in the weekly bulletins cited above. SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Messages de Rivesaltes et Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise) and SHAT, 1R 337/1 (dossier: Camp de Rivesaltes et SMA). 190 220 local game of pétanque, volleyball, soccer, basketball, and dominoes.194 By remaining on the grounds they continued to be divided from neighboring children. Eight foyers de jeunes, also set up on the campgrounds, were created for children age twelve to twenty. The boys’ foyers offered literacy classes, remedial school courses, “adaptation à la vie métropolitaine” workshops, physical education, and leisure activities three-quarters of the day and pre-professional classes for one-quarter of the day. While camp officials expected eight hundred boys to participate in the activities offered by the eight foyers, only fifty-four students had shown up by late January 1963.195 Young girls participated in similar foyers except the pre-professional classes at their foyers jeunesses féminines were replaced by a “formation familiale et menagerie,” which they attended with the harki women in the afternoons. The classes at the eight centres féminins (also called sections féminines de progrès) focused on “adaptation à la vie métropolitaine,” childcare, cooking, home economics, sewing, housekeeping, and language skills. Daycare services were provided for infant and toddler children so that the women could attend these afternoon courses, keeping with traditional gender roles. The camp recruited instructors among metropolitan graduates of the Centre d’Entraînement des Monitrices de la Jeunesse Algérienne de Nantes (CEMJ), former social monitors returning from Algeria, and former Assistantes sanitaire et sociale rurale auxiliaire (ASSRA) who had worked as social assistants in the Algerian countryside.196 Between February 16, 1963 and June 30, 1963 when three of the eight foyers closed because some of the counselors migrated with the harki families to the newly-opened forest hamlets, an average of 454 women and female adolescents attended classes at the centres SHAT, 14T 92, Colonel GALEY, Commander of the Rivesaltes Camp and the 40ème Compagnie de Camp to the Director of the 9th Military Region Supplies Corps, “Objet: Demande d’autoristation d’achat,” N˚ 1390/MAJ/MI, June 17, 1963. 195 CAC, 19920149/3 (dossier 6: Formation prof des harkis, avril-août 63), “Procès-verbal de la réunion tenue le 24 janvier 1963 dans le cabinet de M. Besson,” Jan. 25, 1963. 196 SHAT, 23R 16/2, Minister of Armies, “Objet: Action de Promotion Sociale…,” 3. 194 221 féminins.197 These venues had the dual goal of helping them to apply for admission to metropolitan schools for nursing, daycare, and other domestic jobs, and to help them to adapt to metropolitan ways of hygiene, child rearing, and housekeeping.198 The list of materials used at the centers includes a wide assortment of cooking utensils, boilers for washing laundry, ironing boards and irons, sewing machines, and plastic bathtubs.199 Meanwhile, adult men between twenty and thirty years old divided their time between “Initiation à la vie métropolitaine” courses similar to the classes adolescent and female adult harkis attended and remedial job-training classes at the centres de préformation professionnelle located in Block K of the camp. A report issued by the Ministry of Interior explained that the former classes, like those North African immigrants arriving in France during the colonial period participated in,200 aimed to “donner une connaissance plus approfondie de la langue française et de nos mœurs” to this population believed only to have “une connaissance très superficielle” of such qualities necessary for their successful integration into French society.201 Instructors who had been trained at the Centre d’Entraînement des Moniteurs de Jeunesse d’Issoire in the Puy-de-Dôme department, which had been opened during the Algerian War for Independence to train French Muslim military personnel, taught the harki men about French culture and history, how to adapt to “modern life” (including using factory equipment) and how to read, write, and speak French. At the centres de préformation professionnelle, harki men also attended remedial job-training classes specializing in construction or in metal works, which had opened in early December 1962. This average was calculated using the weekly bulletins located in SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Messages de Rivesaltes et Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise) and SHAT, 1R 337/1 (dossier: Camp de Rivesaltes et SMA). 198 SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Promotion Sociale, Reclassements), General de Segonzac (Délégué du Ministre des Armées pour les Centres de Formation Professionnelle et les Centres de Jeunes à Monsieur le Ministre des Armées), “Objet: Action de promotion sociale en vue du reclassement à l’intérieur des deux nouveaux camps de rassemblement de supplétifs Musulmans,” Sous-dossier A, Pièce N˚ 2, N˚ 550 EMA.BIAE, Sept. 4, 1962. 199 AN, F1a 5140, 40˚ Compagnie de Camp, Centre de Promotion Sociale, “Liste du matériel…,” 5-6. 200 For a description of the classes offered to Algerian immigrants in the post-Second World War period, see Lyons, “Invisible Immigrants,” 111-115. 201 AN, 5 AG 1/22, Minister of the Interior, “Rapport sur l’application de la loi du 26 décembre 1961 transmis au Secrétaire général de la Présidence de la République,” 104, Jul. 26, 1965. 197 222 Instructors for this program hailed from the Centre Militaire de Formation Professionnelle (CMFP) in Fontenay-le-Comte, which served to train French Muslim soldiers returning to civilian life during the Algerian War for Independence. In January 1963, approximately four-hundred men had signed up for the construction classes at the four centres de préformation bâtiment (though only three-hundred regularly showed up) and fifty men attended the metal works courses at the three centres de préformation métaux.202 Between February 2, 1963 and June 28, 1963, an average of 564 men per week attended classes at both centers.203 However, government officials questioned their attendance at and devotion to the classes, claiming that “leur zèle à s’instruire laisse souvent à désirer.”204 When the government put the social advancement program into place in the fall of 1962, it anticipated that the remedial job classes and initiation to metropolitan life classes would adequately prepare the harkis for entrance into full-time job training at the centres de formation professionnelle accélérée located in blocks O and Q of the camp or for employment in the local Pyrénées-Orientales construction sector of the economy. However, most harkis failed the psychotechnical entrance tests evaluating their mental aptitude, their psychomotor skills, and their sensory functions that were necessary for admission to the centres normaux de formation professionnelle accélérée run by the Ministry of Labor. Of 393 harkis who took these tests in July 1963 upon their completion of the remedial jobtraining program, only 20 proved fit for the centres normaux de formation professionnelle accélérée. 205 Therefore, Minister of Repatriates Missoffe proposed opening centres spéciaux de formation professionnelle accélérée also run by the Ministry of Labor to provide the harkis special training apart from the general CAC, 19920149/3 (dossier 6: Formation professionnelle des harkis, avril-août 1963), Ministry of Repatriates, SFIM, “Procès-verbal de la réunion tenue le 24 janvier 1963 dans le cabinet de M. Besson,” Jan. 25, 1963. 203 This average was calculated using figures in the weekly bulletins located in SHAT, 1R 336/8 (dossier: Messages de Rivesaltes et Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise) and SHAT, 1R 337/1 (dossier: Camp de Rivesaltes et SMA). 204 ACNMF, 15/13, Comité National pour les Musulmans Français, “Aide au logement des réfugiés musulmans,” 1, Oct. 10, 1963. This sentence is underlined in the original document. 205 CAC, 19920149/3 (dossier 6: Formation professionnelle des harkis, avril-août 1963), Ministry of Repatriates to the Minister of Labor, “Objet: Formation professionnelle des harkis. Création de centres à RIVESALTES et LA RYE,” 4, undated. The information contained in this letter leads the author to conclude that it was written between June 27 and July 27, 1963. 202 223 population with whom they were not considered to be on par.206 Fifteen centers of fifteen to seventeen students opened on September 1, 1963 in block K.207 After a six-month internship, the graduates would be eligible to earn a Certificat d’Initiation de Construction, which would hopefully aid their chances for employment. Ministry of Labor employees staffed the classes, though the Ministry of Repatriates managed the facility. The harkis’ participation in the classes offered at the centres spéciaux de formation professionnelle accélérée was contradictorily considered a form of reclassement, even though they remained on the camp grounds. In the midst of a general housing crisis, which was particularly severe in the Pyrénées-Orientales and in neighboring departments, Missoffe opted to open a “civilian enclave” in block F. He claimed that this solution would provide the benefits of not requiring the families to move from the camp and of allowing their children to remain enrolled in the camp schools and remedial job training classes, which he averred “fonctionnent dans d’excellentes conditions.”208 The equation of reclassement with moving to the camp’s civilian enclave is reflected in the weekly memo for September 1 to 7, 1963, which stated “Effectifs Personnes ayant quitté le camp suite reclassement de chef de famille 1058 dont 866 ont été affectées village civil.”209 Even though the government considered that these individuals were “reclassés,” it contradicted its own definition of reclassement since the harkis continued to live at the Rivesaltes camp and they did not have jobs. While the civilian enclave was indeed funded by and under the authority of the Ministry of Repatriates, the military maintained the function of furnishing encadrement over the harkis. According to SFIM director Yves Pérony, the military was tasked with “veiller au maintien de l’ordre, à la CAC, 19920149/3 (dossier 6: Formation professionnelle des harkis, avril-août 1963), Ministry of Repatriates to the Inspectors of the Chantiers de Forestage, “Objet: Formation Professionnelle des supplétifs musulmans réfugiés en France,” 1, N˚ 1916/SFIM/MG, July 12, 1963. 207 ACNMF, 32/3, Pierre Durney, Civil Services Inspector, “Mission du 8 Août 1963 au Camp de LA RYE (Vienne) et du 12 Août 1963 au Camp de RIVESALTES (P.O.).” 208 SHAT, 1R 337/1, Minister of Repatriates to the Cabinet of the Minister of Armies, “Objet: Hébergement provisoire de 500 familles de harkis dans une partie du camp de RIVESALTES,” 2, N˚ 1078/SFIM/DIR, Apr. 23, 1963. 209 The spike in the number of departures is visible on the graph of the weekly statistics of harkis arriving at and departing from the Rivesaltes camp after the reclassement of the head of the family depicted in figure 23 above. 206 224 salubrité et à la sécurité.”210 This camp within the camp comprised fifty barracks of seven families, two barracks of shops with foodstuffs since these harkis were no longer eligible for provisions from the Ministry of Repatriates, and one barrack with a clothing and supplies store. By October 15, 1963, 1,469 men, women, and children resided in this new section of the camp while waiting for jobs and housing outside of the camp.211 Conclusion: Leaving the Rivesaltes “Univers Concentrationnaire” Given the long-term repercussions of putting harkis in camps, the Rivesaltes camp must be viewed through a more complex lens than just a physical space to park an exiled population. As contended Minister of Armies Messmer—the government official with the ultimate responsibility for the harkis’ living conditions at the camp—Rivesaltes demonstrated the same characteristics as the Second World War concentration camp universe through its physical structures and its psychological demoralization of its residents, who remained isolated from the local population. The camp thus was a unique physical hurdle to their belonging to the French nation, a hurdle not faced by other populations migrating from Algeria. The camp further served as a psychological obstacle to the harkis’ membership in their local and national communities by treating them like refugees. The decision to relegate the harkis to this space also opened the door to future placements in other refugee camps. Leaving Rivesaltes did not ensure that the harkis would leave behind their exilic refugee camp life. A small number would return to Rivesaltes, sometimes as many as four times before definitively leaving the camp.212 Some proved unable or unwilling to perform their jobs, SHAT, 14T 92, Minister of Repatriates (signed by Yves Pérony) to the Minister of Armies, “Objet: Centre de Formation Professionnelle – Aménagements à réaliser au Camp de RIVESALTES,” 2, N˚ 2375 SFIM/MG, Aug. 13, 1963. 211 SHAT, 1R 337/1, “Situation des effectifs à la date du 15 octobre 1963.” 212 CAC, 19970146/2 (dossier: R. Bourgat), R. Bourgat to the Prefect of the Pyrénées-Orientales, “Objet: Situation des ‘Harki’ [sic] recasé dans les Pyrénées-Orientales,” 2, N 835/RB/Rb/3, June 27, 1963. The dossier “Retours au camp” in AN, F1a 5142 contains a series of documents from Oct. 1963 to Feb. 1964 written monthly by René Aucante entitled 210 225 sometimes getting into disputes with other harkis or their supervisors at the forest hamlets. Others encountered problems with their housing. And still others feared for their safety living near Algerians in their new communities; one harki reported that an ADAF member warned him: “la guerre était finie en Algérie, mais pas ici.”213 Starting in January 1963, those who were deemed as incasables or irrecasables—most often widows, the ill, and elderly people—were transferred to the Bias camp (also known as “La Cité d’Accueil des Rapatriés Algériens” or CARA) in the nearby Lot-etGaronne department, which had most recently sheltered refugees from French Indochina.214 The day after the Rivesaltes camp was liquidated, on January 1, 1965, la Cité d’Accueil et d’Hébergement opened on the site of the former Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camp for the 760 remaining “unhouseable” harkis.215 According to a report submitted by the Minister of the Interior to the General Secretary of the Parliament in July 1965, “ces milieux très fermés sur le monde extérieur” housed 1,800 harkis.216 Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise remained open until December 31, 1976, and the site of the Bias camp (officially closed in 1983) contained two complexes exclusively housing harkis today.217 The harkis who departed the Rivesaltes camp for destinations across metropolitan France carried their nationality declaration, social security card, train voucher, certificates of completion of job training programs, and a letter from René Aucante to the Prefect of the harki’s new home department. This form letter’s first sentence underlined that because the harki opted for French nationality, he must be considered a “citoyen français.” However, Aucante conceded that problems could very well arise for the newly-minted citizen: “…En raison de son inadaptation à peu près “État des ex-harkis de retour au camp.” During this period, an average of fourteen harki males, some of whom had a wife and children, returned to the Rivesaltes camp each month. 213 ADBR, 138 W 7, SCINA, “Synthèse..., journée du 30 mai 1963,” 3, N˚ 1 908. 214 For a study of the Bias camp, see Aude Lanoizelez, “La Cité d’Accueil de Rapatriés Algériens (CARA) de Bias, du camp au ghetto: socio-histoire d’un lieu d’hébergement de Harkis oubliés (1963-2000),” (M2 thesis, Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2008). 215 CAC, 19980351/11, “Statistiques: Reclassement des rapatriés musulmans par les antennes civiles des camps d’accueil à la date du 1/1/1965.” 216 AN, 5 AG 1/22, “Rapport sur l’application…,” 127. 217 Abderahmen Moumen gives this date of closure for Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise in Les Français musulmans en Vaucluse, 194. Lanoizlez discusses the two housing developments opened on the site of the Bias camp in “La Cité d’Accueil,” 99-105. 226 complète à la vie métropolitaine, de son manque de formation intellectuelle, de son ignorance des lois et coutumes.” Therefore, it was the responsibility of the departmental social services office to provide the harki with information about his rights and duties as a citizen and to intervene in any conflicts that the harki encountered with his employer.218 Despite his emphasis that the harkis were indeed French citizens in the letter’s opening sentence, the rest of Aucante’s words marked the harki as an outsider to French society. The most popular destinations for those with some job skills were factories, construction sites in the Pyrénées-Orientales department, the SNCF worksites, and mines located in northeastern France. The harki families were sometimes housed in cités urbaines under a special construction project, “Le Programme ‘Harkis.’” Situated in urban settings, these public housing projects sheltered exclusively harki families, whose heads of household worked in nearby factories, in the mining industry, or for the SNCF. Social counselors responsible for the residents’ encadrement helped the harkis adapt to metropolitan life and acted as their interlocutors with the state. Nevertheless, the government’s preferred option for the harkis’ reclassement was the forest hamlets, whose policies are examined in the next chapter. ACNMF, 32/3, Form letter René Aucante to Departmental Prefects. “Citoyen français” and “En aucun cas” are underlined in the original document. 218 227 CHAPTER 4 Repatriates? The Post-Imperial French Government’s Forest Hamlet “Integration” Policy Le reclassement des harkis dans le secteur forestier entraîne depuis quelques semaines l’ouverture d’un certain nombre de chantiers de forestage et l’installation des hameaux d’habitation destinés aux familles de ces harkis… Nos services restent en liaison constante avec vous [les préfets] pour essayer de résoudre les problèmes posés par l’intégration de ces réfugiés dans la communauté métropolitaine… Il faut en effet éviter que ces groupes ethniques ne se trouvent encore plus isolés en dépendant uniquement de structure trop spécialisée.1 -Yves Pérony, Ministry of Repatriates, December 19, 1962 Le problème des rapatriés d’origine algérienne [sur les hameaux forestiers] sensibilise actuellement, comme vous le savez, cette catégorie des Français, dont la situation matérielle, morale et psychologique laisse à désirer. Or, cet aspect humain semble avoir été quelque peu perdu de vue.2 -Michel Poniatowski, Minister of Interior, April 4, 1975 The Ministry of Repatriates’ reclassement service (SFIM) rehoused nearly 25 percent of the 40,582 harki population members from the Rivesaltes and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camps, and 12 percent of the total harki population repatriated to France, in 72 forest hamlets concentrated primarily in southern France.3 These spaces, hastily set up in emergency conditions, were located in proximity to a village de rattachement, rural towns with populations numbering from several hundred to Archives Départementales du Var (hereafter ADV), 746 W 62, Circular from Yves Pérony to Departmental Prefects, 1, N° 2175 SFIM/MG, Dec. 19, 1962. 2 CAC, 19910097/43 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1975), Minister of Interior Michel Poniatowski to Minister of Agriculture Christian Bonnet, Apr. 4, 1975. 3 AN, 5 AG 1/22, Minister of the Interior, “Rapport sur l’application…,” 112 and 117. 1 228 several thousand. Men worked on forestry worksites (chantiers de forestage) in twenty-five to thirty person teams, constituted exclusively of harkis and supervised by a Ministry of Agriculture official and a military officer. Women spent their days in the forest hamlets tending to their household and children. Most harki children attended nearby schools. Representatives of the state—a social counselor and camp director—lived on-site with the harki families, acting as these French citizens interlocutors with local government officials and ensuring that the forest hamlet inhabitants did not disturb their neighbors. Despite setting up the forest hamlets as spaces that differentiated and isolated the harki population, the Ministry of Repatriates maintained that the cornerstone of its forest hamlet policy—as SFIM Director Yves Pérony refers to above—was integrating the “refugees” into their surrounding community. This housing situation was a form of what officials labeled collective reclassement (reclassement collectif), intended to be a temporary step after the housing camps to prepare the harkis for insertion into French society. 4 As explained in chapter three, reclassement is a complex term that the government used to signify the harkis’ integration into French society through access to housing and employment. While this word first appeared in the dictionary in the 1869 edition of Emile Littré’s Dictionnaire de la langue française to describe the reclassification of British electoral districts following the 1867 Reform Bill (which doubled the ranks of voters as a movement toward universal male suffrage), its meaning soon shifted to describe a process by which people were transformed.5 The Dictionnaire de l’Académie française initially included reclassement in its eighth edition (published from 1932 to 1935), defining the term as a new classification of people or things to “correct” a former classification. This entry cited the example of the “reclassement des valeurs,” referring to changing a As mentioned in chap. 3, the word reclassement in this context does not have a succinct translation in English. Therefore, it is left in the original French throughout the text. 5 Littré’s Dictionnaire de la langue française defines reclassement as: “Classement nouveau, différent. Le reclassement des districts électoraux exigé par la réforme en Angleterre.” Emile Littré, Dictionnaire de la langue française (Paris: 1863-73), s.v. “reclassement,” <http://francois.gannaz.free.fr/Littre/xmlittre.php?rand=&requete=reclassement&submit=Rechercher (accessed March 13, 2011). 4 229 person’s values or worth.6 At the beginning of the twentieth century, colonial administrators in Indochina, Africa, and Madagascar had employed this term in this way, that is, to describe circumstances of re-educating native populations. For example, officials in Indochina used “reclasser” to characterize the process the government undertook with children who were born, most often outside of marriage, to a French father and a mother of indigenous origin. According to one such administrator, by taking these métis away from their mothers and placing them in “institutions spécialisées,” they would be able to become “Français d’âme et de qualités.” 7 The process of reclassement therefore required the métis children’s dependence on French officials and administrative structures. This definition more closely reflects the term’s usage for the harkis in the 1960s and underscores the importance of the physical spaces where the transformation took place. In a similar fashion to the procedure of inculcating Indochinese métis children earlier in the century, the forest hamlets for the harkis and their families were “specialized institutions” separating them from other French citizens. The residents remained under the supervision of a social counselor tasked with educating them about how to act as “French citizens” now that they legally had French nationality. The government’s vision for the forest hamlets provoked two of their three principal flaws: isolation and dependency. Indeed, these are precisely the faults that, in December 1962 after the government had opened the first ten forest hamlets for the harkis, Pérony warned departmental prefects could materialize, as cited in the epigraph to this chapter. The third flaw endemic to these spaces was their longevity. This reflects discursive and policy shifts from the government’s initial claims that the forest hamlets would merely be a temporary step to help the harkis integrate into French society. As Minister of Interior Michel Poniatowski wrote in the April 1975 letter to Minister of Agriculture Christian Bonnet cited in the Dictionnaire de l’Académie française, 8th ed., s.v. “reclassement,” http://atilf.atilf.fr/dendien/scripts/generic/cherche.exe?15;s=3292224930 (accessed March 13, 2011). The term’s verbal form, “reclasser,” referred to the reclassification of archival documents. 7 Saada, Les enfants de la colonie, 79. On the definition of the term métis and its usages, see pp. 14-16. 6 230 epigraph to this chapter, by keeping open the isolated forest hamlets, whose living conditions had severely degraded, government officials had lost sight of the harki population’s humanity in their policy decisions. Instead, the harkis—men who had risked their lives for France during the Algerian War for Independence—were an unwelcome reminder to these officials of the end of France’s colonial empire. Historian Benjamin Stora wrote in 1991 about the memory of this war: “Dans ce pays, où les guerres de Vendée [pendant la Révolution française de 1789] sont encore des discordes contemporaines, on cache ce passé tout récent. Tout un ensemble subtil de mensonges et de refoulements organise la ‘mémoire algérienne’. Et cette dénégation continue à ronger comme un cancer, comme une gangrène, les fondements mêmes de la société française.”8 By continuing to hide the harkis in secluded camps, government officials seemed to try to physically push them out of their sight, just as they tried to repress from their minds the loss of the Algerian War for Independence. The forest hamlets, moreover, challenged the harkis’ legal status as repatriates. This classification entitled the harkis to special social and economic benefits; in practice, however, some of these benefits were limited for them. In August 1961 when Prime Minister Michel Debré named Robert Boulin the first Secretary of State for Repatriates, he tasked the new member of his cabinet with designing an “arrival” and “settling in” policy (une politique d’accueil et de réinstallation) for the increasing number of French repatriates from Algeria who arrived in France.9 The result was the December 26, 1961 “Loi relative à l’accueil et à la réinstallation des Français d’outre-mer,” which in theory applied to the harkis. A September 4, 1962 decree officially extended the provisions of the Boulin law to “étrangers”—a legal denomination—who were forced to leave a French colony, protectorate, or Algeria and fell under one of five categories. Since very few harkis were enlisted in 8 9 Stora, La gangrène et l’oubli, 8. Scioldo-Zürcher, Devenir métropolitain, 107. 231 the French Army (variations of which were categories one through three), they and the other demobilized auxiliary forces met the requirement for category five: “Avoir fait preuve de dévouement à l’égard de la France, ou lui avoir rendu des services exceptionnels.”10 The Boulin law, and the ensuing legislation with more precise instructions for its implementation, enacted measures “de nature à intégrer les Français rapatriés dans les structures économiques et sociales de la nation.” These included assistance finding jobs and housing, monthly allocations for a temporary period, an allowance to settle in to a new residence (subventions d’installation), and priority access to housing constructed by the state.11 However, the law was applied differently to the French repatriates and to the harkis—mostly because of the government’s preference for collective reclassement to house the harkis. Collective reclassement included camps such as Rivesaltes, the seventy-two forest hamlets, and seventy-one cités urbaines built by the SONACOTRA under the special “Programme ‘Harkis.’”12 Collective reclassement challenged the harkis’ access to assistance intended for repatriates— and, therefore, their status as repatriates—in three principal ways. First, the organization that the Secretary of State for Repatriates put into place for doling out benefits to the French repatriates and the harkis fostered two different categories of repatriates. SFIM officials at the Rivesaltes and SaintMaurice-l’Ardoise camps were responsible for giving the harkis in the camps any allocations for which they were eligible and finding the harkis jobs and housing. Twenty percent of these positions were located on isolated forestry worksites. Any harki who had ever lived in the camps would remain under the jurisdiction of the camp SFIM offices for the purposes of receiving future social JORF, “Décret nº 62-1049 du 4 septembre 1962 portant règlement d’administration publique pour l’application à certains étrangers de la loi nº 61-1439 du 26 décembre 1961 relative à l’accueil et à la réinstallation des Français outremer,” Sept. 5, 1962. The fourth category was “Avoir perdu un descendant, un ascendant ou son conjoint mort pour la France,” and therefore applied to widows and orphan children of French Muslim auxiliary forces. 11 JORF, “Loi nº 61-1439 du 26 décembre 1961.” The principal text with the modalities for implementing the Boulin Law is: JORF, “Décret nº 62-261 du 10 mars 1962 relatif aux mesures prises pour l’accueil et le reclassement professionnel et social des bénéficiaires de la loi nº 61-1439 du 26 décembre 1961,” 2521-33, Mar. 11, 1962. For a description of this decree see Scioldo-Zürcher, Devenir métropolitain, 114-17. Government documents sometimes referred to “subventions d’installation” as “indemnités de déménagement.” 12 CAC, 19920149/1/4, Ministry of Social Affairs, “Programme de Construction pour les ‘Harkis,’” undated. The author intends to include a case study of the Cité les Tilleuls cité urbaine in Marseille in the manuscript version of this text. 10 232 welfare benefits and assistance finding housing and jobs should his initial reclassement fail.13 The harkis who did not pass through the camps were instructed to address themselves to the French Muslim division of the Repatriates Service in the department where they resided or the Centre National de Répartition de l’Emploi et du Logement pour Rapatriés Musulmans in Jouques (Bouches-du-Rhône) to receive employment aid.14 On the other hand, a repatriate service in each department handled the French repatriates’ reclassement and distributed their allocations. Departmental officials gathered information about French repatriates’ professions in Algeria, which, like with the harkis, often did not correspond to the type of jobs that existed in metropolitan France.15 The state even created quotas in some professions—such as pharmacists and taxi drivers—requiring that employers hire a certain percentage of French repatriates. Departmental agents conducted surveys among local businesses and municipal officials to try to find these migrants jobs and offered to employers incentives to hire French repatriates.16 In the Bouches-du-Rhône department, for example, after conducting one such survey among 8,700 potential employers in July 1962, the local branch of the Association pour l’emploi dans l’industrie et le commerce (ASSEDIC) subsequently published a list of repatriates in search of jobs every two weeks.17 This two-tiered system for the harkis and French repatriates led a top official in the SFIM office at the Rivesaltes camps to label it “une sorte ‘d’apartheid’” owing to the government’s recourse to different offices for allocations and services “[dûs] à une seule catégorie de citoyens.”18 The second way that collective reclassement challenged the harkis’ access to repatriate benefits is that a portion of money due to each head of household as subventions d’installation was used to CAC, 19970146/2 (dossier: Robert Bourgat), Robert Bourgat (Liaison Mission at the Rivesaltes Camp) to the Prefect of the Pyrénées-Orientales, “Objet: Situation des ‘Harki’ recasés dans les Pyrénées-Orientales,” 1, nº 835/RB/RB/3, June 27, 1963. 14 AN, 5 AG 1/22, Minister of the Interior, “Rapport sur l’application…,” 107, July 26, 1965. 15 Scioldo-Zürcher, Devenir métropolitain, 249. 16 For a detailed analysis of the government’s policy and practices for finding jobs for French repatriates, see ScioldoZürcher, Devenir métropolitain, 249-67. 17 See ADBR, 131 W 377 for various documents, studies, and pamphlets published by the ASSEDIC departmental office. 18 CAC, 19970146/2, Robert Bourgat, “Objet: Situation des ‘Harki’ recasés…,” 2. 13 233 finance the construction of forest hamlets and to furnish the cités urbaines.19 A July 1963 circular from the Ministry of Repatriates specified that harki families who moved to the “temporary” forest hamlets received no money to help them find a more permanent living situation, unless they lived there (and the harki worked at the forestry worksite) for at least six months.20 As Pérony wrote to a harki who had resided in a forest hamlet in the Basses-Alpes department and subsequently requested his allowance to settle into a new residence outside of the forest hamlets, “J’ai l’honneur de vous faire connaître que les rapatriés reclassés et logés sur les hameaux de forestage par les soins du Ministère des Rapatriés ne pouvaient prétendre au bénéfice de cette subvention…”21 This exception made it more difficult to for the harkis to leave the forest hamlets. Moreover, this information was often difficult for the harkis to access since it was sent to departmental prefects and regional delegates of the Ministry of Repatriates, who had the responsibility of passing it on to the social counselors and camp directors to share with the harki population. As a final example, while the government set aside places for the harkis in collective reclassement housing situations—the forest hamlets and cités urbaines—they were not eligible for the same public housing benefits offered to French repatriates. A January 31, 1964 circular from the Ministry of Repatriates instructed local officials to give priority to French repatriates over harkis when applying the August 18, 1962 ordinance reserving 30 percent of apartments in newlyconstructed HLM buildings for repatriates: “Vous ne devrez reloger les anciens harkis qu’après avoir relogé tous les rapatriés demandeurs de logement et particulièrement mal logés.” The circular CAC, 19920149/1/5, SFIM, “Note sur les harkis et les moghaznis,” 5, undated. While this copy of the memo is undated, the author concludes that it was written in late September based on its reference to the completed transfer to the Rivesaltes camp of the harki population from the Bourg-Lastic camp, which concluded on September 24 (ADPO, 1419 W 109), and to that from the Larzac camp, which the memo indicated would start on October 1. 20 CAC, 19770391/8, Circular from Minister of Repatriates to Departmental Prefects and Regional Delegates of the Ministry of Repatriates, “Objet: Attribution des prestations de retour aux musulmans rapatriés,” 2, Nº 63-99, June 19, 1963. 21 CAC, 19920149/5/11, Yves Pérony to Mr. Teffahi A., Nº 4497 SFIM/MR, Dec. 3, 1964. This exception was outlined in an Aug. 7, 1963 circular, a copy of which is located in: CAC, 19920149/1/5, Minister of Repatriates to Departmental Prefects and Regional delegates of the Ministry of Repatriates, “Objet: Attribution de la subvention d’installation aux musulmans reclassés dans un emploi salarié,” Nº 63.121/Cab., Aug. 7, 1963. 19 234 explained the rationale for this order, which impeded the harkis’ access to an integrated housing situation, “…en raison des avantages particuliers prévus pour le logement des anciens harkis, notamment du programme lancé par la SONACOTRA…”22 As mentioned above, the buildings constructed under this collective reclassement program housed harki families exclusively. This chapter traces the creation and evolution of the national government’s policies for the forest hamlets. It examines how the shifts and stagnations in these policies affected both the individuals residing in these spaces and the place of harki citizens in French society. The harkis and their family members residing in the forest hamlets were legally French citizens. Nevertheless, government officials treated them as an inferior class of repatriates—and citizens—to begin with by devising different systems and legislation to implement the Boulin law, whose measures were created to integrate all repatriates into the social and economic structures of the French nation. The government’s recourse to forest hamlets as a central feature of its housing policy and the subsequent modifications to this policy, which made these spaces permanent without improving their residents’ living conditions, solidified the harki population’s de facto status as refugees and immigrants. This chapter ultimately demonstrates that the government’s choice to initiate and prolong a policy of housing members of the harki population in isolated forest hamlets under the supervision of encadrement agents resulted in the marginalization from French society of these reminders of the Algerian War for Independence. As will be argued in this chapter and the next, the challenges encountered in integrating harki citizens residing in the forest hamlets into their surrounding communities did not arise from a divide between theory and practice. Instead, these challenges resulted from the inconsistency, created at the outset, between Ministry of Repatriates officials’ discourse of integration and national government actors’ design and subsequent refinement of the ACNMF, 15/13, Circular from the Ministry of Repatriates to Departmental Prefects and Regional Delegates of the Ministry of Repatriates, “Objet: Attribution de logements H.L.M. aux anciens harkis,” 1, Nº 64/19, Jan. 31, 1964. 22 235 forest hamlet policy, which effectively impeded these harki citizens’ integration into the French community. The First Phase: Developing the Government’s Contradictory Forest Hamlet Policy The policy that the French government officials established in 1962 for what they would later term “the first phase of forest hamlets” was contradictory. On the one hand, Ministry of Repatriates officials insisted that the goal of these temporary spaces was to integrate the harkis into the French community. Yet, on the other, the instructions these administrators simultaneously gave for the forest hamlets’ design effaced the possibility for the harki population’s integration. The prescriptions necessitated that the forest hamlets be located in isolated areas kilometers away from small towns in rural France. They included encadrement by soldiers and agents who lived in the forest hamlet, which ensured that the harki population would be separated and differentiated from their neighbors. Finally, these instructions depended on local officials, some of who did not want the harkis in their communities, to facilitate their integration. In short, the government set up the forest hamlet policy to fail in its purported goal of integrating the harki population. The notion of encadrement, which was not specific to the harkis, is essential to understanding the construction of the government’s forest hamlet policy. Since the late nineteenth century French administrators had employed this practice, initially for single male French workers and more recently for foreign—often colonial—populations.23 As detailed in last chapter’s analysis of the Rivesaltes camp, encadrement for the harkis implied a two-pronged relationship of power with the state resembling Michel Foucault’s notion of modern biopower. It was a method of social and political control. On the one hand, a network of state agents with different functions (“une armée de techniciens”) closely watched over individual camp inhabitants’ movements, disciplined them, and On encadrement structures used for single workers, see Robert Castel, Les métamorphoses de la question sociale: Une chronique du salariat (Paris: Fayard, 1995). 23 236 educated them about—and sometimes imposed on them—metropolitan ways of life.24 On the other, the state enacted toward the harkis a regulatory technology, which Foucault called a “technology of security.” This policy aimed to protect the security of “the whole” (the general French population) from “internal dangers” (the harki population) by placing them in camps.25 Encadrement therefore presents a fundamental contradiction with the Ministry of Repatriates’ goal of integrating the harkis into their communities because it was an inherently exclusionary policy. Encadrement moreover exacerbated the physical separation of the harkis from other French citizens already present given the forest hamlets’ isolation. Several sources indicate that the original idea to house the harkis in forest hamlets came from SAS officers who had overseen Muslim auxiliary troops in Algeria, the same type of agents who would subsequently be responsible for the harkis’ encadrement. Beginning in February 1962 associations of SAS officers developed a policy that advocated using the abandoned villages in southern France resulting from the generalized rural exodus that began during the interwar period to house groups of harkis. Conceived as a “solution à moyen terme/transitoire de trois années environ,” harki men would work in nearby forestry or farming jobs and the houses would provide the families with the possibility to, according to a report of the Comité national de solidarité pour les Français Musulmans réfugiés, “vivre correctement.”26 In March a group of SAS members identified as a prototypical abandoned village Ybours in the Basses-Alpes department. This town had no more inhabitants, but the houses were connected to electricity and water and the harkis could cultivate nearby fields.27 Officers, who knew firsthand the violence—and threat of violence—in Algeria (and Foucault, Surveiller et punir, 18. Foucault, “Society Must Be Defended,” 249. One can also argue another application for this paradigm: the harkis were “the whole” and FLN insurgents were “internal dangers.” 26 ACNMF, 25/17, Comité national de solidarité pour les Français Musulmans réfugiés, “Conseil d’administration du 3 août 1962: Note sur les possibilités d’implantation de communautés de Français Musulmans dans les villages et dans les chantiers de forestage,” 3 and 1. This document in the CNMF archives had the word “à moyen terme” scratched out in pen and an unidentified person wrote “transitoire” in its place. 27 ACNMF, 25/17, Comité national de solidarité pour les Français Musulmans réfugiés, “Conseil d’administration,…” 2. 24 25 237 in France) by FLN members, believed this potential aggression outweighed the negative effect that provisionally isolating the harkis would have on their integration into French society. For example, a second lieutenant performing his military service as an SAS agent wrote in April to several prefects in the Midi region, inquiring about abandoned villages in their departments where the “Muslim soldiers” who had served under him could live while they worked the land. He warned that the harkis “sont voués, eux et leur famille, à une sort atroce et certaine” if they remained in Algeria and underscored this point: “L’isolement n’est pas un obstacle pour ces gens là.”28 The pressure that SAS associations and officers exerted on the government to consider abandoned villages as a solution for housing repatriated harkis led Prime Minister Michel Debré to put this issue on the agenda at a March 1962 Council of Ministers meeting.29 To sustain themselves, the harkis would need to procure jobs in the forestry or agricultural sector. Consequently, Debré asked Ministry of Agriculture officials to take the lead in exploring the possibility of temporarily employing the harkis. This decision, which shifted the emphasis of their inquiries onto jobs over housing, would have multiple future implications for the harki population, particularly for women, who spent the most if not all their time in the forest hamlets.30 By mid-April a plan emerged to constitute groups of twenty-five men to perform tasks such as reforestation and clearing paths, with the initial goal of having two or three of these forestry worksites per department.31 In the end, however, only twenty-six of France’s ninety departments would contain worksites. The men and their families would live adjacent to the worksite in a forest hamlet, whether in abandoned or SHAT, 1R 367/7 (dossier: Envoi en métropole des harkis et de leurs familles), S/Lieutenant François Le Breton, Apr. 20, 1962. 29 ACNMF, 25/17, Comité national de solidarité pour les Français Musulmans réfugiés, “Conseil d’administration…,” 1. 30 The particular effect that the forest hamlets’ isolation had on women will be addressed in next chapter’s case study. 31 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962), Chief Forestry Expert Jolain to the Forestry Commissioners in Gap and Digne, 1, Apr. 14, 1962. Some officials at the April 10 Massenet Commission meeting evoked the possibility of using the harkis as a replacement for Italian lumberjacks (bûcherons). At this time, Italian migrants were increasingly choosing to work in other European countries offering better pay and many were leaving the profession. However, Ministry of Agriculture officials noted that it would be impossible for the harkis to gain the necessary skills demanded by the profession and that limited housing possibilities existed. CAC, 19910097/40, “Compte rendu de séance sur les harkis…,” 2. 28 238 prefabricated houses. The Ministry of Agriculture specifically instructed local officials to choose sites “en dehors des agglomérations.”32 It is clear from the earliest discussions that encadrement would be a central feature in implementing this plan. During what appears to be the first meeting devoted to employing the harkis as forestry workers, attended by representatives of multiple ministries, on April 6 officials underscored that the harkis would need to be “solidement encadrés sur le triple plan policier, technique et social.”33 The recommendation that followed from the April 10 Massenet meeting was to have SAS and other officers from Algeria familiar with their ways of life continue to oversee them. 34 The organization of these work details echoed that of auxiliary force units during the Algerian War for Independence. For example, harkas composed of one hundred harkis were commanded by a French sergeant, “chef de harka,” and overseen by three to five officers, and maghzens included twenty-five to thirty moghaznis overseen by one or two SAS officers. In a November 1962 telegram SFIM Director Pérony would even refer to the group of harkis to be transferred from the Rivesaltes camp to a forest hamlet as a “harka de 25 travailleurs.”35 The challenge to enacting the government’s plan resided in finding towns willing, on one hand, to integrate the harkis and their families into their communities and, on the other, to provide land or abandoned villages to house them. During late spring 1962, the Ministry of Agriculture took an active role in inquiring among mayors and prefects in six southern French departments, yet found few sites with work opportunities, adequate housing, and the approval of local officials. On May 28 Minister of Agriculture Edgar Pisani’s cabinet director sent a letter to a member of Secretary of State CAC, 19910097/40, Chief Forestry Expert Jolain, 1, Apr. 14, 1962. On April 6, 1962, Minister of Agriculture Edgar Pisani presided over a meeting with representatives from different ministries (including Armies and Algerian Affairs), Secretary of State for Repatriates Boulin, and several of his subordinates. The summary of the meeting can be found in: CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962), Paul Benda (Chief Forestry Expert), “Note pour Monsieur le Directeur Général: Compte-rendu de la réunion consacrée aux rapatriements d’Afrique du Nord,” 1, EF/B Nº 106, Apr. 7, 1962. 34 CAC, 19910097/40, “Compte rendu de séance sur les harkis…,” 3. 35 CAC, 19920149/3/2, Telegram from Yves Pérony to M. Couston (Director of the Ministry of Repatriates office at the Rivesaltes Camp), Nº 210/SFIM, Nov. 12, 1962. 32 33 239 for Repatriates Robert Boulin’s cabinet indicating that local agents in his Ministry’s Forestry Division (Direction Générale des Eaux et Forêts) had studied the possibility for nineteen sites in the Basses-Alpes, Hautes-Alpes, Gard, Hérault, Aveyron, and Tarn departments. Only four of these would later open, one of which was in an abandoned village.36 According to the Director General of the Forestry Division, one of the primary reasons that these sites never opened was because of political objections by departmental prefects.37 A letter written two weeks later by the commissioner of the Forestry Division in Valence to the director general confirms this assertion. He exposed the litany of excuses he received from local officials in his region in response to previous offers to allot land for forestry worksites, including one official’s concern about the decision to “implanter définitivement ces cellules sociales sur le vieil organisme rural français.” The commissioner concluded the letter by stating, “En résumé, le problème majeur, du moins au début, n’est pas celui de l’emploi mais celui de l’Administration.”38 Meanwhile, to house harki families SAS officers continued to advocate the use of abandoned villages, which would provide a more stable living environment. In July one group of officers proposed three additional ones in the Aude department—Pujol de Bosc, Puylaurens, and La Camp.39 While the former was eventually converted to house harki families, it soon became apparent that the best chance for finding the harkis homes lay in shifting the search to worksites with adjacent land where lightweight prefabricated houses (préfabriqués légers) could be erected, as complications had arisen with the potential abandoned villages. Namely, these houses had owners—some of whom had CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962), Minister of Agriculture to Secretary of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Emploi de Harkis à des travaux dans les forêts domaniales et dans les séries domaniales de restauration de terrains en montagne,” EF/DR-1202, May 28, 1962. 37 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962), Director General of the Forestry Division “Note pour Monsieur le Ministre (Cabinet): Projets d’emploi de main-d’œuvre rapatriée, et notamment de Harkis, sur les chantiers de l’Administration des Eaux et Forêts,” 4, EF/D-1625, June 19, 1962. 38 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962), Forestry Commissioner in Valence to the Director General of the Forestry Division (Paris), “Objet: Chantiers de harkis – Compte rendu général,” 1-2, Nº 1354, July 2, 1962. 39 ACNMF, 25/17, Comité national de solidarité pour les Français Musulmans réfugiés, “Conseil d’administration…,” 2. 36 240 moved, others of whom had passed away and left their property to family members.40 Moreover, some houses needed many repairs, often more costly than constructing new prefabricated houses, which the Secretary of State for Repatriates proved unwilling to fund.41 Throughout the summer of 1962 local and national officials in the Ministry of Agriculture continued to canvas the French countryside, predominantly in southern France, for possible land to construct forest hamlets. In July, Minister Pisani sent another round of letters to departmental prefects asking whether their departments had a need for groups of twenty-five forestry workers to employ for at least one year, thereby presenting the project as temporary. The worksite would need to be close to an abandoned village whose houses the harkis could repair or empty land where the harkis themselves could construct prefabricated homes for their families. The memo underscored that potential houses must have access to water, be located in a mild enough climate for the harkis to work almost year round, be situated close to schools for the harki children, and have accessible roads to facilitate receiving supply shipments. What is striking about this brief memo is Pisani’s choice to stress in three different places that soldiers provided by the Ministry of Armies would closely watch over the harkis. Specifically, he detailed both the precise structure of the “personnel d’encadrement” to oversee the workers on the forestry worksites and the type of agents and soldiers who would direct the harkis if they repaired abandoned houses. The latter, he noted, would be the “le même contrôle et encadrement” as the one that would be put in place if the harkis constructed their own homes.42 Indeed, two letters written in June by high-ranking officials in the Ministry of Agriculture to their superiors demonstrated their belief in the centrality of a well-defined plan of encadrement to the forest hamlet’s success. The first, written on June 4 to the Director of the Forestry Ibid., 2-3. CAC, 19920149/3/1, “Réunion du lundi 7 janvier 1963,” 1. 42 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962), “Ministre de l’Agriculture à Monsieur le Préfet de…,” 1-2, July 2, 1962. The copy of this form letter included in the archives is dated July 2. However, an unidentified person wrote on it “25 juillet 1962 pour la,” leading the author to conclude that not all of the letters were sent on July 2. 40 41 241 Division, gave a three-page explanation of how many of the different types of agents (Ingénieurs, Ingénieurs adjoints, Chefs de district, and Agents techniques) would be allotted per Forestry Commission, which comprised one or two departments, and the agents’ specific roles.43 The second, addressed to Minister Pisani and his cabinet on June 19, outlined the five principle issues that needed to be resolved before opening the forestry worksites to ensure their success. Two of these five “impératifs” related to encadrement: “UN ENCADREMENT SOCIAL EST ABSOLUMENT NECESSAIRE” (underlined and placed in capital letters in the document) and “Un encadrement technique sévère n’est pas moins utile.”44 Pisani’s plea received few favorable responses. Replies from prefects and forestry commissioners who consulted with local officials demonstrated various reservations. The principle concerns included a preference for using local laborers for forestry jobs; worries about their need to finance costs associated with forest hamlets and worksites (including personnel to oversee the harkis); and the absence of available housing. The prefect of the Hautes-Pyrénées, for example, wrote that despite the rural exodus no villages were completely abandoned. Other reasons supplied by local officials consisted of not enough forests in their department to provide work for the harkis, a colder climate preventing the harkis from working several months out of the year, and concerns about their adaptation to this climate.45 Although—and perhaps because—Pisani underscored how the harkis would be closely supervised, only one objection relating to security concerns was raised in these letters. The forestry commissioner overseeing the region around Bordeaux expressed CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962), M. Doniol (Le Chef de Service des Domaines Soumis au Régime Forestier), “Note pour Monsieur le Directeur Général des Eaux et Forêts: Organisation de l’emploi des harkis – Evaluation des besoins en personnel forestier d’encadrement,” EF/D4-nº 1418, June 4, 1962. 44 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962), Director General of the Forestry Division “Note pour Monsieur le Ministre…,” 3. Two of the other three “impératifs” concerned funding and the last one focused on the difficulty in finding sites. 45 The folder “Harkis – Correspondance 1962” in CAC, 19910097/40 contains response letters written in July and August. Those cited above were written by prefects of the Corrèze, Haute-Pyrénées, and Savoie departments and forestry commissioners in the Allier, Puy-de-Dôme (27th Commission), Gironde, Dordogne, and Lot-et-Garonne (32nd Commission) departments. 43 242 uneasiness about housing the harkis near local seaside resorts: “…l’implantation des harkis sur le littoral atlantique au voisinage des stations balnéaires et des nombreux camps d’estivants ne paraît pas souhaitable.”46 In short, many local officials were not persuaded by the government’s vision to billet the harkis on the fringes of rural towns in their regions, and particularly, the social and economic costs that the forest hamlets could incur. Agriculture Ministry officials chose to respond to some of the objections by addressing local agents’ concerns and asking them to reconsider. For example, the official whom Pisani put in charge of the mission to find potential forestry worksites urged the director of the Forestry’s Civil Engineering Division in Toulon (Var) to meet with the director of the Forestry Commission in the Var who had declined to accept groups of harkis owing to a lack of housing. This official provided the Var director with nine talking points for the discussion, including ones concerning the amount the government would provide the department to construct each house (4,000 new francs for repairing an existing house and 8,000 new francs for erecting a new one); the possibility of sheltering the harkis in tents temporarily while the houses were being constructed; and the potential to reuse the houses once the harkis left. The memo again emphasized the temporary duration of the forest hamlets—approximately two years.47 The Ministry of Agriculture nevertheless did receive some favorable responses from local officials regarding constructing forest hamlets in their departments. On August 16, 1962 Pisani wrote to Boulin with a list of seventeen forestry worksites likely to open soon. Ten of these would later open.48 Boulin (who served as Secretary of State for Repatriates until September 11, 1962), his CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962), Forestry Commissioner of the 32nd Region to the Director General of the Forestry Division, “Objet: GIRONDE – Emploi de la main d’œuvre rapatriée et notamment des harkis sur les chantiers d’amélioration du domaine forestier de l’État,” Nº 1258/7 b.C.7, Aug. 13, 1962. 47 While there is no trace of future correspondence in this archival carton to evaluate the effect of this letter, the Var would contain more forest hamlets than any other department. ADV, 746 W 62, J. Montpied to the Director of the Civil Engineering division in Toulon, “Objet: Recasement des harkis rapatriés d’Algérie,” 1-2, July 28, 1962. 48 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962), Minister of Agriculture to the Secretary of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Recasement des harkis,” Aug. 16, 1962. 46 243 successor Alain Peyrefitte (who briefly served as Minister of State for Repatriates until Prime Minister Pompidou reorganized his government on November 28, 1962), and Peyrefitte’s successor François Missoffe (the last Minister of State for Repatriates, serving until the Ministry was eliminated on July 23, 1964) addressed a series of memos to prefects in the departments that had agreed to create forest hamlets. These three documents—dated August 27, October 29, and December 19— outlined practical information concerning how the forest hamlets would be financed, the structure of encadrement, and details about housing.49 The October memo reaffirmed the temporary nature of the forest hamlets by assuring local officials that any land they provided would only be needed for a “temps très limité.”50 Foremost, these documents consistently underscored the government’s vision for the functioning of the forest hamlets, a vision that centered on integrating the harkis into the French community. As the August memo succinctly explained, “Il est indispensable que ces groupes de harkis soient intégrés dans la communauté française…,”51 while the December one offered the government’s aid toward this end: “Nos services restent en liaison constante avec vous pour essayer de résoudre les problèmes posés par l’intégration de ces réfugiés dans la communauté métropolitaine.”52 It must be underscored, however, that the isolated locations that government officials chose for the forest hamlets would call into question the very possibility of successfully integrating the harkis into French society before they even opened. Moreover, the forest hamlets’ distance from their villages de rattachement, rural towns with small populations, ranged from one kilometer to as many as fourteen kilometers, as was the case with the Capelude forest hamlet paired with the town of Collobrières in the Var department. CAC, 19920149/3/1, Secretary of State for Repatriates to the Prefect of…, “Objet: Chantiers de forestage,” Aug. 27, 1962; CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates to the Prefect of…, “Objet: Reclassement des harkis – chantiers de forestage,” Nº 1681/SFIM/DIR, Oct. 29, 1962; and ADV, 746 W 62, Minister of State for Repatriates to the Prefect of the Var, Nº 2175 SFIM/MG, Dec. 19, 1962. 50 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, 1, Oct. 29, 1962. 51 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Secretary of State for Repatriates, 1, Aug. 27, 1962. 52 ADV, 746 W 62, Minister of State for Repatriates, 1, Dec. 19, 1962. 49 244 Integration nevertheless permeated each aspect of the Ministry of Repatriates’ proposed organization for the forest hamlets. Indeed, Ministry of Repatriates officials viewed the forest hamlets in themselves as a means to integrate the harkis into the French community. The October memo urged the prefects to open the forest hamlets as soon as possible, “[e]n raison de l’importance que le Gouvernement attache à l’intégration des harkis dans la communauté française…”53 The August memo already had exposed the twofold goal of the forest hamlets as furnishing the male harkis with work and integrating them “little by little into the French community.”54 Boulin argued that a crucial element of this policy was that the harki children attend schools with neighboring children and proposed that the regional education authority (Inspecteur d’Académie) make a special plan to address the needs of the many who did not speak French.55 All of the memos underscored that the collaboration of a network of local officials was essential to the success of the harkis’ integration. The December memo, in particular, focused on this theme and put into place a unique administrative structure to implement this policy. Ministry of Repatriates officials emphasized to the prefects the importance of giving the harkis the same access to social services as any other departmental residents. Referring to this formula as the best method to assure the integration of the “refugees,” this memo warned, as cited in the epigraph to this chapter, “Il faut en effet éviter que ces groupes ethniques ne se trouvent encore plus isolés en dépendant uniquement de structure trop spécialisée…”56 It continued by asking the prefects to give the directors of the various social services (such as health care and employment) in their department orders to be available to the “refugees” for whatever problems or concerns might arise.57 The Ministry of Repatriates moreover advocated a close relationship between local officials and the CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, 2, Oct. 29, 1962. CAC, 19920149/3/1, Secretary of State for Repatriates, 3, Aug. 27, 1962. 55 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Secretary of State for Repatriates, 1, Aug. 27, 1962. 56 ADV, 746 W 62, Minister of State for Repatriates, 1, Dec. 19, 1962. 57 Ibid., 1-2. 53 54 245 individuals responsible for the harkis’ encadrement. The memo strongly encouraged departmental officials to visit the forest hamlets often to “prendre connaissance des difficultés d’ordre moral, matériel qui peuvent exister.”58 To facilitate these interactions, the Ministry of Repatriates created a network of forest hamlet inspectors, who oversaw several forest hamlets in the same region. The inspectors were instructed to contact department officials on a weekly basis to inform them how the forest hamlets were functioning.59 The memo presented the role of the inspector, who was selected for the position owing to his “connaissance approfondie des milieux musulmans.” He was to monitor the setup of forest hamlets in coordination with local officials; relay instructions about how to run the forest hamlets to the military officers who served as camp directors; provide guidance to the on-site social counselor; and “préconiser toutes les mesures susceptibles d’améliorer la vie du hameau et de faciliter l’intégration des familles musulmanes au sein de la communauté française…”60 According to a future inspector for social policy (a position that was created in 1965 to oversee the social counselors), this three-tiered structure used for managing the forest hamlets—composed of the SFIM director, an intermediary level of inspectors, and the on-site camp directors and social counselors—was unlike the organization of any other administrative unit responsible for social welfare. Given this structure, officials responsible for the forest hamlets, therefore, did not have a blueprint for how to resolve problems that arose and consequently dealt with them on an ad hoc basis. This inspector explained, “Partagés entre la joie de croire s’accroître l’importance de leur service et l’effroi causé par les problèmes inhabituels qui se posaient à eux, ceux-ci n’optèrent jamais pour une politique définie et se contentèrent d’atermoyer indéfiniment chaque fois qu’il aurait fallu prendre une décision.”61 Ibid., 2-3. Ibid., 3. 60 Ibid., 2. 61 Heinis, “L’insertion des Français-Musulmans,” 89-90. 58 59 246 From the three documents written in 1962, the government’s vision for the forest hamlets concretized into a set of five guidelines to be implemented by local agents. This vision was the government’s integration policy for the harki population. The forest hamlets would be isolated so as to protect the harkis from FLN insurgents, yet close enough to the small rural towns to allow the harkis to interact with their neighbors. The harki children would attend local schools, which would facilitate not only their integration but also that of their parents through their interactions with “French” people. With the active investment of a network of departmental and local officials, the harkis would not need to rely exclusively on forest hamlet agents and therefore would become integrated into their communities. Agents familiar with “milieux musulmans,” that is individuals who had lived in Algeria, would encadrer the harki population. This encadrement would help them learn about French ways of life, protect them from FLN members, and control and discipline the harkis who threatened the stability of the forest hamlet or the surrounding area. Finally, the integration policy’s success hinged on the forest hamlets being a temporary solution while government officials sought more permanent jobs for the harkis. From the outset, this policy contained several inherent flaws, which would later be compounded as the forest hamlets continued to remain open. The instructions that Ministry of Repatriates’ officials gave for the forest hamlets’ set up structured them as mini versions of the housing camps. Isolating the harkis from their surrounding community—both requiring the forest hamlets to be linked to sparsely-populated towns and then choosing sites on the outskirts of these small villages—would necessarily inhibit their interactions with other French citizens. The encadrement structure, which sought to control their movements and differentiated them from other French citizens not subject to such surveillance, served as an additional impediment to their interactions with townspeople. Therefore, if the harkis were given little opportunity to interact with their neighbors, integration could not take place. Moreover, the national government’s design of the 247 forest hamlet policy required “un maximum de concours” from local and departmental officials, which concentrated the responsibility for its successful implementation into the hands of a few individuals. This design assured variable results once the national government devolved its responsibility to local officials and the inspectors. The Second Phase: Evaluating and “Extend[ing] the Forest Hamlet Experiment”62 On October 7, 1963, sixteen months after the government repatriated the first harkis to metropolitan soil, the SFIM released a five-page report summarizing the principal problems it faced. (The government had created this office in July 1962 to run the harki camps and those housing Indochinese refugees (Noyant-d’Allier and Sainte-Livrade) as well as to find jobs and housing for the harkis.63) At this time, four housing camps (Bias, Rivesaltes, la Rye, and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise) sheltered 9,376 harki population members and the government had found housing and jobs for approximately 25,188 harkis, 5,082 of whom it placed in forest hamlets.64 On the first page of the report, SFIM Director Yves Pérony posed the question, “Pourquoi tous les harkis ne sont-ils pas encore reclassés?” and proceeded to furnish three reasons, which outlined how his office would proceed henceforth with the harkis’ reclassement. His first answer justified the delay by advancing what had become the SFIM’s preferred method for the harkis’ reclassement: “[D]’abord parce que le Ministère des Rapatriés a tenu à développer au maximum l’expérience des chantiers forestiers…” The second reason Pérony offered was that reclassement in the industrial sector was proceeding slowly because the Ministry of Repatriates’ policy was to find harkis jobs and housing on a case-by-case basis. Finally, Pérony conceded that the Ministry of Repatriates was waiting for the SONACOTRA This quotation comes from the subject line of the following letter: CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates to the Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans. Extension de l’expérience des chantiers forestiers,” May 14, 1963. 63 AN, 5 AG 1/22, “Note concernant le service des Français Musulmans,” May 6, 1966. 64 CAC, 19920149/1/13, J. Besson (Ministry of Repatriates), “Note pour Monsieur Pérony,” 3, Oct. 9, 1963. 62 248 to complete its construction of 2,500 HLM apartments, primarily in urban areas, for the population under the “Programme ‘Harkis.’”65 As the charts in figures 24 and 25 illustrate, the government increasingly relied on the forest hamlets to rehouse the harkis from the camps, preferring collective reclassement on these isolated sites to that in more populous areas and individual reclassement. Only 13 percent of the jobs that the SFIM found for the harkis until November 15, 1963 (representing the rehousing of 15 percent of the harki population) were on forestry worksites. The other 87 percent of jobs (representing 85 percent of the harki population members the government rehoused) were in other sectors—including factories, mines, agriculture, the SNCF, public works, and domestic work. After this time, reclassement on the forestry worksites would increase dramatically, even though 1,734 apartments had opened under the “Programme ‘Harkis’” by the end of 1964, thereby providing the potential for a greater reliance in other job sectors.66 Between November 15, 1963 and January 1, 1965, 36 percent of the jobs the government found for the harkis were on forestry worksites (representing 45 percent of the harki population the government rehoused between these dates) and 64 percent of the jobs (representing 55 percent of the population) were in all other professions combined. The discrepancy between the number of people and number of jobs demonstrates that the SFIM tended not to place single harkis (either unmarried or whose family was still in Algeria) in the forest hamlets. ACNMF, 15/13, Yves Pérony (SFIM), “Problèmes posés,” 1, Oct. 7, 1963. CAC, 19920149/1/4, “Programme de Construction pour les ‘Harkis.’ I. – SONACOTRA et Conventions – Situation au 1er Janvier 1965.” These apartments were constructed by the SONACOTRA and its subsidiaries, the SNCF, local authorities, and associations such as “Comité Accueil aux harkis.” 65 66 249 Percentage of reclassement by number of jobs 100% 80% 60% Forestry worksites 40% All other professions 20% 0% 7/1/62-11/15/63 11/16/63-1/1/65 Figure 24: The reclassement of the harkis on the forestry worksites accounted for 1,392 jobs between September 7, 1962 (the date the first forest hamlet opened in St-Etienne-des-Orgues in the Basses-Alpes department) and November 15, 1963. An additional 797 jobs were created by January 1, 1965, for a total of 2,189 jobs on the forestry worksites. The harkis’ reclassement in all other professions accounted for 9,397 jobs between July 1, 1962 and November 15, 1963 and an 67 additional 1,415 jobs by January 1, 1965, for a total of 10,812 jobs. Percentage of reclassement by number of people 80% 70% 60% Forestry worksites 50% 40% All other professions 30% 20% 10% 0% 7/1/62-11/15/63 11/16/63-1/1/65 Figure 25: Between September 7, 1962 and November 15, 1963, the government placed 6,081 harkis and their family members in the forest hamlets. By January 1, 1965, this number had increased by 3,734 to a total of 9,815 people. The harkis’ reclassement in all other professions affected 23,772 people between July 1, 1962 and November 15, 1963. An additional 4,531 harkis and their family members were rehoused outside of the forest hamlets by January 1, 1965, for a 68 total of 28,303 people. The data for this chart is pulled from: AN, F1a 5142, “Ex-supplétifs musulmans passés par les camps et reclassés par secteurs d’activité à la date du 15 novembre 1963” and CAC, 19980331/11, “Reclassement des rapatriés musulmans par les antennes civiles des camps d’accueil à la date du 1/1/1965.” A chart in the SFIM archives cites July 1, 1962 as the date this office began its reclassement of the harkis. CAC, 19920149/2/12, “État des effectifs des ex-supplétifs musulmans reclassés du 1er juillet 1962 au 1er juin 1963.” 68 Ibid. 67 250 This section examines the government’s contradictory integration policy for the forest hamlets and reveals why these spaces became the national government’s preferred method of reclassement for the harkis. By choosing isolated locations, using a regime of encadrement separating and differentiating the harkis’ from their community, and needing to rely on substantial help from local officials—some of who were disinterested in the project—to assure the policy’s success, the government’s integration policy was inherently flawed. The modest potential for this policy to lead to integration would, nevertheless, not prevent national government officials from praising it, while simultaneously maintaining a discourse of the importance of integrating the harkis into French society. Minister of Repatriates Missoffe claimed in May 1963 that his ministry’s integration policy for the harkis residing in the forest hamlets, created only several months before, was proving to be a “véritable réussite.”69 This assessment revealed at times a divide between national and local officials about the success of the forest hamlets. The conflicting evaluations between national and local officials underscore the problem with relying heavily on local officials, some of who vested little interest in the harkis’ integration. Meanwhile, the government’s policy of selecting agents to run the forest hamlets among those who had lived and served in Algeria impeded the harki population’s integration because these agents treated them as colonial subjects, and not citizens or repatriates as these agents themselves were classified. Though inclement weather and construction difficulties delayed the inauguration of thirtyone of the forty-two forestry worksites (representing thirty-seven forest hamlets) the government intended to open in 1962,70 only one of the forestry worksites in the first phase would never open.71 Indeed, it appeared that the government preferred to open the forest hamlets in poor living CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 1. CAC, 19920149/3/2, Ministry of Repatriates (SFIM), “Reclassement des harkis dans le secteur agricole,” 1, undated. While this document is undated, the author estimates that it was written in February 1963 owing to the verb tenses used when discussing the number of forest hamlets opened and those to be opened in spring 1963. 71 To determine the number of forestry worksites and forest hamlets in the first phase that opened, the author compared table 4 with the following document: CAC, 19920149/3/2, “État des monitrices de promotion sociale—Liste des 42 chantiers (1ère tranche),” undated. The one forest hamlet that never opened was Lunas in the Hérault department. 69 70 251 conditions rather than abandon a site, given the difficulty of finding municipal officials willing to allow the harkis to be domiciled in their towns. For example, the government did not wait until the houses were completed before opening the Mirande forest hamlet in the Gers department; on December 4, almost three months after the harkis arrived, they still resided in tents. 72 This determination demonstrated the increasing importance that the Ministry of Repatriates accorded to this form of reclassement. By May 15, 1963, 24 first phase forest hamlets sheltered 3,345 members of the harki population,73 with plans to “extend the forest hamlet experiment,” in Missoffe’s words.74 National government officials—led by Missoffe—predominantly deemed the first phase of forest hamlets reclassement a success. Missoffe based his assessment primarily on the potential for, and early signs of, the harkis’ integration into their communities. He argued in a May 14, 1963 letter asking Minister of Finances and Economic Affairs Valéry Giscard d’Estaing for funds to open additional forest hamlets: “Toutes les conditions y sont en effet réunies pour permettre une intégration durable et réelle des anciens harkis dans la communauté nationale” and followed this statement with a list of conditions.75 The local officials responsible for implementing the forest hamlet policy did not always share Missoffe’s opinion that the policy would lead to the harkis’ integration. In fact, they sometimes painted a very different picture, with precise examples, about the forest hamlet’s lack of success in specific domains. Missoffe’s sometimes inaccurate portrayal of the forest hamlets’ potential for integrating the harkis into their surrounding communities, the primary goal his Ministry had outlined the previous fall, can be in part attributed to his objective of convincing Giscard d’Estaing to allocate funds to construct and hire encadrement agents for additional forest hamlets. Indeed, following Ministries of CAC, 19920149/3/1, Ministry of Repatriates, “Compte-rendu de la réunion du 4 Décembre 1962 à 10 heures du matin au Ministère des Armées,” 3, Dec. 4, 1962. 73 CAC, 19910097 /40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1963), Ministry of Agriculture, “Situation des chantiers ouverts au 15 mai 1963.” 74 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…” 75 Ibid., 1. 72 252 Agriculture and Repatriates officials’ approving assessment of the initial forest hamlets, they decided to open beginning in summer 1963 a second phase of forestry worksites. These would follow the same model for their setup and organization as the first phase. Whereas the first forty-one forestry worksites were spread over twenty different departments, all but five of twenty-seventy opened in the second phase were located in the four departments of the Provence Côte d’Azur region: AlpesMaritimes, Bouches-du-Rhône, Var, and Vaucluse (see table 4). Here, the harki men would work to make the forests less prone to fires and serve as auxiliary firemen as during the previous five years forty thousand acres of the Provencal forest had burned. According to Missoffe, this type of work by the harkis—which he claimed other forestry workers refused to carry out—meant that funding additional forestry worksites would be in the “intérêt économique national.”76 Department Name of Forest Hamlet Number of Department worksites Name of Forest Hamlet Number of worksites Allier Noyant-St-Hilaire 1 Juzet-d’Izaut* 1 Alpes-Maritimes 1 Magland* 1 Alpes-Maritimes Alpes-Maritimes Alpes-Maritimes Breil-sur-Roya (L’Oliveraie)** L’Escarène** Mouans-Sartoux** Roquesteron** HauteGaronne Haute-Savoie 1 1.5 1.5 Hérault Hérault Hérault 1 2 3 Alpes-Maritimes Ariège Aude Valbonne** Montoulieu Narbonne 2 1 1 Isère Lozère Lozère Aude Aude Aude 1 1 2 Lozère Lozère Lozère Aveyron La Pradelle* St-Martin des Puits* Villeneuve-Minervois (Pujol-de-Bosc)* St-Rome de Cernon* Avène-Truscas* Lodève* Saint Pons (Plo de Maillac)* Roybon* Cassagnas* Chadenet (La Loubière)* Chanac-Cultures* Mende Meyrueis* 1 Lozère 1 Aveyron Basses-Alpes Brusque* Jausiers* 1 1 Lozère PyrénéesOrientales St-Etienne de Valdonez* Villefort* Rivesaltes* 2 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 The government originally intended to open forty forestry worksites in the second phase, but difficulties finding housing for the workers’ families forced officials to subsequently reduce the figure to thirty. CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans,” 2-3, May 14, 1963. 76 253 Basses-Alpes Ongles (St-Etienne des Orgues)* St-André des Alpes* Sisteron* 1 Saône-et-Loire 1 1 Tarn Tarn Fuveau (La Cité Brogilum)** Jouques (Le Logis d’Anne)** La Ciotat 2 Tarn 1 Tarn 2 Var 2 Var 1 Var 1 1 2 1 1 Var Var Var Var Var Côte d’Or Dordogne Drôme La Roque d’Anthéron (La Baume)** Chalvignac (Aynes)* La Tremblade* Casamozza Zonza Baigneux-les-Juifs** Is-sur-Tille (Vernot-Saussy)** Vanvey-sur-Ource* Lanmary* Beaurières* 1 1 1 Var Var Var Drôme Gard Dié La Grand’Combe 1 1 Var Var Gard St. Sauveur du Pourcil (Villemagne)* Mirande* Montmorin* Rosans** 3 1 1 1 Basses-Alpes Basses-Alpes Bouches-du-Rhône Bouches-du-Rhône Bouches-du-Rhône Bouches-du-Rhône Cantal Charente-Maritime Corse Corse Côte d’Or Côte d’Or Gers Hautes-Alpes Hautes-Alpes Roussillon-enMorvan (Glennes)* Anglès** Arfons (Les Escudiers)** Puycelci (Grésigne)* Vaour 1 Bormes (Les Mimosas)* Collobrières (La Capelle) 1 Collobrières (Le Capelude)* Gonfaron** La Londe** Montmeyan** Le Muy** Néoules** 1 1 1 1 Vaucluse Pignans* Rians** St-Maximin (La Sainte Baume)** St-Paul-en-Forêt** St-Raphaël (Aigue-Bonne)* Apt** Vaucluse Vaucluse Vaucluse Total: 26 Cucuron** Pertuis** Sault** Total: 72 1 1 1 Total: 89 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 Table 4: The complete list of the forest hamlets the French government opened in twenty-six departments with the number of corresponding forestry worksites for each forest hamlet. Fourteen of the seventy-two forest hamlets were double forest hamlets, housing the families of harki men assigned to two forestry worksites and two of them, Villemagne and Saint Pons, were triple forest hamlets. The single forest hamlets had twenty-five to thirty-three houses, the double forest hamlets contained fifty to fifty-six houses, and the Villemagne triple forest hamlet had seventy-eight houses. Some of the double and triple forest hamlets, such as Valbonne and Saint-Pons, opened initially as smaller forest hamlets, which were subsequently expanded. In like fashion, other double forest hamlets later became single forest hamlets, such as Fuveau and la Roque d’Anthéron. The first phase of forestry worksites is marked with one asterisk and the second phase is marked with two asterisks. Those that are unmarked were opened later. If the forest hamlet is also known by a name different from that of the village de rattachement, this designation is given in parentheses.77 This table uses the names of French departments from the 1960s, before the Basses-Alpes department was renamed Alpes de Haute-Provence in 1970 and the Corse department was split into two (Corse-du-Sud and Haute-Corse) in 1976. 77 254 The primary discrepancies between Missoffe’s letter, titled “Extending the forest hamlet experiment,” and reports from local officials pertained to two of the integration policy’s five prongs—schooling and interactions between the harkis, on one hand, and local officials and populations on the other. Missoffe noted the benefits for the entire population’s integration if harki children attended schools with other French children and affirmed that the harki children had achieved an “intégration scolaire parfaite.”78 Several reports contradicted this claim. For example, one submitted five days later by a Ministry of Agriculture official who had visited five forest hamlets in the Midi-Pyrénées region revealed that while harki children in the two forest hamlets located close to the nearest town (Juzet d’Izaut and Mirande) did attend municipal schools, those in the three forest hamlets located farther away from the nearest town (Puycelsi, St-Rome-de-Cernon, and Brusque) attended school on the campsite.79 Another report from the forestry commissioner in the Bordeaux region revealed that harki children in the Lanmary (Dordogne) and La Tremblade (Charente-Maritime) forest hamlets also attended school onsite at this time.80 The overall situation was, nonetheless, an improvement over that in the Rivesaltes and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camps, where none of the children attended local schools. The most glaring discrepancy—and the heart of the integration policy—was Missoffe’s declaration that the forest hamlets had received an “excellent accueil des municipalités, des autorités préfectorales et des populations locales.”81 However, accounts from local officials call into question Appendix D includes an expanded table with information including the forest hamlets’ opening and closing dates, the number of houses, and the sources from which the information was gathered. 78 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 2. 79 CAC, 19910097/40, M. Doniol, “Objet: Inspection des chantiers…,” 17. 80 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1963), Report from Forestry Expert J. Ducasse (Forest Service of the Ministry of Agriculture), “Objet: Inspection des chantiers forestiers ‘harkis,’” 1, 3, Ig. nº 660, Apr. 11, 1963. Children in forest hamlets opened subsequently (including Fuveau, Jouques, and la Roque d’Anthéron in the Bouchesdu-Rhône departments) did attend onsite schools at least for a brief period following the forest hamlet’s inauguration. A folder marked “Scolarisation des harkis, rapatriés d’Algérie 1962-67” in ADBR, 131 W 377 contains multiple documents with discussions about mobile classrooms and special teachers for these three forest hamlets. 81 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 1-2. 255 Missoffe’s wholesale claim. For example, in the same report cited above about the forest hamlets in the Midi-Pyrénées, the Ministry of Agriculture official noted: “L’accueil des Harkis par les populations locales a été variable selon les régions.” He explained that some of the mayors “ont marqué un manifeste recul devant les intentions d’implantation de groupes dans leur commune,” but this problem was often rectified if the prefect interceded. Moreover, officials in the departmental repatriates office succeeded in assuaging certain concerns by reminding the mayors that the harkis, who would have a salary, could be a boon for local businesses.82 Therefore, some of the local officials who bore a great deal of the responsibility for facilitating the harki population’s integration—per the government policy for the forest hamlets—were proving reluctant to welcome these individuals into their communities. These local officials only acquiesced when those with political power over them intervened or when they were reminded of potential economic benefits for their constituents. During initial interactions between townspeople and the harkis this same official disclosed some “minor incidents” (though he divulged no details). The manner in which officials resolved the problems implied that the harkis were to blame: “Quelques éléments perturbateurs, rares au demeurant, ont été renvoyés à leur camp d’origine et l’exemple ainsi administré s’est révélé salutaire.” The report related that local populations subsequently felt reassured owing to the “surveillance très étroite” exercised over the harki population by a network of local services—gendarmes, social services, repatriates service, and forestry service. 83 This statement first suggests the townspeople’s apprehension concerning having harki citizens reside near them, an attitude indicating that they did not want the camp dwellers to be part of their community. The statement also shows that local officials separated harki citizens from their neighbors, demonstrating that encadrement, a core component of the government’s forest hamlet policy, led to the differentiation—and not integration—of the two groups. 82 83 CAC, 19910097/40, M. Doniol, “Objet: Inspection des chantiers…,” 17. Ibid., 18. 256 Nevertheless, Missoffe was not alone in touting the initial forest hamlets’ success because they did resolve—in the short term—some of the major difficulties facing the harki population and facilitated the type of control and discipline over the harkis that government officials believed was imperative. One Ministry of Armies official even went as far as to call the forest hamlets the “formule idéale de reclassement.”84 Officials agreed that this form of reclassement helped to address overcrowding in the Rivesaltes and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise housing camps and allowed the government to move closer to ending the “univers concentrationnaire.” As Missoffe claimed in his letter to Giscard d’Estaing: “[L]a vie dans les camps… présente suffisamment de dangers et d’inconvénients de toutes sortes pour que la nécessité continue d’apparaître de hâter le reclassement des anciens supplétifs.”85 From December 3, 1962 to March 17, 1963, 35 percent of the harkis from the camps whom the government rehoused were transferred to forest hamlets. The Ministry of Armies estimated that 45 percent of those whom the government would rehouse from mid-March to July 1, 1963 would be sent to forest hamlets, including the second phase in the Provencal forest.86 It must be noted, however, that in his letter Missoffe gave no indication of the harkis’ living conditions in the forest hamlets, other than to mention that each one contained only twenty-five families and that a joint Repatriates-Agriculture Commission had chosen new forest hamlets buildings “destinés à améliorer, compte tenu de l’expérience acquise, la situation sanitaire des hameaux forestiers…”87 SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Point de la situation des harkis), Ministry of Armies, “Perspectives de décongestionnement des Camps de Rivesaltes et de St-Maur l’Ardoise,” 2, Mar. 22, 1963. 85 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 1. 86 SHAT, 1K 744, Ministry of Armies, “Perspectives de décongestionnement…,” 1. 87 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 2. Reports from local officials indicate that living conditions in some of the existing forest hamlets were insalubrious. For example, the director of the Chanac-Cultures forest hamlet in the Lozère department had sent a complaint to Missoffe the week before condemning the harkis’ living conditions as “très précaires.” The prefabricated houses contained two bedrooms, each measuring three meters by three meters, there were no toilets or even outhouses, and the kitchens were very small. AN, F1a 5137, Alfred Calvière to the Minister of Repatriates, “Objet: Mon affectation à Chanac-Cultures en qualité du Chef de Hameau,” May 10, 1963. 84 257 The forest hamlets, moreover, offered solutions to many of the problems experienced with other forms of reclassement. Police reports from across the country in late 1962 and early 1963 confirmed various threats from Algerians of FLN allegiance toward small groups of harkis placed in factories, which also concerned potential employers.88 For example, a March 1963 letter from an official in the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefecture to the minister of Repatriates related: “En effet, l’emploi de petits groupes de harkis dans les grandes usines donne encore des résultats peu encourageants… Dans les entreprises importantes, les migrants traditionnels continuent, comme par le passé, à se regrouper par village ou par région d’origine et supportent mal des ‘étrangers’. Lorsque ceux-ci sont, en plus, des harkis, les rapports deviennent franchement mauvais et même dangereux pour ces derniers.”89 Therefore, Minister Missoffe argued that because the forest hamlets were isolated, contained twenty-five harkis who worked among themselves, and were supervised by a military officer and patrolled by local police, they assured the harkis greater security.90 The May 1963 report about the Midi-Pyrénées region’s forest hamlets cited above confirmed that warnings of expulsion from France issued by local armed gendarmes to Algerian immigrants worked to stave off any attacks on the harkis.91 The forest hamlets further addressed the lack of housing options, especially for harkis with families, encountered even if the SFIM found them jobs. A report consolidating the findings of the departmental reclassement commissions declared: “…pour l’ensemble des Départements, le leitmotiv des Commissions de Reclassement est: possibilités d’emplois d’importance variable, mais pas de CAC, 19920149/1/5a, Minister of State for Repatriates to the Prefect of…, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans,” 1, Nº 2.073 SFIM/MG, Dec. 7, 1962. Examples of these threats, such as those cited in introduction to section two of this dissertation, can be found in the SCINA reports located in ADBR, 138 W 4-9. The SFIM archives include a Sept. 1964 letter from a harki who believed that a factory manager refused to hire him because he was a harki and Algerians of FLN allegiance were already working there. CAC, 19920149/5/11, Letter from Mr. G. to the Minister of Repatriates, Sept. 7, 1964. 89 CAC, 19920149/3 (dossier: Travaux de la Commission départementale, Bouches-du-Rhône), IGAME for the 9th Region (Prefecture of the Bouches-du-Rhône) to the Minister of Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des réfugiés musulmans dans le département des Bouches-du-Rhône,” 2, Nº 03894, Mar. 16, 1963. 90 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 1. 91 CAC, 19910097/40, M. Doniol, “Objet: Inspection des chantiers…,” 17. 88 258 logements.”92 In several documents, national government officials exposed that the lack of technical training that harkis, who predominantly originated from the Algerian countryside, possessed (“une main d’œuvre dépourvue de qualification,” according to Missoffe) rendered it difficult for them to secure jobs in the industrial sector.93 Moreover, some who were placed in such jobs had difficulties adapting to this type of work; for example, 29 of the 233 harkis for whom the government found mining jobs in Valenciennes in fall 1962 quit for this reason.94 In contrast, the type of work the harkis performed on the forestry worksites was, in Missoffe’s words, “[un] travail parfaitement adapté aux modes de vie et à la formation socio-professionnelle des intéressés.” 95 Finally, as explained in the previous chapter, some of the harkis whom the government rehoused faced difficulties adapting to colder climates and urban settings and subsequently returned to the Rivesaltes camp. As the map in figure 26 shows, the forest hamlets and forestry worksites were concentrated in rural southern France—sixty of the seventy-two forest hamlets were located in the Corse, Languedoc-Roussillon, Midi-Pyrénées, and Provence-Côte d’Azur regions. This milder climate and rural area arguably would not provoke as much “dépaysement” and therefore allowed the harkis to “reprendre un genre de vie conforme à leurs traditions ancestrales,” as one Ministry of Repatriates official put it.96 CAC, 19920149/2/13, SFIM, “Étude des rapports des Commissions Départementales de Reclassement,” 1, undated. “L’ensemble des Départements” is underlined on the document. 93 CAC, 19920149/1/5a, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans,” 1, Dec. 7, 1962. 94 ADBR, 138 W 5, SCINA, “Synthèse… journée du 13 novembre 1962,” 5, N˚ 1 790. 95 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 2. A Feb. 1963 memo by the SFIM similarly explained, “Le milieu rural dans lequel [les harkis] seront fixés se trouve plus conforme à leur ancien mode de vie et à leur mentalité et leur adaptation en sera donc plus rapide et plus sûre.” CAC, 19920149/3/2, Ministry of State for Repatriates (SFIM), “Reclassement des harkis…,” 1. 96 CAC, 19920149/3/2, Ministry of State for Repatriates (SFIM), “Reclassement des harkis…,” 1. 92 259 Figure 26: Number of forest hamlets per department. The data for this map comes from the chart in table 4. 97 http://drawmeagraph.com/view-13123442315QF Finally, encadrement—the type of supervision that government officials insisted these former colonial subjects needed—was a reason officials often cited for the forest hamlets and forestry worksites’ success. A March 1963 Ministry of Agriculture internal document included among the three principles that must be strictly respected in running the forestry worksites: “Maintenir l’unité et la permanence de l’encadrement technique… Le bon ordre et l’efficacité des chantiers en This map depicts the present-day French departments. Therefore, Corsica is shown as having two departments instead of one, which was the case when the government built two forest hamlets on this island. 97 260 dépendent.”98 That same month, in letter to a Ministry of Finance official requesting funding to open additional forest hamlets, Pérony included a chart that read at the top: “Il est indispensable d’encadrer les harkis reclassés pendant la période d’adapation.” He then listed the types of officers and the funds needed for this temporary surveillance.99 And Missoffe himself included “encadrement professionnel, social et para-militaire bien adapté” in his list of the conditions contributing to the harkis’ “intégration durable et réelle” in the May 1963 letter.100 Despite government officials’ insistence on using encadrement as a central feature of their integration policy for the forest hamlets, this practice isolated the harki population from other French citizens and, therefore, impeded its integration into the surrounding community. Officials at all levels maintained that encadrement was “essential” to keep order inside the worksites and hamlets so that their inhabitants would not disturb the surrounding communities. When Minister of Armies Messmer expressed his intention to withdraw soldiers assigned as camp directors at the end of July 1963, Missoffe relayed Minister of Interior Roger Frey’s concerns: “Il pourrait en résulter alors des heurts qui déborderaient le cadre du hameau et provoqueraient des inquiétudes au sein des populations locales.” 101 Frey specified that this discipline must come from not only military officers, but specifically those who had served in Algeria: “[S]i les harkis se plient facilement à une certaine discipline militaire émanant de sous-officiers qui connaissent bien leur mentalité et sous les ordres desquels ils ont servi longtemps en Algérie… par contre ils risquent de ne pas accepter aussi CAC, 19920149/3/1, Ministry of Agriculture, “Projet de note transmis pour étude à Mr Ballu, ingénieur en chef des eaux et forêts le vendredi 15 mars 1963,” 1. 99 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Yves Pérony to the Director of General Administration and Budget (Ministry of Finances), “Objet: Hameaux de forestage. Création de 50 chantiers supplémentaires en 1963,” 3, Nº 667 SFIM/MR, Mar. 18, 1963. 100 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 1-2. 101 CAC, 19920149/3/2, Minister of Repatriates to the Minister of Armies, “Objet: Encadrement militaire des hameaux forestiers ouverts pour les supplétifs,” 2, Nº 1088 SFIM/DIR, Apr. 24, 1963. Messmer’s letter to Missoffe can be found in: CAC, 19920149/3/2, Minister of Armies to the Minister of Repatriates, “Objet: Cadres militaires mis à la disposition des chantiers de forestage ouverts pour les ex-supplétifs,” Nº 07235 MA/CM, Feb. 18, 1963. 98 261 facilement l’autorité d’agents civils.”102 Frey’s opinions on this matter were particularly significant because fifteen months later the Ministry of Repatriates would be dissolved and its remaining officials who handled the harkis would report to him. The conflict between integration and encadrement demonstrated the difficulties post-imperial leaders confronted deciding whether the harkis should be included into or excluded from French society. According to Frederick Cooper, struggles of this type (about “conjugat[ing] incorporation and differentiation”) were a central feature to “thinking like an empire.”103 As he maintains, colonial leaders disputed and continually shifted their strategies concerning “[w]here to find a balance between the poles of incorporation (the empire’s claim that its subjects belonged within the empire) and differentiation (the empire’s claim that different subjects should be governed differently).”104 While constantly underscoring the importance of the harkis’ integration in its directives regarding the forest hamlets, the government’s simultaneous use of encadrement, which ineluctably isolated the population under surveillance, showed a contradiction in the government’s conception of these spaces. This inconsistent thinking bore a resemblance to “thinking like an empire,” except the territory where these policies were implemented was in metropolitan France. This distinction is important because, according to Cooper, the geographical distance between policymakers and the agents who implemented its policies in the colonies diffused imperial power. This distance made empires vulnerable to assertions of autonomy, resistance to central authority, and growth of circuits that bypassed the imperial center.105 While the harkis could leave the forest hamlets at any time, the fact that the locus of implementation had shifted to the (post-)imperial center limited the possibility for resistances of all types by those who opted to stay put. Some of these individuals, already hampered by unfamiliarity with the French territory and language, remained out of necessity—those CAC, 19920149/3/2, Minister of Repatriates, “Objet: Encadrement militaire…,” 1. Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 156. 104 Ibid. 105 Ibid., 200-01. 102 103 262 with limited job skills, those with large families, the sick, and the elderly. The harkis in these spaces were treated as “different subjects” who were “governed differently.” Encadrement—as conceived by national-level officials and implemented by local agents in the forest hamlets and forestry worksites—perpetuated colonial structures in these locales through continuities in the government’s choice of personnel and the methods of governance it advocated and allowed. The employees that the Ministry of Agriculture hired for the worksites were “Agents techniques” and “Agents de surveillance” repatriated from Algeria. According to one forestry commissioner: “Leur connaissance de la langue arabe et des mœurs des Harkis leur donne l’autorité requise par l’emploi d’une telle main d’œuvre qu’ils ont pratiquée et dirigée en Algérie.” 106 The inspectors, camp directors, and social counselors that the Ministries of Repatriates and Armies selected for the forest hamlets were often the same people who had similarly interacted with and overseen the harkis when they were colonial subjects in Algeria.107 The employment application for the position of social counselor targeted repatriates from Algeria by asking questions such as on what date candidates returned to metropolitan France, whether they speak and/or write Arabic and Berber (including whether they know Arab dialects), whether they prefer to work with Berber or Arab families, and their “connaissances des Musulmans.”108 The completed dossiers for all three positions show that almost all of the candidates had served in the military or worked for the Ministry of Interior as social assistants for rural populations (ASSRA).109 The choice to employ agents with experience overseeing French Muslim populations in Algeria was not unique to the harkis. For CAC, 19910097/40, M. Doniol, “Objet: Inspection des chantiers…,” 20. The Ministry of Agriculture archives contain torn out pages from the July 28, 1962 JORF with the names of agents who had been working in Algeria and were transferred to various Forestry Commissions in metropolitan France. CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1962). 107 AN, F1a 5138, “Note sur la situation des monitrices d’action sociale,” Dec. 2, 1963. According to this document, forty-eight of social counselors had been recruited by the Ministry of Armies Social Welfare Office, seven by the Ministry of Health, and one by a private association. 108 Two slightly different applications were found in AN, F1a 5137: “Candidates aux postes de monitrices de promotion sociale questionnaire” and “Recrutement de monitrices d’action sociale auprès des Français Musulmans refugiés.” The names the government used for this position included: monitrice de promotion sociale, monitrice de préformation sociale, monitrice d’action sociale, monitrice d’initiation sociale, and assistante socio-administrative. 109 These applications are located in AN, F1a 5137. 106 263 example, from 1952 to 1965 the Ministry of Interior put into place a corps of “conseillers techniques pour les affaires musulmanes” (CTAM) in prefectures with a sizeable number of Algerian immigrants in their departments. The role of these specialists in “Muslim affairs,” chosen for their previous experience in Algeria, was to “faciliter l’organisation de l’assistance morale, matérielle et sociale à la population musulmane… et l’adaptation des citoyens français musulmans en métropole et [de] réaliser leur promotion sur le plan professionnel et social.”110 Practically speaking, choosing individuals who knew Arabic and Berber, were familiar with Algerian ways of life, and had previously supervised Algerian workers facilitated communication with the harki families. However, having recently migrated from a society where “French Muslims” were inferior citizens necessarily influenced these agents’ mentalities and their resulting interactions with the harkis.111 Their past had socialized them into a system of colonial domination. In a special issue of the journal Politix, Françoise de Barros and Tom Charbit edited five articles, each of which focuses on a post-imperial situation of continuities in personnel and practices of former colonial administrators over Algerian populations in metropolitan France. The articles illustrate their thesis that one specificity of the end of colonial Algeria was “l’arrivée en métropole de plus d’un million de personnes qui emportent avec elles des manières d’être et de faire forgées dans une autre situation que celle qu’elles vont désormais affronter.”112 It is not possible to quantify precisely how many of the encadrement agents regarded the harki population under their supervision as inferior. However, the fact that the government decided to employ former residents of Algeria to run the forest hamlets fostered and prolonged the hierarchical society the harkis experienced in colonial Algeria and opened Quoted in: Viet, La France immigrée, 180. For an analysis of the administrative practices of the CTAM, see Françoise de Barros, “Contours d’un réseau administratif ‘algérien’ en construction d’une compétence en ‘affaires musulmanes’: Les conseillers techniques pour les affaires musulmanes en métropole (1952-1965)” Politix 19, no. 76 (2006): 97-117 and Arthur Grosjean, “L’action des conseillers techniques aux Affaires musulmanes. L’exemple du camp de Thol,” Matériaux pour l’histoire de notre temps no. 92 (Oct-Dec 2008): 15-24. 111 In his article “L’histoire des mentalités” Philippe Ariès argues that the evolution of individuals’ mentalities is a slow process that takes places over a “longue durée.” Ariès, “L’histoire des mentalités,” in La nouvelle histoire, ed. Jacques Le Goff (Bruxelles: Éditions Complexes, 1988), 167-68. 112 Françoise de Barros and Tom Charbit, “La colonie rapatriée,” Politix 19, no. 76 (2006): 5. 110 264 the door to such treatment.113 For example, a harki residing in la Roque d’Anthéron forest hamlet wrote a letter to President Pompidou in December 1968 in which he related harsh conduct by the new forestry worksite director who had worked in Algeria. According to the harki, “[D]epuis l’arrivée d’un nouveau chef de chantier M. BIRRITO des incidents continuels ont éclaté sur le chantier et cet homme est vraiment très dur avec nous, nous traitant avec injustice, sans cesse il nous dit : ‘Si tu n’es pas content tu n’a [sic] qu’à retourner en ALGERIE, ou bien je t’écrase.’”114 When these agents repatriated from Algeria acted as though they were superior to the harkis and exhibited similar domineering behavior toward them as they had in Algeria, this treatment distinguished the harkis from their neighbors, which in turn impeded their integration. It must be underscored, nevertheless, that while agents who had lived in Algeria brought with them colonial practices, the belief that the harkis were second-class citizens was not exclusive to repatriated individuals. For example, in a May 1963 report about the functioning of the five worksites under his supervision the forestry commissioner for the Midi-Pyrénées region critiqued the harkis for accomplishing only three-quarters of the work of “ouvriers habituels” owing to their “prédisposition au ‘farniente’ et… leur esprit revendicatif.” 115 The harkis’ questionable work habits and productivity would be cited in future discussions concerning how long to keep open the forestry worksites among Ministry of Agriculture officials. In addition to continuities with the individuals who would encadrer the harki population, national officials’ directives concerning the forest hamlets revealed continuities with colonial methods of governance on both sides of the Mediterranean. The twin components of the government’s social Government officials were, of course, aware of the dynamic between Europeans and indigenous populations in Algeria. In a heated exchange during the May 4, 1962 Council of Ministers meeting about the disregard for the Evian Accords by Muslim and European populations alike in Algeria, President de Gaulle offered his assessment of the present relationship between the two groups: “Les Européens? Depuis cent trente ans, ils ont pris l’habitude de dominer les musulmans, ils ont pensé que la France serait toujours là pour les protéger et assurer leur supériorité…” Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 139. 114 ADBR, 135 W 71 (dossier: Algérie 1965-71), letter from Mohamed B. to President Pompidou, Dec. 14, 1968. 115 CAC, 19910097/40, M. Doniol, “Objet: Inspection des chantiers…,” 20. 113 265 welfare policy specifically aimed at Algerian immigrant families residing in France during the post Second World War era had been integration and surveillance.116 The SFIM addressed a memo to the two government agents—a camp director and a social counselor—who lived on-site with the harkis, with specific instructions of their roles, similar to these earlier social welfare policies. The camp director, often a current or former military officer, was instructed to oversee the salubrity of the forest hamlet and building upkeep; act as the interlocutor with town officials for individual harkis’ administrative matters (education, social welfare, pensions); aid and support individual population members in their interactions with municipal services; protect them from possible threats from FLN operative; keep order among the inhabitants; and “apporte[r] à l’assistante sociale le poids de son autorité” should she encounter problems with residents. 117 The Ministry of Repatriates memo concerning the social counselor described her primary function as “un travail socio-éducatif.” It listed as her six tasks: train the women how to take care of their households; teach them about childcare; offer language classes to women and older adolescents who were not enrolled in school; provide basic first aid; ensure that the children attend school and become involved in extracurricular activities; and aid the families with obtaining social services from state agencies.118 Whether a forest hamlet housed the families of harkis who worked at one worksite (approximately twenty-five to thirty men) or those who worked at two worksites (double this figure), the forest hamlet still had a maximum of two government agents. (Later on, some forest hamlets would only have a social counselor owing to budgetary reductions.) Certain aspects of encadrement were helpful in aiding harki citizens adjust to life in France owing to language barriers, unfamiliarity with how to run a household in France, and inexperience Lyons, “Invisible Immigrants,” 4-7. CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates (SFIM), “Consignes du sous-officier détaché au chantier de forestage.” 118 AN, F1a 5138, SFIM (Ministry of Repatriates), “Role et attributions de la Monitrice de Formation Sociale affectée sur les hameaux forestiers.” 116 117 266 with French government agencies and laws. Moreover, the military officer’s presence would protect them from possible attacks from other Algerians, which were only initially a concern. However, these directives separated the harkis from their neighbors, sometimes instructed the social counselor and camp director to govern by authoritarian means, and diminished the possibility for the harkis to interact with local officials. This method of governance resembled in ways colonial France’s “civilizing mission.” The memos further left much up to interpretation for carrying out the state’s policies. Particularly given the forest hamlets’ isolation, which also meant limited oversight of its one or two agents, the government’s conception of encadrement concentrated much power into the on-site agents—responsible for the one hundred to two hundred residents who had difficulties speaking French and were unfamiliar with French customs and culture.119 While the social counselors’ memo emphasized that to facilitate the harkis’ integration, they should “help,” “accompany,” “teach,” and “verify” rather than “do,” implementation would necessarily be variable based on individuals.120 Envisioning Permanent Forest Hamlets and Ending the Ministry of Repatriates’ Mission While Minister of Repatriates Missoffe praised the “forest hamlet experiment” in his May 1963 letter to Giscard d’Estaing, he nonetheless cautioned, “…une des préoccupations essentielles du Gouvernement [est que] tous les efforts doivent être accomplis pour éviter que se constitue une population oisive s’installant définitivement dans une misère subventionnée.” 121 Yet, as table 5 illustrates the forest hamlets would continue beyond a temporary situation, leaving their inhabitants—numbering nearly five thousand in December 1975, over thirteen years after the first forest hamlet had opened as a temporary solution—to languish in a “misère subventionnée.” Soon A March 22, 1963 report written by the Ministry of Armies revealed that the average population in the forest hamlets for the initial 22 forestry worksites opened was 110 people. SHAT, 1K 744, Ministry of Armies, “Perspectives de décongestionnement,” 3. This figure would increase markedly as the size of the harkis’ families grew. 120 AN, F1a 5138, SFIM, “Role et attributions….” 121 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 2. 119 267 after this time population data for the forest hamlets becomes unreliable, even though most remained open at least until the early 1980s. 122 Therefore, in May 1963, the “forest hamlet experiment” was far from over. This section analyzes why the Ministry of Repatriates’ initial vision for the forest hamlets changed from a “temporary” to a “permanent” solution. It moreover interprets what this evolving vision for the forest hamlets reveals about how government officials regarded the status of the harki citizens residing in these spaces. Date Number of forest hamlets Dec. 1962 Mar. 1963 May 1963 Oct. 1963 Nov. 1963 Feb. 1964 Jan. 1965 Jan. 1966 Jan. 1967 Jan. 1968 Jan. 1969 Jan. 1970 Jan. 1971 Jan. 1972 Jan. 1973 July 1973 Jan. 1974 Jan. 1975 Dec. 1975 10 20 24 40 ----60 52 ----------40 --36 31 31 29 Number of forestry worksites Number of families Number of workers Number of dwellings Number of inhabitants 11 22 28 --48 60 72 65 ------45 --49 ----------- 282 ------------1,375 1,161 1,236 1,128 1,134 1,011 905 817 784 714 680 584 --------1,392 ----1,438 ------1,230 --1,026 --846 766 823 --- 307 --733 1,054 ----1,982 ------------------------- 1,425 2,420 3,345 5,082 6,081 7,912 9,720 --7,546 7,519 7,344 7,463 6,795 6,343 5,997 5,877 5,391 5,275 4,645 Table 5: Forest hamlets and forestry worksites open from December 1962 through December 1975 with the number of families, dwellings, workers, and inhabitants residing in the forest hamlets. Table cells marked “---” mean that the information is unavailable. This table is reproduced in Appendix E, which provides the sources for this information. An important modification to the government’s initial vision for the forest hamlets began to emerge in early 1963. From the March 1962 Council of Ministers meeting when the government first discussed housing the harkis in forest hamlets through Missoffe’s letter to Giscard d’Estaing in mid- Charts with the number of forest hamlets and their population from the late 1970s onward show various anomalies. For example, a January 1977 chart fails to include the Fuveau forest hamlet whose buildings had been reconstructed on the same isolated site, yet does list the Roque d’Anthéron forest hamlet, which had closed on February 1, 1976. The reasons for these discrepancies will be addressed in the next chapter. ACNMF, 16, “Hameaux Forestiers,” Jan. 10, 1977. 122 268 May 1963, government officials crafted a fairly consistent vision of these spaces—with one exception. The duration of the “forest hamlet experiment” would change. A memo issued in late September 1962 by the SFIM branch of the Ministry of Repatriates summarizing its reclassement efforts explained the set up for the forest hamlets: lightweight prefabricated houses, encadrement by soldiers and civilians who had lived in Algeria, groups of twenty-five men working only among other harkis, and isolation of the harki families’ living spaces. The memo also affirmed the temporary nature of the forest hamlets: “Ces chantiers, sans avoir un caractère permanent, doivent procurer du travail pour une durée de deux ans aux harkis, délai pendant lequel le Ministère de l’Agriculture se préoccupera de trouver d’autres travaux pour les intéressés.”123 Therefore, initially the set-up of the forest hamlets was planned with the intention of the forest hamlets being a temporary solution. When the government’s vision for the duration of the forest hamlets would begin to change, this modification would not precipitate a concomitant adjustment to its vision for their setup and operation. As explained above, Ministries of Agriculture and Repatriates officials decided to open a “second phase” of forest hamlets, most of which would be concentrated in the Provencal Forest, where harki men would work toward fire prevention and be auxiliary firemen. On January 16, 1963, Minister Pisani sent to the prefects of the four departments in the Provence Côte d’Azur region the same memo with information about selecting the sites and how the forest hamlets would function as he had issued in summer 1962, except without the sentence “La durée des travaux devra être au minimum d’une année.” 124 No timetable was indicated for these new forest hamlets, but their conception was otherwise exactly the same. A subsequent memo on February 23 from the Ministries of Agriculture and Repatriates to departmental prefects summarized “les principes essentiels qui président à l’installation et au fonctionnement de ces chantiers,” much like the three memos sent in CAC, 19920149/1/5, SFIM, “Note sur les harkis et les moghaznis,” 4. CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1963), Minister of Agriculture Pisani to the prefects of the Vaucluse, Var, Alpes-Maritimes, and Bouches-du-Rhône departments, Jan. 16, 1963. 123 124 269 fall 1962 by the Ministry of Repatriates. This February 1963 document retained the same elements of the previous documents in terms of encadrement, selecting a site, the construction of houses, financing the forest hamlets, and a sentence about integrating the harkis. Yet, unlike the fall 1962 documents, it made no mention of the forest hamlets being temporary. In fact, it made no reference whatsoever to the time frame.125 Missoffe’s May 1963 letter to Giscard d’Estaing asking to fund the second phase of forest hamlets similarly omitted any reference to the temporality of forest hamlets.126 In what appears to be a step in the opposite direction, in October 1963 SFIM Director Pérony explicitly referred to the forest hamlets as a transitional step. As cited above, Pérony in a report from the Ministry of Repatriates maintained that the forestry worksites aimed to reclasser members of the harki population “dans un stade transitoire.”127 This suggests that Ministry of Repatriates officials, at least briefly, vacillated in their thinking about incorporating or differentiating the harkis through their living spaces. However, on January 7, 1964, Pérony, on behalf of Minister Missoffe, wrote to the Minister of Agriculture a letter in which he explicitly signaled that Missoffe no longer viewed all the forest hamlets as temporary. In so doing, he lessened the Ministry of Repatriate’s responsibility toward the population. He asked the Forestry Commission director to place the forestry worksites into one of two categories: -…des chantiers qui doivent permettre un reclassement définitif des harkis et recevoir à ce titre un complément d’équipement pour améliorer l’habitat et le mode de vie des familles appelées à y vivre de nombreuses années. -…des chantiers qui risquent d’être fermés en raison de la précarité et de l’importance relative de travaux forestiers ou par suite de la sévérité des conditions de vie existantes ou de la proximité d’emplois plus rémunérateurs dans un secteur voisin.128 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Repatriates, “Objet: Deuxième tranche de construction de chantiers de forestage pour harkis,” Feb. 23, 1963. 126 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 2. 127 ACNMF, 15/13, Pérony, “Problèmes posés,” 1. 128 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1964), Minister of Repatriates to the Minister of Agriculture (Director General of the Forestry Commission), “Objet: Avenir des hameaux et chantiers forestiers,” Nº 58 SFIM/MR, Jan. 7, 1964. 125 270 This letter did not include the word “intégration,” or any synonym of it. Some of the forest hamlets would now represent a definitive—and not temporary—reclassement for the harkis, and the only change that Missoffe indicated making was to add supplementary equipment for the families. This partial policy shift engendered another fundamental inconsistency with the government’s forest hamlet policy: a permanent living situation in temporary living conditions. Continuing to house the harkis in locations chosen for their isolation—the Ministry of Agriculture had specifically instructed local officials to look for sites “en dehors des agglomérations”—prolonged these harki citizens’ exile and their treatment by the French government as refugees, and not repatriates.129 Seven and a half months after Missoffe’s letter, on July 23, 1964, the Ministry of Repatriates would cease to exist and the management of the harkis’ reclassement, still directed by Yves Pérony at the SFIM, would subsequently fall under the purview of the Minister of Interior. At the June 10, 1964 Council of Ministers meeting, Missoffe proclaimed: “Les rapatriés, c’est fini. Il reste seulement le règlement de quelques cas sociaux.”130 From these words alone, it is not completely certain that “quelques cas sociaux” exclusively referred to the pieds-noirs. However, based on available source material, Missoffe—like other Ministers and President de Gaulle—used “rapatriés” to denote specifically the French repatriates in his previous contributions at Council of Ministers meetings.131 Further, de Gaulle and Pompidou’s responses to Missoffe’s statement that day focused only on the pieds-noirs. Missoffe’s declaration begs the question of where and how the harkis fit into the definition of repatriates. President de Gaulle retrospectively claimed in July 1964 that Algeria was CAC, 19910097/40, Chief Forestry Expert Jolain, 1. Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 733. 131 See, for example, Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 409 and 733. According to Alain Peyrefitte, during the Feb. 13, 1963 meeting Missoffe delivered a report that exclusively treated French repatriates. De Gaulle reminded him: “Ne reniez pas votre titre. Vous n’êtes pas ministre des pieds-noirs, vous êtes ministre des rapatriés” (733). 129 130 271 French “dans les fictions juridiques,” which was demonstrated in section one.132 Similarly, it appears that the harkis were only repatriates “dans les fictions juridiques.” When the Secretariat of Repatriates was created in May 1961, its function was to develop and oversee the implementation of an “arrival” and “settling in” policy for repatriates. While its efforts and resources overwhelmingly concentrated on the pieds-noirs, the responsibilities of this Secretariat (and subsequently Ministry) included the reclassement of harki families. When de Gaulle eliminated the Ministry of Repatriates in July 1964, harkis who had recently been released from prison were still arriving from Algeria; the Red Cross estimated in January 1965 that 2,500 harkis were imprisoned and 20,000 had been freed.133 And, as late as October 1969, 1,500 recently liberated harkis migrated to France. 134 Moreover, in July 1964, 3,500 harkis and their family members continued to reside at the Rivesaltes refugee camp, nearly 1,000 “unhouseables” lived at the Bias arrival camp, and the forest hamlets—set up to be an intermediary stage to the harkis’ reclassement— housed at least 8,500 people (see figure 27 and table 5).135 The Ministry of Repatriates would therefore disappear with fourteen thousand of the harki population living in refugee conditions— not “settled in”—and an indeterminate number in Algeria potentially to “arrive.” While Missoffe was generally loath to include the harkis into the definition of “repatriates,” his Ministry nevertheless was responsible for their reclassement. If the forest hamlets were classified as “temporaire” or “transitoire” when Missoffe’s mandate ended, then his Ministry would not have been successful integrating into French society the 8,500 plus harkis residing in these spaces and those in the Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 734. De Gaulle made this statement after the July 22, 1964 Council of Ministers meeting, the final one before he eliminated the Ministry of Repatriates. 133 MAE, SEAA 155, “Le sort des harkis,” Feb. 12, 1966. This report predicted that not all of those released from prison would choose to migrate to France. 134 CAC, 19880077/20, “Le Problème des Harkis,” 1, Mar. 12, 1974. This unsigned six-page report is located in the Ministry of Interior archives. 135 The figure of at least 8,500 is estimated given the forest hamlet population of 7,912 on Feb. 1, 1964 and adding the populations of the two forest hamlets that the author is certain opened in spring 1964, those in Fuveau and la Roque d’Anthéron, each of which had initial populations of nearly 250 people. For the Bias camp population, see: Lanoizelez, La CARA de Bias, 130. For the Rivesaltes camp population, see: CAC, 19920149/1/3. 132 272 Rivesaltes camp whose transfer was imminent. “[I]ntégrer les Français rapatriés dans les structures économiques et sociales de la nation” was, after all, the goal of the December 1961 law for (all) repatriates. Initiating a policy that would characterize some of the isolated forest hamlets as “définitifs” allowed the French government to move closer to turning another page of the “Algerian Affair.”136 Government institutions and officials would continue to distance themselves from—and try to forget—reminders of its lost territory and empire. Number of Forest Hamlet Inhabitants 10,000 9,000 X 8,000 7,000 6,000 5,000 4,000 3,000 2,000 1,000 0 Figure 27: Number of forest hamlets inhabitants from December 15, 1962 to January 1, 1965. The “X” represents the date that the Ministry of Repatriates was eliminated, July 23, 1964. Source: The data for this chart is from table 5. Shifting Responsibilities and a Permanent Forest Hamlet Policy Soon after the Ministry of Interior took over the Ministry of Repatriate’s responsibility for organizing harkis’ reclassement and providing encadrement agents the forest hamlets in July 1964, Minister of Interior Frey not only accelerated discussions about making the forest hamlets permanent but also CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1965), “Liste des hameaux de forestage ouverts le 1er janvier 1966.” 136 273 sought to rid his ministry of any role in managing the forest hamlets. Frey’s actions were the final step toward ensuring that the forest hamlets would be permanent and the harkis residing there would become “une population oisive s’installant définitivement dans une misère subventionnée,” of which Missoffe had warned in May 1963 must be avoided.137 Making the forest hamlets permanent lessened the work of the SFIM because these spaces now would be available to rehouse the newly-arrived harkis who resided in the “Centre de Transit et de Transit de Lascours,” opened in April 1965 and run by Frey’s ministry.138 As SFIM Director Pérony wrote in a January 1968 letter, the forest hamlets were “notre principale source de reclassement.”139 Indeed, in order to close this center in 1970, the government outlined a plan in early 1969 to place its remaining population of 370 people in the forest hamlets in Provence and Corsica.140 This section examines the influence that the shift from temporary to permanent forest hamlets, which ran counter to the initial goal of integrating the harki population, had on the government’s policies for these spaces, and argues that the stagnations in government policies influenced the harki population as much as the shifts. It further demonstrates that making the forest hamlets permanent allowed government officials to distance themselves from the harki population, whom the government increasingly viewed as immigrants in need of social welfare assistance, and not repatriates in need of the indemnities and allocations to which the Boulin law and subsequent legislation entitled them. On March 12, 1965, Frey wrote to Pisani a letter that his cabinet director Jacques Aubert signed on his behalf, and possibly wrote. The fact that these two Interior ministry officials had now assumed the responsibility for the government’s reclassement policies for the harkis is significant. As CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans…,” 2. AN, 5 AG 1/22, “Note concernant le service…,” May 6, 1966. In 1967 the Ministry of Social Affairs took over the administration of this center. 139 CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1968), letter from SFIM Director Yves Pérony to the Minister of Economy and Finances (to the attention of the deputy cabinet director), 2, Nº 2215/SFM, Jan. 19, 1968. 140 CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1969), Minister of Agriculture to Minister of State for Social Affairs, “Objet: Emploi sur les chantiers forestiers du Ministère de l’Agriculture de 370 ex-harkis actuellement hébergés au centre d’accueil et transit de Lascours (Gard),” F2/3 nº 00139, Feb. 3, 1969. 137 138 274 explained in chapter two, during the spring of 1962, both men had tried to deter the repatriation to France of harkis threatened by violence. Aubert, who had led the police forces in Algeria for two years and had recently returned to France to serve as the director of the National Police Force, demonstrated little concern for the harkis’ safety in the face of FLN threats. In an April 25 letter to Michel Massenet, he claimed that only a few hundred harkis would need to be repatriated and maintained that the newly-formed Algerian government—and not the French Army—should curb any violence that arose among “les familles politiques musulmanes.” Moreover, Aubert demonstrated a supercilious attitude toward the harki population in the letter by calling them “‘buveurs de soleil.’”141 For his part, Frey’s primary concern vis-à-vis the harkis in spring 1962 was not to advocate creating a repatriation plan, even though FLN violence escalated in May and the government had no procedure in place to provide the population with safe passage to France. Rather, in a succession of telegrams and directives, he took a firm stance against the initiatives individuals took to repatriate harkis, emphasizing that most of the people repatriating the harkis were politically dangerous.142 These men’s attitudes toward the harkis at this time demonstrated their desire to lessen the French government’s responsibilities toward the population. Similarly, in the 1965 letter to Pisani, Frey (and Aubert) proposed rethinking the forest hamlets initial mission as a “formule transitoire,” which would lessen the Ministry of Interior’s responsibility toward finding permanent jobs for the harkis. He argued that given the “indispensable” nature of the harki workforce to the Forestry Commission, the fact that many of them were proving to be good forestry workers, and their families seemed to be integrating little by little into their local communities, it was logical to make the forest hamlets a definitive form of reclassement. Then came the catch: CAC 19910467/2, letter from Jacques Aubert to Michel Massenet, Apr. 25, 1962. See pages 88-89 of this dissertation. SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Directives concernant les harkis), letter from Minister of the Interior Roger Frey to Minister of Armies Pierre Messmer, 2, N° SN CAB 2924, May 15, 1962. See pages 109-10 of this dissertation. 141 142 275 Autant il était bien dans la vocation du Ministère des Rapatriés de prendre en charge, pendant une période transitoire, ces travailleurs musulmans traumatisés par les évènements et nullement adaptés à nos modes de vie et de pensée, et ceci pour vous permettre de les utiliser valablement tout en leur donnant une formation technique suffisante, autant le Ministère de l’Intérieur, lui, ne saurait, maintenant qu’une évolution certaine s’est manifestée dans le comportement de ces populations et que vous avez fait de beaucoup de ces travailleurs des ouvriers qualifiés de la Forêt, contracter, à l’égard de Français qu’on ne saurait traiter beaucoup plus longtemps en citoyens mineurs, des obligations spéciales qui ne relèvent nullement de ses attributions normales.143 Once again, similar to the view the Minister of Repatriates expressed one year before, making the forest hamlets a permanent type of reclassement would release the Minister of Interior from any duties toward the nearly ten thousand harkis residing in sixty forest hamlets at this time (see table 5). In this rambling sentence he lauded simultaneously the harki population, whom he believed should no longer be treated as lesser citizens (at least for his current purposes), for the evolution in its behaviors and Ministry of Agriculture agents for transforming the harkis into trained forestry workers.144 Frey’s praise for these agents prefaced his ultimate proposal: to streamline the management of the forestry worksites and the forest hamlets to fall solely on the Ministry of Agriculture. Labeling the harkis as forestry workers, and good ones at that—and no longer repatriates—allowed Frey to distance his Ministry from the population, for which the government charged him with finding permanent jobs and housing. He wrote, “Je ne pense pas, par contre, qu’il soit ni rationnel ni souhaitable, à partir du moment où l’aspect professionnel prend le pas sur l’aspect Rapatriés, de confier à des Administrations différentes d’une part la direction des travaux forestiers, d’autre part la gestion des hameau [sic] (que vos Services du Génie Rural connaissent d’ailleurs fort bien pour les avoir construits).” Contradictorily, despite Frey’s desire to minimize the number of ministries involved with overseeing the forest hamlet populations, as part of this new plan he offered to ask the minister of Public Health and Population to take over the responsibility of providing social CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis Correspondance – 1965), Minister of Interior Frey (signed by Cabinet Director Jacques Aubert) to Minister of Agriculture Pisani, “Objet: Reclassement de rapatriés musulmans sur des chantiers forestiers,” 2, Nº 828/SFIM/DIR, Mar. 12, 1965. 144 Ibid. 143 276 counselors as he insisted that these “familles musulmanes” would still require social welfare assistance “pendant de longues années.” As he argued, such responsibilities indeed fell under the mission of this ministry, which was charged with helping other Muslim immigrant families adapt to life in metropolitan France. Frey ended his letter with a threat: if the Minister of Agriculture did not accept his proposal and the forest hamlets remained under his jurisdiction, “je me verrais alors dans l’obligation de ne négliger aucune des autres formes de reclassement.”145 In other words, in one way or another the harki population would end up in the forest hamlets. Frey would wait three months for a reply. In the interim, he shot off another letter to Pisani in which he added “ouverts par le Ministère de l’Agriculture” to the original subject line, “Reclassement de rapatriés musulmans sur des chantiers forestiers,” seemingly to underscore this ministry’s principal role in the affair.146 As demonstrated earlier in this chapter, the opening of the forest hamlets and forestry worksites was a join effort between the Ministries of Agriculture and Repatriates. When Pisani did respond, on June 16, he declined Frey’s proposal and presented a plan to close all the forestry worksites, starting with those outside of the Provencal forest, by 1975. Pisani argued that the work the harkis were doing did occupy not high enough priority to justify permanently including them in the National Forests Office (ONF) budget. He added that he would reconsider his decision for the forestry worksites in the Provence region where fires were a risk only if Frey secured special financing that did not pull from the his ministry’s budget. Pisani did nevertheless believe that it would be possible for his ministry to offer permanent jobs in the Alsace and Moselle departments to approximately one hundred of the best harki workers, for whom he would build houses, though not provide encadrement. Concerning Frey’s request to supply camp Ibid., 3-4. CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis Correspondance – 1965), Minister of Interior Frey (signed by Cabinet Director Jacques Aubert) to Minister of Agriculture Pisani, “Objet: Reclassement de rapatriés musulmans sur des chantiers forestiers ouverts par le Ministère de l’Agriculture,” 1, Nº 1229/SFIM/DIR, Apr. 13, 1965. In this letter, Frey also wrote, and underlined, “[J]’aimerais que vous me donniez néanmoins votre accord de principe sur l’adoption de cette nouvelle formule.” 145 146 277 directors for the forest hamlets, Pisani maintained that owing to the “caractère social primitif” of these spaces, his agents would not be qualified to oversee them. He suggested finding camp directors, in addition to the social counselors, among employees of the Ministry of Public Health and Population.147 Six weeks later Frey wrote a letter, again signed—and perhaps written—by his cabinet director Aubert, in which he urged Pisani to reconsider his position and used Pisani’s previous actions and words to try to sway him. He also revealed his opinion on the function of the forest hamlets vis-à-vis the harkis’ integration. In this July 30, 1964 letter, Frey downplayed the Ministry of Repatriates’ “strictement limité” role in the setup of the forestry worksites. He maintained that this strictly limited role included its agents studying measures “susceptibles de faciliter et d’accélérer l’intégration des musulmans dans leur nouveau milieu” and putting into place a structure of “léger encadrement.” As Frey—who had not been involved in the process in 1962—explained it, the integration of the “Muslims” was therefore an ancillary factor in opening the forest hamlets. This statement indicates that Frey viewed the forest hamlets as foremost a place of work; the forest hamlet policy for him was not an integration policy. Moreover, his choice of the word “musulmans,” a commonly used term to refer to native Algerians’ nationality status during the colonial era, also perpetuated the harkis’ inferior colonial classification. Frey reminded Pisani that the original worksites, and consequently forest hamlets, were opened thanks to his “louable initiative” on grounds selected by Ministry of Agriculture agents. Therefore, Frey argued that the former Ministry of Repatriates, whose functions he had assumed, should not be held responsible if the forestry worksites were not situated in priority work zones. Frey also attached a copy of Pisani’s January 16, 1963 memo to prefects in the Provence region and referenced this document writing to Pisani: “[V]ous avez tenu CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis Correspondance – 1965), Minister of Agriculture Pisani (signed by Cabinet Director Jean Vaudeville) to Minister of Interior Frey, “Objet: Reclassement de rapatriés musulmans sur des chantiers forestiers ouverts par le Ministère de l’Agriculture,” 1-2, Nº 3630 EF/D4, June 16, 1965. 147 278 personnellement… à leur préciser que ces chantiers seraient ouverts à l’initiative et sous l’autorité des Conservateurs des Eaux-et-Forêts.” Frey agreed with Pisani’s suggestion to progressively close the twenty-nine forest hamlets located outside of Provence. However, he included sentences from Pisani’s previous letters in which the Minister of Agriculture had praised the harkis’ fire prevention work as “greatly beneficial” and Frey referenced the recent fires that had ravaged regions in the Var and Alpes-Maritimes departments. He argued that due to these facts and that the harki labor would be “difficult to replace” (because it would be hard to find laborers who would work for such low pay), Pisani should make room in his own budget for the eight hundred harki workers on the twenty-three forest hamlets located in Provence. Frey’s final proposal was for Pisani to use the money he intended for building houses for one hundred permanent harki forestry workers in order to make improvements on existing dwellings. He disagreed with Pisani’s proposal because “elle ‘écrèmerait’ les meilleurs éléments des chantiers… [et] ces rapatriés musulmans livrés à eux-mêmes et sans encadrement retournerait rapidement à leur oisiveté et à leur instabilité naturelles.”148 Whether these are Frey or Aubert’s words, they demonstrate a condescending attitude toward even the “best” of the harki population, with whose integration Frey seemed unconcerned. After exchanges between officials in the Agriculture and Interior Ministries during the fall of 1965, in a December 2 letter Pisani ceded to Frey about making the Provence forestry worksites permanent, but he firmly held that his Ministry would not assume the responsibility for running the forest hamlets. He also presented Frey with the plan developed at an October 21 meeting of SFIM and Forestry Commission officials to gradually reduce the forest hamlets located outside of Provence CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis Correspondance – 1965), Minister of Interior Frey (signed by Cabinet Director Jacques Aubert) to Minister of Agriculture Pisani, “Objet: Reclassement de rapatriés musulmans sur des chantiers forestiers,” 1-4, Nº 1508 CAB/IX, July 30, 1965. 148 279 over a six-year period and agreed to transfer the remaining construction funds in his budget to enlarge and renovate houses in existing forest hamlets slated to become permanent.149 On January 13, 1966, Aubert presided over an interministerial meeting during which a definitive plan emerged that officially changed the status of the “forest hamlet experiment” to permanent.150 Instead of reducing the number of ministries involved with the forest hamlets to streamline their management, this number grew to include the Ministry of Social Affairs. This ministry, like many others in Fifth Republic France, was in a continual state of flux. Beyond the fundamental contradiction in making permanent a solution that was intended to facilitate the harki population’s integration in part because it was temporary, this plan did not accordingly modify the temporary elements of the Ministry of Repatriates’ forest hamlet policy: encadrement, isolation, and living and working conditions. SFIM Director Pérony had written in March 1963: “Il est indispensable d’encadrer les harkis reclassés pendant la période d’adapation.” 151 Frey viewed encadrement differently—as a means of discipline and control, not as a transitional arrangement. As he expressed in his letters to Pisani, the harki population would continue to require encadrement in the permanent iterations of the forest hamlets owing to their “oisiveté et… instabilité naturelles.”152 Choosing to maintain this structure in its original form ran counter to two of the three initial goals for having on-site encadrement agents. First, the Ministry of Repatriates had tasked the camp directors with protecting the harkis from potential violence by FLN agents. Reports in 1962 and the first half of 1963 revealed a handful of visits from CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis Correspondance – 1965), Minister of Agriculture Pisani (signed by Cabinet Director Jean Vaudeville) to Minister of Interior Frey, “Objet: Reclassement de rapatriés musulmans sur des chantiers forestiers ouverts par le Ministère de l’Agriculture,” 1-3, Nº 7423 EF/D4, Dec. 2, 1965. A summary of the Oct. 21 meeting can be found in: CAC 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis Correspondance – 1965), “Réunion du 21 octobre 1965.” 150 CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1966), SFIM, “Procès-verbal de la réunion du 13 janvier 1966 présidée par M. le Préfet Aubert, Directeur du Cabinet de M. le Ministre de l’Intérieur.” 151 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Yves Pérony to the Director of General Administration and Budget (Ministry of Finances), “Objet: Hameaux de forestage. Création de 50 chantiers supplémentaires en 1963,” 3, Nº 667 SFIM/MR, Mar. 18, 1963. 152 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis Correspondance – 1965), Minister of Interior Frey (signed by Cabinet Director Jacques Aubert) to Minister of Agriculture Pisani, “Objet: Reclassement de rapatriés musulmans sur des chantiers forestiers,” 1-4, Nº 1508 CAB/IX, July 30, 1965. 149 280 Algerians to the forest hamlets. But in 1966, with the FLN now dissolved, potential violence had long ceased to be an issue. Second, these agents were put in place to educate the harkis so as to ease their initial transition to metropolitan French ways of life. This included acting as liaisons with local and departmental government officials for administrative matters with the goal of the “helping,” “teaching,” “accompanying,” and “verifying”—not “doing.” With the majority of the harkis having arrived in France in 1962 and 1963, continuing to encadrer the harkis in the same fashion called into question the length of this transitional period and set up a situation of dependency, precisely what Pérony warned of in the epigraph to this chapter: “Il faut en effet éviter que ces groupes ethniques ne se trouvent encore plus isolés en dépendant uniquement de structure trop spécialisée.”153 Often, the educational function was obscured because the forest hamlets’ permanence enabled the agents to be a crutch for the harki population, thereby lessening the former’s incentive to teach and the latter’s necessity to learn. The encadrement agents’ final role in Missoffe’s forest hamlet policy was to discipline the harkis to assure the smooth functioning of these spaces. As Frey had desperately desired, his ministry would no longer be responsible for the encadrement of the forest hamlets; instead, this task would be shifted to a ministry whose responsibilities already included the oversight of immigrant populations. A representative of the Ministry of Social Affairs (the newly-created successor to the Ministry of Public Health and Population) confirmed at the January 1966 meeting that his ministry would provide encadrement of the forest hamlets and, to this effect, had already put in a request to Minister of Finance Michel Debré to allocate funds.154 This transfer from the Ministry of Interior to the Ministry of Social ADV, 746 W 62, Yves Pérony to Departmental Prefects, 1. On January 8, 1966, Prime Minister Pompidou reorganized his cabinet. While Frey remained at the helm of the Ministry of Interior, the personnel changes that affected the harki population included Michel Debré, who had been Prime Minister at the end of the Algerian War, as the new Minister of the Economy and Finance; Edgar Faure as the new Minister of Agriculture (Pisani became the Minister of Facilities); and Jean-Marcel Jeanneney, the French Ambassador in Algeria from July 1962 to January 1963, as the Minister of Social Affairs. Two of these new ministers had played a role in decisions concerning the repatriation of harkis in 1962. 153 154 281 Affairs would officially take place on January 1, 1967.155 At the meeting, the Social Affairs official put discipline at the center of the encadrement agents’ role by describing their function as “encaisser[er] les loyers qui seraient demandés aux harkis et [être] chargés à la fois de la discipline et de la bonne tenue dans ces locaux.” 156 He proposed assimilating the existing agents into its existing corps of administrators responsible for overseeing single male immigrant workers in SONACOTRA hostels.157 According to this logic, the harkis in the forest hamlets would be treated like immigrants, permanently. The Ministry of Social Affairs’ Department of Social Programs for Migrants subsequently disseminated, in March 1969, a document titled “Règlement intérieur concernant l’hébergement dans les hameaux forestiers,” which is reproduced in Appendix F. The language and information in this text resembled the instructions for SONACOTRA foyers and HLM populated by immigrants. It enumerated a list of conditions that would warrant the harkis’ expulsion from the forest hamlet, including subjective measures such as “atteinte aux mœurs” and “incorrections ou violences envers le personnel d’encadrement, envers d’autres hébergés ou des personnes du voisinage.” While violence was measurable, determining what was impolite behavior and attacks on accepted standards of behavior concentrated much power into the hands of the 1 or 2 agents responsible for the encadrement of as many as 250 individuals and limited harki citizens’ freedom of expression. This document included an added measure of control over the harki population, not present for other immigrants in public housing. Only family heads with repatriate status could reside in the forest hamlet; their children over the age of eighteen years old or those who were married were no longer permitted to live on the grounds.158 AN, 5 AG 1/22, “Note concernant le service…,” May 6, 1966. CAC, 19910097/41, SFIM, “Procès-verbal de la réunion du 13 janvier 1966…,” 2. 157 Ibid. For a discussion of SONACOTRA administrators, see Choukri Hmed, “‘Tenir ses hommes’: La gestion des étrangers ‘isolés’ dans les foyers Sonacotra après la guerre d’Algérie” Politix 19, no. 76 (2006): 11-30. 158 CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1969), Department of Social Programs for Migrants (Ministry of Social Affairs, “Règlement intérieur concernant l’hébergement dans les hameaux forestiers,” Mar. 7, 1969. 155 156 282 Concerning the isolation element of the government’s original vision for the forest hamlets, government officials at the 1966 meeting primarily based their decisions about which ones to keep open on fire prevention. They did not factor into this determination the forest hamlets’ isolation from their adjoining towns. The final government plan had three elements. First, twenty-five forest hamlets, nine of which were double forest hamlets, were attributed a permanent status.159 Some of these permanent forest hamlets included Bormes (Var), Collobrières (Var), and Saint-Pons (Hérault), situated respectively eleven, fourteen, and ten kilometers from the nearest towns. Saint-Pons was one of the six forest hamlets located outside Provence that Ministry of Agriculture officials decided during the January 1966 meeting to preserve as a special exception to the general rule, owing to the importance of the harkis’ work in the region.160 Isolation would become the greatest detriment to the harki population’s integration. A 1974 report on the harkis by the Department of Social Programs for Migrants concluded, “[L]a promotion sociale des familles est, en général moins avancés chez celles vivant en hameaux forestiers que chez celles des villes. Cela provient d’une ‘ségrégation de fait’ dûe à l’éloignement entre hameaux forestiers et localités de rattachement.”161 The second element of the government’s plan put forward at the January 1966 meeting was to use the Ministry of Agriculture funds intended to finance renovating existing houses instead to open three additional forest hamlets in Mediterranean regions particularly threatened by fire. The procedure for selecting sites would once again require the forest hamlet inspectors to visit potential sites and receive the accord of local officials.162 The instructions that the Bouches-du-Rhône prefect presented the departmental director of Agriculture with in December 1967 revealed that the only The following chart enumerates which forest hamlets would remain open: CAC 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis Correspondance – 1966), “Tableaux des hameaux de forestage maintenus à titre permanent.” 160 The other five forest hamlets outside of the Provence region that would be permanently kept open were AvesnesTrucas (Hérault), Lodève (Hérault), Pujol-de-Bosc (Aude), Rivesaltes (Pyrénées-Orientales), and St-Martin des Puits (Aude). In exchange, the four forest hamlets in the Vaucluse, Jouques (Bouches-du-Rhône), and Rians (Var) would be closed. CAC, 19910097/41, SFIM, “Procès-verbal de la réunion du 13 janvier 1966…,” 3. 161 CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1974), Department of Social Programs for Migrants (Ministry of Social Affairs), “Hameaux Forestiers: Situation au 1er janvier 1974,” 4, Jan. 16, 1974. 162 CAC, 19910097/41, SFIM, “Procès-verbal de la réunion du 13 janvier 1966…,” 2. 159 283 criteria given for choosing a site were its location in or near the zone designated in a July 1966 law as “périmètres de protection et de reconstitution” and building the forest hamlet in close proximity to the worksite. The memo did not mention integration or ensuring the forest hamlets were near a neighboring town to facilitate the harkis’ interactions with their surrounding community.163 In the end, despite difficulties faced because municipalities were unwilling to provide land, five additional forest hamlets opened between 1967 and 1973, two of which (Die in the Drôme department and Collobrières) reopened forest hamlets that had closed on different sites.164 The plan’s final component was to close twenty-eight forest hamlets by the end of 1971, at a rhythm of four to six per year. Harkis who were unable to find housing or jobs by the time a forest hamlet shut would be transferred to the permanent ones.165 This situation led one self-described “Française tout ordinaire” living near the Anglès forest hamlet whose inhabitants were slated to be moved to a newly-opened forest hamlet in Corsica to liken the transfer of older harkis who could find other jobs to a deportation. In a 1971 letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Security, this resident of the Tarn department defended these men who were protesting their transfer: “Ils sont des hommes et ne veulent pas être considérés comme des déportés…”166 One of the forest hamlet inspectors for the social monitors explained the flaw in this policy as losing sight of the harkis’ ADBR, 125 W 173, Jean La Porte (Bouches-du-Rhône Prefect) “Objet: Regroupement des familles de Harkis dans la Région Provence, côte d’Azur – Corse,” 1, Dec. 4, 1967. The law in question was “Loi nº 66-505 relative aux mesueres de protection et de constitution à prendre dans les massifs forestiers particulièrement exposés aux incendies dans la région méditerranéenne du 12 juillet 1966.” 164 The three other new forest hamlets included: La Ciotat (Bouches-du-Rhône, a double forest hamlet), Zonza (Corse, a double forest hamlet), and La Grand’Combe (Gard). The Die forest hamlet replaced the Beaurières forest hamlet, which had closed in 1964 and the Collobrières forest hamlet moved from “Le Capelude” to “La Capelle,” which is closer to town. On the reticence of municipalities in the Bouches-du-Rhône to allow forest hamlets built on their land see: ADBR, 125 W 173, A. Astier (Departmental Director of Agriculture), “Objet: Réunion du Conseil d’Administration du 21.12.1970, Implantation d’un chantier de forestage dans la commune de Gardanne ‘Ferme Martin,’” Dec. 17, 1970. 165 CAC, 19910097/41, SFIM, “Procès-verbal de la réunion du 13 janvier 1966…,” 3 and CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1966), Ministers of Interior and Agriculture to the Minister of Economy and Finance, “Objet: Reclassement des anciens harkis employés sur les chantiers forestiers ouverts à cet effet par le Ministère de l’Agriculture,” 2, Mar. 18, 1966. The following chart specifies the dates when each forest hamlets was slated to close: CAC 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis Correspondance – 1966), “Plan de résorption des hameaux de forestage harkis établi au cours de la réunion du 13.1.1966.” 166 CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis Correspondance – 1971), Jeanne Cauquil to Secretary of State for Health and Social Security Dienesch, 1, June 7, 1971. 163 284 humanity, much like Minister of Interior Michel Poniatowski signaled in the epigraph to this chapter. The inspector wrote: “Les règles de la technocratie veulent que les hommes et les situations soient interchangeables à volonté, et toute dérogation est la preuve de la mauvaise volonté évidente des intéressés.”167 The closures would nonetheless proceed more slowly than anticipated. By the end of 1971 forty-two forest hamlets existed instead of the twenty-seven anticipated; for example, the Apt forest hamlet in the Vaucluse, which was supposed to close in 1968 remained open until 1979. According to a 1985 report published by a division of the new Secretary of State for Repatriates, this delay was due in large part to difficulties the harkis encountered finding jobs and housing, particularly as the population aged and their families grew larger.168 While serving as an impediment to the harki population’s integration from the start, isolation, when it was temporary would necessarily inhibit its integration only for a short while. Under the plan developed in 1966, the harki population’s isolation would be permanent. Finally, despite the modifications to the forest hamlet policy explained above, the government’s plan in 1966 did not consider harki citizens’ quality of life. When some of the forest hamlets became a permanent form of reclassement, others were slated to close as much as five years later, and new ones were to be constructed, the government did not simultaneously opt to improve the harki population’s housing and working conditions. When government officials initially set up the forest hamlets as a temporary solution in emergency conditions, they ordered the construction of small lightweight prefabricated houses so as to open them as quickly as possible. The choice at the January 1966 meeting to use construction funds transferred from the Ministry of Agriculture budget to open new forest hamlets instead of enlarging and making improvements on existing houses was a crucial one demonstrating a disregard for the harkis’ humanity. The same 1974 report cited above Heinis, “L’insertion des Français-Musulmans,” 101. ADBR, 1451 W 115, Office National à l’Action Sociale Educative et Culturelle pour les Rapatriés, “Français Musulmans Rapatriés Information. 1962-1981: La Politique d’Acceuil,” 3, Apr. 18, 1985. 167 168 285 revealed that due to a “très forte natalité” the average size of a harki family living in each two- or three-room forest hamlet dwelling, which measured approximately forty square meters, was nearly eight people.169 Moreover, the forest hamlets that opened after the meeting would follow the original prescriptions for construction. The summary of an August 1970 meeting in Paris between government officials and a delegation of twelve harkis exposed: “[L]e Génie Rural venait d’édifier le hameau de Collobrières (Var) selon les normes anciennes (préfabriqué, logements trop petits). Il en était de même à Zonza (Corse) où un hameau était en cours de construction.”170 Indeed, the Zonza forest hamlet was the subject of much documentation concerning difficult living conditions, including its segregated colonial-like conception, as one ONF official noted: “Il comporte 54 logements (50 pour les familles des travailleurs – 1 pour le Chef de hameau et 3 pour l’encadrement forestier). Il est conçu sur le type casbah, ce qui et probablement une erreur pour des familles que l’on souhaite intégrer dans un mode de vie correspondant à celui des travailleurs français.”171 The government did not always treat accounts of poor living conditions in the forest hamlets as urgent concerns. For example, during a March 1972 interministerial meeting concerning the forest hamlets, the subject of the Bormes forest hamlet in the Var department arose, as both the mayor of the town and a representative of the Ministry of Social Affairs submitted reports detailing its insalubrity and hygiene problems. The meeting’s participants concluded that given no viable solution had yet surfaced, the director general of the Forestry Commission would soon examine the site for himself, CAC, 19910097/42, Department of Social Programs for Migrants, “Hameaux forestiers…,” 4, Jan. 16, 1974. CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1970), Service d’Assistance Technique, “Compte rendu de la réception d’une délégation d’anciens supplétifs de l’Armée Française par Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur le jeudi 13 août 1970, à 12 heures,” 2. 171 CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1972), J. Ducasse (Forestry Expert, ONF), “Objet: Problèmes soulevés par l’installation d’un groupe de ex-harkis à Zonza (Corse),” 2, Ig. nº 33/1972, July 17, 1972. The Ministry of Agriculture archives contain three entire cartons of documents relating to the Zonza forest hamlet: CAC, 19910097/4446. 169 170 286 but this was not a rush: “Au demeurant, cette affaire ne présente aucun caractère d’urgence et une solution ne saurait être envisagée avant 1973.”172 Besides neglecting the harki population’s difficult living situation, the January 1966 plan did nothing to address the men’s poor working conditions. Like harki soldiers during the Algerian War for Independence, the harkis who worked for the ONF were day workers. This status meant that their salaries were small and they were rarely paid if they did not work. This included during inclement weather (which was out of their control), until a 1969 convention mandated that the harkis be paid for a half-day of work, and if they had on the job injuries, which were frequent occurrences given the nature of their work.173 Most harkis on the Fuveau forest hamlet, for example, earned twenty francs per day from 1964 to 1969 (the equivalent of twenty-four to twenty-seven euros in 2011 when adjusted for inflation) and worked between twenty-three and twenty-seven days per month in 1967. Beginning in 1969, the Fuveau harkis were paid by the hour; in 1971, most earned four francs per hour (the equivalent of four euros in 2011 when adjusted for inflation) and worked between 175 and 200 hours per month. 174 However, the harkis’ pay situation and the number of days they worked varied from worksite to worksite. Not until an interministerial order on December 8, 1975 did the government mandate uniform working conditions for all the forestry worksites.175 Even once the harkis were salaried they still faced challenges regarding their pay owing to the special status the government created for them. For example, when the minimum wage (SMIC) changed in 1976, the harkis did not benefit from the increase immediately because the Minister of Agriculture needed to approve any salary modifications, yet did not do so for almost one CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1972), Ministry of Agriculture, “Compte-rendu de la réunion interministérielle du Mercredi 8 Mars 1972 à 10 heures,” 3, Mar. 9, 1972. 173 AONFBR, Ministry of Agriculture Department of Forestry, “Convention générale relative à l’emploi d’anciens harkis par l’Office National des Forêts 1969,” 5. Before this time, some forestry commissioners opted to pay the harkis when there was inclement weather, but this policy was neither uniform nor consistent. 174 This information comes from the following cartons at the AONFBR: Harkis Salaires 1964-65, Harkis Salaires 1966, FSIRAN Salaires 1967, Harkis Salaires 1968, Harkis Salaires 1969-1970, and Harkis Salaires 1971-1972. 175 AONFBR, “L’Evolution de l’organisation et des missions des chantiers d’anciens harkis,” 3. 172 287 year. 176 While some families wanted to remain in the forest hamlets, the work situation the government set up for them—low salaries and difficulty getting days off work to search for new jobs and housing—added another obstacle to moving their families out of the forest hamlets. Conclusion: Failed Integration Policy for the Harki “Repatriates” A May 1976 report offered the following assessment about the three remaining forest hamlets in the Bouches-du-Rhône department: [L]es problèmes proviennent surtout de l’isolement et des mauvaises conditions de logement. Tous ces hameaux se trouvent à plusieurs kilomètres des villes les plus proches. Il [a] fallu créer des écoles spéciales pour les enfants. En particulier des maternelles, CM 1 et CM 2, les villages n’ayant pas la possibilité d’absorber tous les enfants. Les femmes vivent entre elles comme dans leurs douars d’origine et n’ont pas ou peu de contacts avec les ménagères européennes. Quant aux hommes, presque tous d’origine agricole ou forestière, ils n’ont aucune spécialité permettant leur reclassement dans une profession valable.177 Nearly fourteen years after the first forest hamlets opened with the goal of serving as a temporary step toward the harki population’s integration into French society, 28 forest hamlets housed 534 families with a total of 4,255 people.178 These 534 families represented 2.67 percent of the 20,000 harki families repatriated to France during the 1960s. As the report above contends, harki men worked in isolated conditions among only other harkis and their wives had little contact with “Europeans” outside of the forest hamlets, thereby signaling that the social counselors and local officials had failed in their roles to integrate the adult residents into their surrounding communities. Integration was also problematic for their children. Contrary to the Ministry of Repatriates’ inclusion of the tenet that harki children must be socialized into the French educational system into its integration policy, some of children attended special schools because those in the nearby small CAC, 19910097/48, Minister of Agriculture, “Gestion des anciens harkis par l’Office National des Forêts (O.N.F.),” 16-17, Jan. 24, 1977. 177 ADBR, 135 W 51, Louis Sessa (B.I.A.C. Director) and Didier Cultiaux, “Rapport sur la Situation des FrançaisMusulmans, installés dans le department des BOUCHES DU RHONE,” 3, May 18, 1976. 178 ACNMF, 16, “Hameaux Forestiers au 1er juillet 1976.” 176 288 villages could not accommodate the growing forest hamlet populations. When French government officials decided to radically alter the forest hamlet experiment by making these spaces permanent in 1966, they did not make concomitant changes to the other elements of the forest hamlet policy to align with the Ministry of Repatriates’ initial discourse of integrating the harkis into their communities. From the beginning, the government’s forest hamlet policy was flawed, given the inherent contradiction between integration, on one hand, and isolation and encadrement, on the other, and the extreme reliance on local officials to facilitate the harkis’ integration. However, by rendering permanent the forest hamlets and maintaining their temporary conditions while continuing to use them as the principal type of reclassement, the government made harki citizens’ integration into their surrounding communities virtually unobtainable. The manner in which the national government created policies for and administered the forest hamlets further decreased the possibility for these spaces to succeed. In April 1974 Anne Heinis, a social welfare inspector for the SFIM, delivered a report in which she proposed modifying the existing structures that regulated the forest hamlets and the two cités d’accueil. Going beyond the evident problems posed by these harki populations’ isolation and dependence on the social counselors, she enumerated specifically how the organization of the housing system contributed to these harki citizens’ failure to integrate.179 First, despite Frey’s call for streamlining the management of the forest hamlets in 1966—in part so it would not involve his ministry—these responsibilities were subsequently spread among several different ministries: Agriculture, Health, Interior, Labor, and Social Affairs in their various iterations.180 Heinis argued that for the “insertion”—a term that was commonly used in place of “intégration” at the time—of the harki community to take place, all its ACNMF, 3/7, Anne Heinis (Regional Inspector for French Muslims), “Note à l’attention de Monsieur le Président Parodi,” 1, Apr. 12, 1974. 180 All these ministries were in a continuous state of flux at the end of the 1960s in the wake of the young Fifth Republic’s crises, which led its founder President de Gaulle to precipitously step down in April 1969, one year after the events of May 1968. 179 289 social welfare problems must be addressed by a competent person in one of the ministries.181 Second, Heinis maintained that the organization of the SFIM failed to take into account the “very variable” nature of the local forest hamlet situations when addressing their problems. The government’s setup of these spaces, whose integration depended on the one or two state agents living with the harki citizens and the support of local officials, assured variable results and unique problems. Finally, the existing structure lacked effective means for communication of information between the social counselors in the individual forest hamlets and the national government. This situation prevented the social counselors from receiving access to all the information they needed to pass onto the harkis and the national government officials from knowing what the forest hamlets were truly like. Heinis suggested that the representative of the national government mentioned above make periodic visits to the forest hamlets to be able to address whatever problems arise with a conceptualization of the actual places in mind.182 Putting aside the policy itself briefly, one must question whether the secretary and ministers of Repatriates factored integrating the harki citizens residing in the forest hamlets into the economic and social structures of the French nation—the mission given to them by the December 1961 law for all repatriates—into their decisions about these spaces. Robert Boulin was named Secretary of State for Repatriates in May 1961 and launched the first phase of forest hamlets, envisioning these spaces as isolated venues with encadrement structures resembling those used in colonial Algeria, at the same time as he created and oversaw wide-reaching policies to integrate the French repatriates into society. Alain Peyrefitte spent two and a half months as Minister of Repatriates from September to November 1962, during which time it appears that he did not author any documents concerning the ACNMF, 3/7, Anne Heinis, “Note à l’attention…,” 1, Apr. 12, 1974. Abdelmalek Sayad argues that the various terms that government officials have used over time and in different contexts—adaption, assimilation, adaptation, insertion, and intégration—all essentially describe the same social reality and the same sociological process. Sayad, “Qu’est-ce que l’intégration?” Hommes & Migrations, no. 1182 (Dec. 1984): 9. While intégration focuses on an individual, insertion focuses on a community. On the usage of assimilation, insertion, and intégration by government officials and the variations in the terms’ definitions, see Weil, La France et ses étrangers, 368-70. 182 ACNMF, 3/7, Anne Heinis, “Note à l’attention…,” 1. 181 290 harkis in the forest hamlets. François Missoffe was the final Minister of Repatriates, who was in office when over fifty of the forest hamlets opened and initiated discussions during the waning months of his ministry about making permanent what he had referred to, just months prior, as “the forest hamlet experiment.” Missoffe’s early assessments of the forest hamlets’ success in and possibility for integrating the harki population into their communities were inaccurate and contradicted the reports of local agents who had made site visits. Yet, Missoffe opted to push for a policy of expanding the forest hamlets and making them permanent as a way to fulfill his ministry’s goal. This was in spite of the population of nearly 10,000 in the forest hamlet at the time when he stepped down—representing approximately 10 percent of the harki population repatriated to France—not being integrated into France’s social and economic structures and the setup of the forest hamlets impeding any possibility for future integration. The reclassement of repatriates from Algeria was indeed an apartheid system. As time went on, government officials increasingly regarded the harki population in the forest hamlets like they did other Algerian immigrants with social welfare problems—and not like repatriates or citizens. Given the flaws in the forest hamlet policy analyzed above and numerous negative assessments made officials who visited the sites in the 1970s, it is evident the government did not attempt to complete its mission to integrate these repatriates into France’s social and economic structures. In fact, until 1973, the government still was opening new forest hamlets, with over a decade of failed integration results. On July 15, 1970, the government passed a law authorizing indemnity payments to French citizens who had lost property and material goods in its former overseas possessions.183 As will be discussed in the next chapter, this legislation was rarely available to the harkis given the documentation required. When the focus of the government’s integration JORF, “Loi nº 70-632 du 15 juillet 1970…” The August 5, 1970 decree specified that the scope of the law applied to property and material goods in Algeria. Subsequent decrees extended the law to repatriates from Morocco and Tunisia (April 21, 1971), Indochina (January 29, 1973), and Guinea (March 13, 1975). Scioldo-Zürcher, Devenir métropolitain, 343. 183 291 policies for French repatriates shifted from jobs and housing to compensation—a crucial turning point—the government had not yet enacted a viable housing integration policy for the harki population residing in the forest hamlets—or elsewhere. 184 Compensation for the harkis’ lost possessions and land was still decades away. Once again for the harki population with the forest hamlets—as with the government’s nationality, repatriation, and camp policies—decisions made in the months that followed the Algerian War for Independence marginalized these former soldiers and their families from French society and continued to influence them for decades. In 1962, the Ministry of Repatriates set up a different service for the harkis’ reclassement, the SFIM, which soon privileged the forest hamlets as its preferred location for rehousing the harki population. For as long as each forest hamlet remained open, it resembled a microcosm of colonial Algeria. Each of the forest hamlets had similar physical structures and governance and offers a consistent story of failed integration for its citizens. While the government’s forest hamlet policy underwent several significant modifications from 1962 to 1966, after this time, no national policies concerning the forest hamlets would be enacted until a 1975 decision to eradicate the twenty-nine remaining forest hamlets, which will be analyzed in the next chapter. The stagnations in government policies were equally significant for the harkis’ failed integration as were the policy shifts. With an understanding of the creation of and modifications to the government’s forest hamlet policy, the next chapter analyzes the setup and functioning of the Fuveau forest hamlet, which was opened on April 15, 1964 as part of the Ministry of Repatriates’ “second phase” and still houses thirty-two harki families today. This case study, which is placed within the departmental and national contexts, will give texture to the specific shortcomings of the government’s forest hamlets policy that led to a failure to integrate the harki families into their community. 184 Scioldo-Zürcher, Devenir métropolitain, 331. 292 CHAPTER 5 Immigrants? Isolation in Rural Southern France “Enfin, quitter la tente, avoir un toit, un travail, un motif de vivre!” “Ici, c’est notre pays!” “Que désirer encore? Que les voisins nous considèrent comme des amis. Nous ferons tout pour que ce bon voisinage soit réel.”1 -Testimonies of harkis arriving at the Fuveau forest hamlet on April 15, 1964 Monsieur le Préfet, Si on peut trouver de l’argent pour “intégrer” d’inintégrables immigrés, il est temps d’en trouver pour aider enfin les Français Harkis. Pour cela, il faut démanteler le camp de harkis de FUVEAU.2 -Petition addressed to the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefect by a resident of Fuveau affiliated with the National Front party in July 1993 In 1964 the 2,600-person village of Fuveau, located 35 kilometers northeast of Marseille in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, absorbed a new migrant population.3 On April 15 two hundred harki population members arrived by convoy from the Rivesaltes camp to a forest hamlet atop brown coalfields, known as the Fuveau basin. Their arrival to this eleventh-century Provencal village signified the appearance of a type of immigrant unique to its modern history. Foremost, the harkis were not labor migrants, like those driven by the job opportunities in Fuveau’s coalmines during the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries. The foreign coalminers most often were single, Jacques Vautier, “50 harkis et leurs familles ont trouvé logis, emplois et école dans la région de Fuveau,” Le Mériodional, Apr. 16, 1964. 2 Archives personnelles de Marie-Josephe Haupt, Fuveau town councilwoman from 1989 to 1995 (hereafter APMH), Petition from Loïc de Marion (National Front) to the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefect, July 1993. On the original document the second sentence is in boldface and larger type size than the first sentence. 3 The figure of 2,600 inhabitants is estimated using census data from 1962 that lists Fuveau’s population at 2,528 people. “Fuveau – Notice communale,” Des villages de Cassini aux communes d’aujourd’hui, <http://cassini.ehess.fr/cassini/fr/html/fiche.php?select_resultat=14947#>. 1 293 whereas all but a handful of the harkis who resided in Fuveau were accompanied by their families. When these former soldiers and their families moved into their new homes, many were already French citizens, having benefitted from the expedited process explained in chapter two. This status was unlike that of Fuveau’s foreign coalminers; many were transient workers, sensitive to the health of the mining industry and national economy, and did not seek French nationality.4 For those who did, their residency preceded their becoming French citizens (sometimes by as much as ten years), as French nationality legislation since 1889 has been based the principle of socializing immigrants into society before they can become French citizens.5 With the exception of a small number of Algerians who arrived after the Second World War, Fuveau’s earlier migrants hailed from European countries: Italy, Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Yugoslavia. While these foreigners tended to live among themselves, often in abandoned houses in the neighborhood behind the town church (see figure 28), and made little contact with their neighbors, they nevertheless remained in close proximity to native Fuvelians at home and in the coalmines.6 State agents did not supervise the foreign coalminers, who sought out social services themselves. In contrast, the harkis worked only with other harkis in the Provencal forest. Exclusively harki families, the camp director, and the social counselor inhabited the forest hamlet, situated three kilometers southwest of the town center. The harki population in Fuveau necessitated a much greater intervention than local officials were used to with previous migrants. Michel Colon, Fuveau autrefois: Le temps de mineurs paysans, 1809-1962 (Marseille: Presses de l’Imprimerie Caractère, 2001), 53 and 138. 5 The three principal laws were passed in 1889, 1927, and 1945; the latter is known as the Nationality Code and is still in effect today. The laws required, respectively, ten, three, and five years of residence in France before granting nationality to a foreigner. On this legislation, see Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 60-61, 77-78, and 150-53. 6 Colon, Fuveau autrefois, 53 and 148. 4 294 Figure 28: The town of Fuveau with the spire of the Saint-Michel church in the foreground and the Sainte-Victoire mountain in the background. Source: Photograph by the author, November 2007. The Fuveau forest hamlet adhered to the prescriptions laid out by the Ministry of Repatriates in 1962 and 1963. The site was situated in an isolated forest clearing on the outskirts of a small town. As a double forest hamlet—home to workers on two adjacent forestry worksites—it consisted of lightweight prefabricated houses for the families of fifty-two harki men. Their children, after an initial period of attending school on the camp grounds, were most often educated in local schools. A regional inspector, camp director, and social counselor—recruited among agents who had lived in Algeria—assured the harki citizens’ encadrement. Government memos instructed them to work with local officials to help the population integrate into the Fuvelian community, teach the harkis and their family members about metropolitan ways of life, and ensure that they did not disturb their neighbors. In short, the setup of the Fuveau forest hamlet isolated its residents from their neighbors, sheltered them in temporary living conditions, provided an encadrement structure, and required the reliance on local officials to help integrate the harki population. However, as attests the document 295 cited in the second epigraph—written nearly thirty years after the first harki families arrived—the setup and functioning of the Fuveau camp, still located on the same isolated plot today, had failed to integrate them into the community. This situation was in spite of a series of national government policy changes in 1975 to address the “harki problem,” including the decision to eliminate all forest hamlets by the end of 1979. The three testimonies of the harkis migrating to the Fuveau forest hamlet from the Rivesaltes camp in 1964, collected by an Arabic-speaking journalist for the Mériodional regional newspaper, bring out salient points to consider while analyzing the Fuvelian harki population’s isolation. First, while the first harkis who arrived in Fuveau had left the Rivesaltes camp, they had not left behind camp life. In many ways, the Fuveau forest hamlet was a microcosm of this camp, retaining the key features of “internment camps” (whether for refugees or prisoners), as laid out by Denis Peschanski. The Fuveau forest hamlet was composed of a “société hétéroclite.” It, like the seventy-one other forest hamlets across France, was set up in emergency conditions as a temporary solution. The buildings were poorly- and hurriedly-constructed. Its occupants were under military surveillance, at least initially, and a system of encadrement that marginalized them from their surrounding community. While being located in the municipality of Fuveau and having positive economic benefits for commerce, local officials viewed the camp and its residents as incidental to municipal affairs. Finally, forest hamlet residents attempted in later years to subvert the authority of the camp.7 Nevertheless, while consistently exhibiting these elements of internment camps, the Fuveau forest hamlet challenges the traditional conception of a refugee camp because of how long the state opted to keep it open in these temporary conditions. Individuals made a choice about how long to stay, though this decision was mitigated by factors such as language, large families, mental or physical illness, a lack of professional skills, and money since the families paid no rent while residing 7 Peschanski, La France des camps, infra. 296 in the prefabricated buildings. This latter element, in part owing to the meager wages the harkis earned and the fact that as unsalaried workers for the first decade they had limited social benefits, set up a situation of state handouts that was difficult to leave. Five of the first fifty workers and their families made the Fuveau forest hamlet their permanent home, with four still alive in August 2010 and one having died of natural causes in 1989.8 Second, the testimonies demonstrate that migrating to France placed the harkis and their families into a liminal space between two nations and two cultures. Given the harki population’s unique exile, “notre pays,” as one of the harkis wanted to claim in his testimony, was an unattainable goal. As Abdelmalek Sayad argued, “…immigrer c’est immigrer avec son histoire (l’immigration étant elle-même partie intégrante de cette histoire), avec ses traditions, ses manières de vivre, de sentir, d’agir et de penser, avec sa langue, sa religion ainsi que toutes les autres structures sociales, politiques, mentales de sa société, structures caractéristiques de la personne et solidairement de la société…, bref sa culture.”9 The first three chapters of this dissertation explored why the harkis decided to leave Algeria and the conditions upon their arrival to the transit and housing camps. As their lives in Algeria became increasingly distant while they settled into Fuveau, we must continue to recognize the harki population as both emigrants from Algeria and “immigrants” to France. More specifically, any analysis of their situation in France—social, economic, demographic, cultural, and political aspects—must take into account the lives in Algeria that FLN violence forced them to give up. Interviews that I conducted in Fuveau and those published in a collection by harki daughter Dalila Kerchouche demonstrate an ambiguous relationship with Algeria and with France. In regard to the former, older harki population members’ nostalgia for the land and their family members was often juxtaposed with memories stained with fear and death. With respect to the latter, they were grateful for having been rescued from violence and perhaps death, yet irresolute and angry as to why 8 9 These men are: Aissa B., Lazreg C., Mohamed ben Ahmed M., Mohamed ben Milou M., and Abdelkader Z. Sayad, La double absence, 18. 297 they were parked in camps.10 During an interview conducted with two harkis in 2007, both men repeatedly asked, seemingly rhetorically, “What have we done wrong to France?”11 Finally, while one must consider harki citizens’ status as emigrants from Algeria and immigrants to France, at the same time their Algerian culture did not lead officials to deem the forest hamlet integration policy a failure. These officials’ analyses derived from the insular nature in which the forest hamlets forced their residents to live. The harki population’s physical distance from town and lack of opportunities to interact with their neighbors resulted in the formation of a separate community that limited the possibility for the “bon voisinage,” to which one of the harkis arriving in 1964 referred. Integration is not possible if groups do not interact; in this case, there is social exclusion or marginalization. Before moving on, an important distinction must be made concerning two different usages of “integration,” which are sometimes errantly applied interchangeably and can render the word ambiguous. Integration—a term that has evolved since its appearance in the context of populations during the mid-twentieth century—is both a process that sociologists measure and a type of policy that government officials define, develop, and ultimately evaluate. The sociological meaning today connotes the difficult to quantify process of measuring the adoption by a minority group (often immigrants) of socially normative behaviors, those of the dominant, and their political participation in society.12 The political meaning—which this study uses—is a public course of action aimed at fostering social cohesion among individuals within a society; through a set of policies, including K. family, interview; Abdelkader B. and Abdelkader Z., interview with the author, Dec. 19, 2007, Fuveau; and B. family, Interview with the author, June 14, 2008, Fuveau. Stéphan Gladieu and Dalila Kerchouche, Destins de Harkis: Aux racines d’un exil (Paris: Autrement 2003), interviews with Mme Kerchaoui (100-01) and Mme Zendji-Choucha (105-06). 11 Abdelkader B. and Abdelkader Z., interview. 12 On sociologists’ varying definitions of integration and the evolution of this term, see Dominique Schnapper, Qu’est-ce que l’intégration? (Paris: Gallimard, 2007), 11-25. Schnapper highlights that, like any process, the group’s integration in one domain can happen more quickly than its integration in another domain and sometimes reversals occur (24). For an earlier analysis of integration, see Sayad, “Qu’est-ce que l’intégration?,” 8-14. 10 298 attending republican schools, individuals will integrate one by one into French society.13 Today, France’s Haut Conseil à l’Intégration maintains that an integration policy requires a “reciprocal effort” from immigrants and native French citizens; the latter must be open to immigrants’ diversity, which enriches society.14 However, the Ministry of Repatriates forest hamlet integration policy for the harki population in 1962 aimed to divest its members of their diversity and have them adopt French ways of life. Most importantly, it isolated them from their surrounding communities. This chapter first analyzes the setup of the Fuveau forest hamlet by town and departmental officials. It next traces the first decade of harki citizens’ residence in Fuveau, focusing particularly on how government’s forest hamlet policy and its implementation by encadrement agent and municipal officials isolated them from town residents. This analysis demonstrates that the Ministry of Repatriates’ initial vision for the forest hamlets and the subsequent amendments to the forest hamlet policy initiated by the Ministry of Interior in 1966 did not facilitate the Fuvelian harki citizens’ integration into their surrounding community. Instead, they have remained isolated from other Fuvelians for nearly five decades. Fuveau’s “Foreigners”: From Miners to Harkis While the first exploration of Fuveau’s rich coalfields took place during the mid-seventeenth century, not until an 1809 decree by Napoleon allowing for industrial exploitation of coal across France did mining begin to take a preeminent place in the Fuvelian economy. 15 By the midnineteenth century miners displaced farmers as the primary profession in Fuveau, and by 1881 the former outnumbered the latter by four to one.16 This shift, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, Weil, La France et ses étrangers, 369. “Mots de l’intégration,” Haut Conseil à l’Intégration, http://www.hci.gouv.fr/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=19#I (accessed October 7, 2011). 15 Colon, Fuveau autrefois, 7. This imperial decree was made official by the Apr. 21, 1810 “Loi concernant les Mines, les Minières et les Carrières.” Reprinted in Colon, Fuveau autrefois, 39. 16 Ibid., 45-46. 13 14 299 was attributable to the need for coal to fuel the region’s expanding train system and the steam heat used in the soap, tile, and brick factories in neighboring Marseille.17 As a result of the jobs the mining industry created, a significant population of transient foreigners from neighboring countries—particularly Italy—migrated to Fuveau between the mid-nineteenth and the midtwentieth century. For example, in 1931 foreigners from seven European countries accounted for 23 percent of Fuveau’s miners.18 Reflecting national trends after the Second World War, Fuveau’s economy underwent structural changes, which influenced the use of its land and consequently the composition of its population. In 1946 the French government nationalized many of its industries and France’s new service sector spawned a wealth of jobs in public service. Miners still retained an important presence in the local economy over the next decade during France’s reconstruction, as mining and related professions (electricians, blacksmiths, and surveyors) employed 34 percent of Fuvelian workers in 1954.19 However, after this time, given France’s decreasing reliance on coal for energy production, no new positions were available in the mining industry. This signaled the end to over a century of European laborers migrating to mine the Fuveau basin. The last vestige of Fuveau’s mining industry was the land sitting atop its coalfields that had fallen into disuse. The diversification of professions led the regional mining company, Houillères de Provence, to create two industrial parks on its former fields to generate jobs for its employees in the burgeoning service sector. The Rousset-Peynier park three kilometers east of Fuveau’s Saint-Michel church (depicted in figure 28) was inaugurated in March 1961 while the Gardanne-Palun park eight kilometers west of Fuveau’s center opened in August 1963.20 Despite these ventures, the Houillères de Provence still possessed unused land in this town whose population numbered 2,528 in 1962.21 Ibid., 40. Ibid., 137-38. 19 Ibid., 137. 20 Ibid., 66. 21 “Fuveau – Notice communale,” Des villages de Cassini aux communes d’aujourd’hui, <http://cassini.ehess.fr/cassini/fr/html/fiche.php?select_resultat=14947#>. 17 18 300 The sharp decline in the mining industry in the early 1960s left expanses of terrain on the fringes of Fuveau at the same moment when the Ministry of Repatriates was reaching out to mayors of rural towns in the Provencal forest to provide land for constructing forest hamlets. Figure 29: Satellite image of Fuveau in 2011. The red diamond marks Fuveau’s town hall and the blue one the forest hamlet where the harki population resided. Source: Google maps. On March 26, 1963, the Secretary General of the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefecture held a meeting to discuss the possibility of opening forestry worksites in the department. He tasked a fiveperson commission including local representatives of the Agriculture, Armies, and Repatriates Ministries with visiting twelve potential sites, in hopes of finding six that would work. Under pressure from the Minister of Repatriates, who intended to open the forest hamlets that summer, these men began canvassing two days later. Their first stop was a five-acre parcel of land belonging 301 to the Houillères de Provence situated in Fuveau’s “quartier Madame Saint André.” To access the plot, Fuveau’s Socialist Mayor Alexandre Philip, also the president of the union of Bouches-duRhône mayors, accompanied the men from the town hall (the red diamond in figure 29). They traveled southwest for three kilometers until they reached a small forest clearing, the blue diamond on figure 29, located on a steep ascent of the two-lane State Highway 96. As shown by the map in figure 30, which dates from 1974 when Fuveau’s population living outside the forest hamlet was five hundred more than that when the harkis arrived in 1964, this sylvan area was isolated from the town’s other houses. After exploring the ground above the former coalmines, Mayor Philip gave the men his verbal authorization to construct a forest hamlet.22 Demonstrating the project’s urgency, government officials returned twenty times over the next three months to continue to survey the site with public works officials and representatives of the Schroth building company.23 This company, based in the Haut-Rhin department, was able to submit a bid on April 27, a process usually slowed down by the acquisition of building permits.24 Keeping with the goal of the forest hamlets as a temporary solution, SFIM Director Pérony had specified to the Secretary General of the Bouchesdu-Rhône Prefecture two days earlier that building permits were not necessary “en raison du caractère provisoire des logements.”25 The other municipalities included: Peynier, Boulbon, Aurons, Rognes, Gèmenos, Coulin, La Roque d’Anthéron, Roquefort-la-Bédoule, Carry-le-Rouet, Sausset-les-Pins, and Meyreuil. ADBR, 137 W 460, Prefect’s cabinet, “Note concernant le reclassement des anciens supplétifs musulmans dans le département des Bouches-du-Rhône,” Apr. 4, 1963. 23 ADV, 746 W 68, D. Thomas (Chief Agricultural Engineer) to Mr. Nourrit, “Objet: Logement des harkis, Frais de déplacement,” G.R. Nº 2809, June 25, 1963. 24 ADV, 746 W 68, L. Torrion (Director of the Agricultural Engineering Division, Marseille), “Ordre de service nº 1: Logement de harkis. Chantier de Fuveau,” G.R. 3148, July 24, 1963. 25 ADV, 746 W 68, L. Torrion to Agricultural Engineer Collignon, “Objet: Relogement des harkis. Permis de construire,” G.R. Nº 1913, Apr. 29, 1963. 22 302 Figure 30: Map of Fuveau in 1974 when its population, excluding its 230 harkis and their family members, numbered approximately 3,100. This figure represents an increase of approximately 500 people over the town’s population before the harkis arrived in 1964.26 The town is located at the top of the picture and the forest hamlet is in the center surrounded by a circle. Source: Archives de la Société Anonyme d’HLM de Marseille (hereafter ASANHLMM), 54/1, SANHLMM, “Commune de Fuveau (13), Reconstruction du village de harkis,” Oct. 16, 1974. On May 6, 1963, immediately after the canvas was completed in the Bouches-du-Rhône and the three other departments comprising the Provence region, Pérony led a meeting concerning the “opération forêt provençal” at the Ministry of Repatriates. With the goal of opening the forest hamlets before the end of the summer, a group of national and departmental officials approved the construction of three forest hamlets in the Bouches-du-Rhône and sixteen in the rest of the region. Fuveau’s population statistics for 1964 and 1974 were approximated using data from the EHESS Cassini project. Fuveau had 2,528 residents in 1962, 3,028 residents in 1968, and 3,348 residents in 1975. “Fuveau – Notice communale,” Des villages de Cassini aux communes d’aujourd’hui, <http://cassini.ehess.fr/cassini/fr/html/fiche.php?select_resultat=14947#>. The number of harkis residing in the town in 1974 is from table 6. 26 303 None would meet this goal. The first forest hamlet in the “opération forêt provençale” opened in late September 1963, eight more opened before the end of the year, eight additional ones opened from February to August 1964, one in 1965, and two (La Turbie in the Var and La Bastide in the Vaucluse) never opened.27 Those in the Bouches-du-Rhône included a double forest hamlet in Fuveau, a double forest hamlet in la Roque d’Anthéron bordering the Vaucluse department, and one forestry worksite located twelve kilometers from the town of Jouques in the Durance Valley.28 In a document addressed to the four companies that officials approved during the meeting to build the forest hamlets, the Ministry of Repatriates stressed the necessity for them to move quickly by listing the project’s goal as “[l]oger dans les plus brefs délais, un certain nombre de familles d’anciens supplétifs musulmans.” 29 The government agents at the May 6 meeting had decided that all construction on the sites—including installing sewage systems and electricity, widening access roads, and erecting pre-fabricated buildings—must be completed within seventy-five days of breaking ground.30 This goal subsequently posed a number of challenges, particularly given the isolated locales chosen for the projects, and equally demonstrated that Ministry of Repatriates wanted hastilyconstructed, not well-constructed, homes for the harkis. ADV, 746 W 63 (dossier: Harkis Var bâtiments 1963), L. Nourrit, “Note à M. Cullignon,” 3, May 13, 1963. This list determined at the May 6 meeting did not include the following forest hamlets that would subsequently become a part of the “Operation Provencal Forest”: Pertuis in the Vaucluse and St-Paul-en-Forêt in the Var. However, St Paul-en-Forêt was listed as a “probable” site, along with five others that would never open. See Appendix D for the opening dates of the forest hamlets. 28 Jouques was unlike any other forest hamlet in France. Here, the forestry workers and their families resided in the “Logis d’Anne” housing complex, constructed by the SONACOTRA, alongside the families of eighty-five harkis employed nearby in various unskilled laborer positions. This site had previously housed workers at the nearby EDF hydraulic station. For a study of the “Logis d’Anne” in Jouques, see Marwan Abi Samra and François-Jérôme Finas, “Regroupement et dispersion: Rélégation, réseaux et territoires des Français-Musulmans,” Study Commissioned by the Caisse Nationale d’Allocations Familiales, 1985. 29 ADV, 746 W 63 (dossier: Schroth), Ministry of Repatriates, “Devis-programme relatif à la Construction et à la mise en place de bâtiments préfabriqués pour anciens supplétifs musulmans,” 1. In the May 6 meeting, Pérony made a point of emphasizing that, in contrast to policy for the first forest hamlets opened, the harkis should not participate in the construction process since the Ministry of Repatriates was unable to provide appropriate encadrement for this purpose. ADV, 746 W 63 (dossier: Harkis Var bâtiments 1963), L. Nourrit, “Note à M. Cullignon,” 2, May 13, 1963. 30 ADV, 746 W 63 (dossier: Harkis Var bâtiments 1963), L. Nourrit, “Note à Messieurs les Ingénieurs en Chef du Génie Rural, Objet: Logement des Harkis – Exécution des travaux de V.R.D.,” 3, May 9, 1963. 27 304 Over the course of four meetings held from May 6 to 9, Ministries of Repatriates and Agriculture officials finalized uniform instructions to relay to the construction companies concerning the size, materials, and layout of the structures in the forest hamlets.31 The exterior and interior of the buildings in each forest hamlet would be identical, no matter their location. Of the 608 residences to erect in the Provence-Côte d’Azur region, all but 36 (those at the Roquestron forest hamlet in the Alpes-Maritimes department), would follow the model of “bâtiments A,” each of which would contain four residences measuring 37.5 square meters, as depicted in figure 31, and “bâtiments A bis,” with three additional residences of the same size and a meeting room.32 The Fuveau double forest hamlet, built by the Schroth Company (whose bid the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefect approved on June 16),33 would contain twelve “bâtiments A” and one “bâtiment A bis” for the harki population. 34 The social counselor and the camp director would share an additional prefabricated building, which was located on a higher plain than the harki citizens’ residences in Fuveau. Per Ministry of Repatriates instructions, the exterior of the buildings was to be constructed with materials that were “démontable[s] et récuperable[s]” so that they would be available for later use.35 This instruction signaled that the government was already thinking about reusing the buildings from what were intended to be temporary residences. As visible on figure 31, the interior of each apartment had two bedrooms; a living room with a kitchen sink and a woodstove in the corner for cooking and heating; and a shower room with a small changing area. The Turkish-style toilets adjacent to the shower room were only accessible by a door, with no lock, on the outside of the A six-page summary of the meetings are located in ADV, 746 W 63 (dossier: Harkis Var bâtiments 1963), L. Nourrit, “Note à M. Cullignon,” May 13, 1963. 32 Ibid., 3. 33 ADV, 746 W 68, L. Torrion, “Ordre de service nº 1: Logement de harkis…” 34 ADV, 746 W 63, L. Nourrit, “Note à M. Cullignon,” 2-3. 35 ADV, 746 W 63 (dossier: Schroth), Ministry of Repatriates, “Devis descriptif Nº 50/63, Construction et mise en place de Logements Préfabriqués pour HARKIS, Bâtiments démontables et récupérables,” June 13, 1963. 31 305 building.36 To put in perspective the insufficient size of the harkis’ residences in the forest hamlets, those at the Rivesaltes camp were only 17.5 to 12.5 square meters smaller; the overcrowded conditions in Rivesaltes were blamed, at least initially, for the spread of tuberculosis. Moreover, the longer that the forest hamlet in Fuveau remained open, the larger the harki families grew. By 1975, on the eve of a project to reconstruct the barracks, the average harki family in Fuveau had over seven people (see table 6) and one family had thirteen children.37 Figure 31: Standardized architectural drawing of the “type A” forest hamlet buildings that the Ministry of Repatriates provided to building companies. Source: ADV, 746 W 63 (dossier: Harkis Var bâtiments 1963). The director of the Agricultural Engineering Service in Marseille authorized the Schroth Company to break ground for the Fuveau forest hamlet on August 1, 1963 with the expectation that The precise prescriptions for the interior of the house, including information such as the ceiling height, the thickness of walls, wattage of lamps, and the size of pipes can be found in the following document distributed to building companies: ADV, 746 W 67, Ministry of Repatriates, “Logements Préfabriqués pour Harkis.” 37 ASRBR, social welfare file of Ali H., nº B99100. 36 306 all work would be completed seventy-five days later, on October 15.38 In anticipation of its opening, in late August the departmental forest hamlet inspector, Captain Cheneau (an active duty military officer), hired a former SAS and Army captain to be the camp director and his wife to be the social counselor.39 However, the project would take six extra months to complete, principally owing to difficulties the building company encountered with the land, which was both rocky and uneven since the plot was located on a steep hill over coalmines. For each change to the original contract, the company had to contact the director of the Agricultural Engineering Service in Marseille, who either approved the changes himself or asked for authorization from the Ministry of Repatriates. For example, in early August the builders sought permission from Marseille to add another base under the buildings because they recognized that the ground would be too unleveled to support the houses.40 With additions of this type the Prefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône, who was responsible for directly paying the construction company, needed to request additional funds from the Ministry of Repatriates, which retarded the process. At the outset, based on discussions from the May 6 meeting cited above, the Ministry of Repatriates had budgeted 12,000 francs to construct and furnish each residence and 2,000 francs per residence for “Travaux de voirie et réseaux divers” (VRD).41 VRD included breaking the ground before construction could start; equipping the residences with electricity, a sewage system, and drinking water; leveling the ground; and adding stairs, railings, and footpaths.42 Initially, given the 52 harki residences, the Ministry of Repatriates had provided the ADV, 746 W 68, L. Torrion, “Ordre de service nº 1: Logement de harkis…” ADBR (Aix-en-Provence), 98 W 325, Letter from the Bouches-du-Rhône prefect’s office director to the mayor of Fuveau, “Objet: Hameaux de forestage employant des harkis,” Aug. 26, 1963. Captain Cheneau’s first name was not listed on this document. 40 ADV, 746 W 68, L. Torrion (Director of the Agricultural Engineering Division, Marseille), “Ordre de service nº 2: Logement de harkis. Chantier de Fuveau,” G.R. 3308, Aug. 9, 1963. 41 ADV, 746 W 63, L. Nourrit, “Note à M. Cullignon,” 4. 42 For a list of the VRD work done at the Fuveau forest hamlet, see: ADV, 746 W 68, Bouches-du-Rhône Department Agricultural Engineering Service, “Hameau de forestage de Fuveau – Travaux de voirie et réseaux divers devis estimatif,” Apr. 4, 1964. 38 39 307 Bouches-du-Rhône Prefect with 110,000 francs for VRD in Fuveau.43 However, the final budget, submitted on April 4, 1964, indicates that this figure had more than doubled to 255,000 francs. Most of the additional expenses went toward “terrassements en terrain rocheux” and the construction of a water purification system for the forest hamlet, separate from the one that served the rest of Fuveau.44 Under pressure from the Ministry of Repatriates to find transitional homes for the harkis, departmental officials’ haste to procure land for the forest hamlets often led to a situation whereby this terrain was not immediately (or ever) suitable for construction. These representatives were at the mercy of those few mayors willing, for whatever reason, to allow a forest hamlet to be constructed on the edge of their towns. They, therefore, had little choice with respect to the grounds. For example, in an April 1964 report the director of the Agricultural Engineering Service in Marseille addressed safety concerns that SFIM Director Pérony had observed in a visit to the nearby Roque d’Anthéron forest hamlet. The edge of the some of the buildings abutted a cliff overlooking a twolane road, which could prove particularly dangerous for children. Recommending that the Bouchesdu-Rhône prefect ask for funds to erect a lightweight wall around the area, the director wrote: “Ces quelques précautions permettront d’utiliser un terrain mis volontiers à la disposition du Ministère des Rapatriés par la Commune de la Roque d’Anthéron, une des rares du Département des Bouchesdu-Rhône à y avoir consenti.”45 Indeed, departmental officials had noted exactly one year earlier, “…la situation dans le département est difficile. (Peu de forêts – ambiance politique peu favorable.)”46 Given the lack of options for locales to construct forest hamlets in the Bouches-duRhône department and the mandate from national officials to open them as quickly as possible, ADV, 746 W 68, L. Torrion (Director of the Agricultural Engineering Division, Marseille) to the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefect, “Objet: Chantiers de logements de harkis. Crédits V.R.D.,” 2, G.R. 123, Jan. 16, 1964. 44 Ibid., 2 and ADV, 746 W 68, Bouches-du-Rhône Department Agricultural Engineering Service, “Hameau de forestage de Fuveau,” 3, Apr. 4, 1964. 45 Ibid., 1-2. 46 ADBR, 137 W 460, Prefect’s cabinet, “Note concernant le reclassement…,” Apr. 4, 1963. 43 308 construction companies and departmental officials, some of who had little interest in the projects, had to make do with the land that mayors offered. The First Decade in Fuveau: Isolation and Encadrement On the morning of April 15, 1964, “le camp de harkis de Fuveau” opened on the literal and symbolic fringes of the 2,600-person village. Fifty harkis and their families, totaling nearly two hundred people, traveled overnight by military busses from the Rivesaltes camp to their new homes.47 Described by one newspaper reporter as “pas de luxe, mais [ayant] (tout) le nécessaire,” the furnishings included twin beds lined up next to each other in the two bedrooms and a table, sideboard, chairs, and a large cupboard in the living room/kitchen.48 On this sunny day, over thirty local officials—including a representative of the Red Cross, the secretary general of the departmental veterans office, and the entire town council—held an official ceremony to greet the families (see figure 32). 49 The newly appointed regional forestry worksite inspector, Captain Emile Bouleau, presided over a flag-raising ceremony. Bouleau possessed “[une] connaissance approfondie des milieux musulmans,” a criterion specified in the Ministry of Repatriates’ memo for selecting forestry worksite inspectors.50 He had served in the police forces in the Sahara region of Algeria from 1949 to 1962 (including commanding 659 officers and auxiliary police officers for 3 years) and subsequently acted as the deputy director of the SFIM office at the Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camp.51 An article in Le Méridional cites 50 harkis and 250 total people, while one in Le Provençal offers the figure of 48 harkis and 220 total people. Jacques Vautier, “50 harkis et leurs familles ont trouvé logis, emplois et école dans la région de Fuveau,” Le Mériodional, Apr. 16, 1964 and “Un village de harkis inauguré près de Fuveau,” Le Provençal, Apr. 16, 1964. However, a document in the ACNMF archives from May 21, 1964 lists the population as 196 (see table 6) and payroll records at the ONF cite 50 workers who began employment on the Fuveau forestry worksites on April 15, 1964. 48 Vautier, “50 harkis et leurs familles…,” Le Mériodional, Apr. 16, 1964. 49 Another photograph printed in Le Provençal on Apr. 16, 1964 showed that over thirty personalities attended the ceremony. 50 ADV, 768 W 62, Minister of Repatriates, 2, Dec. 19, 1962. 51 CAC, 19970146/2 (dossier: Emile Bouleau), Battalion Chief Mourrey (Director of Saharan Affairs in the Oasis Department), “Fiche concernant le Capitaine du Cadre de Réserve: BOULEAU, Emile,” June 20, 1962, and CAC, 19970146/2 (dossier: Emile Bouleau), Yves Pérony, “Note de Service pour M. Majorel,” Nº 716/SFIM/DIR.MG., Mar. 22, 1963. 47 309 Next, the camp director, Augustin Bernabeu, and the social counselor, Mireille Darmon, both of who had recently returned from Algeria, directed the harkis to their new homes. Figure 32: Désiré Henry of the Bouches-du-Rhône Departmental Council amidst other officials welcoming the harkis and their families to the sylvan surroundings in Fuveau. Source: Le Mériodional, Apr. 16, 1964. As discussed in the previous chapter, national officials viewed encadrement as the key to the forest hamlets’ efficacy ever since the earliest discussions about this form of collective reclassement. In evaluations during spring 1963, shortly after the first forest hamlets opened, both national and local officials touted encadrement as a reason for their success. Yet, in practice, the national government’s policies concerning encadrement agents served to isolate forest hamlet harki populations from their surrounding communities and impede their integration. According to Ministry of Repatriates directives, these agents were to facilitate interactions with local and departmental officials and teach the harki population about metropolitan ways of life to promote their integration. However, prescribing that the forest hamlets should be physically isolated from neighboring small towns (not to mention cities where social services were more readily available) and simultaneously concentrating 310 the responsibility for ensuring the harkis’ integration into the hands of one or two agents opened the door to policy failures. As was the case around the country, the camp director and the social counselor in Fuveau exacerbated the harki population’s isolation. The Fuveau forest hamlet was situated thirty-five kilometers from the repatriates service and the branch of the Service des Français Musulmans (SFM), the successor to the SFIM, in the Marseille Prefecture. It also was upwards of fifteen kilometers from the forest hamlet and social welfare inspectors’ bureau in Jouques, Aix-en-Provence, and Montpellier (the offices’ location changed several times over the first decade). Given the infrequent onsite presence of officials representing these agencies, the structure of the Fuveau forest hamlet’s governance entrusted all the power for running the day-to-day operations to two people for its first three years and then to one person for the next twenty years. The lack of oversight made it difficult to verify that these individuals were carrying out their jobs in a way that was beneficial for the Fuveau harki citizens’ integration and fostered a situation of clientelism. Through an examination of the Fuveau forest hamlet’s encadrement personnel, this section analyzes how the government’s forest hamlet policies set up these agents for failure, particularly when it came to helping the harki population escape their isolation from the Fuvelian community. Two different camp directors ran the Fuveau forest hamlet was run by from April 1964 until August 1967, when this position was eliminated. The same social counselor remained from the time the forest hamlet opened until her retirement in 1985, after which she continued to reside on the grounds until 1991. The camp direction of the Fuveau forest hamlet got off to an inauspicious start. The husband and wife hired in August 1963 to be the camp director and social counselor were fired on January 29, 1964, before the forest hamlet opened, owing to a dispute with regional forest hamlet inspector Bouleau and negative performance evaluations in their interim positions as camp director 311 and social counselor in the Glennes forest hamlet.52 The SFIM worked quickly to find a new camp director. Pérony vetted the next candidate by inquiring with his previous military superiors and the prefect of the Var department, where the applicant currently resided, about his morality, conduct, and political leanings (the latter to determine whether he had links to the OAS).53 Following favorable responses from these officials, on February 13, 1964, Pérony named as the new camp director Augustin Bernabeu, who had been born in Algeria and served for twenty-six years as a gendarme in the countryside outside of Algiers before fleeing to France at the end of the war.54 However, six months after the Fuveau forest hamlet opened, Bouleau wrote a letter to Pérony in which he explained that Bernabeu’s attitude and behaviors, present for some time, created a difficult atmosphere detrimental to the harki population. He further exposed that the relations between Mayor Philip and Bernabeu “ne sont pas ceux que l’on serait en droit d’attendre,” which was a crucial relationship to facilitate the harki population’s integration into the Fuvelian community, and forwarded the mayor’s request to transfer Bernabeu to a different forest hamlet. Moreover, Bouleau revealed that the camp director did not get along well with the supervisors of the forestry worksites and he was at loggerheads with the social counselor, Mireille Darmon.55 Indeed, the regional director of social counselors noted in a letter to Pérony that Bernabeu only allowed Darmon to tend to teaching women about domestic tasks (and not the other socio-administrative tasks her role specified) and regularly insulted Darmon in front of the “Muslims,” which gave them CAC, 19970146/6 (dossier: Capitaine Roger Vincent), letter from Emile Bouleau to Yves Pérony, “Au sujet de M. Vincent, Chef de hameau forestier de Fuveau (Bouches-du-Rhône),” Jan. 10, 1964 and CAC, 19970146/6 (dossier: Capitaine Roger Vincent), Yves Pérony, “Note,” Jan. 29, 1964. 53 CAC, 19970146/1 (dossier: Augustin Bernabeu), letter from Minister of Repatriates Missoffe to the prefect of the Var department, “Objet: Demande de renseignements sur un candidat à un emploi,” nº 293 SFIM/MG, Jan. 21, 1964. 54 CAC, 19970146/1 (dossier: Augustin Bernabeu), letter from Augustin Bernabeu to Minister of Repatriates Missoffe, “Objet: Demande d’emploi offerte à d’anciens sous-officiers pour assurer la gestion de hameaux,” 1, June 4, 1963 and CAC, 19970146/1 (dossier: Augustin Bernabeu), letter from Yves Pérony to Augustin Bernabeu, nº 658 SFIM/MG, Feb. 13, 1964. Bernabeu had solicited this position eight months prior after having seen an announcement for Army veterans and noted in a letter to Missoffe that thanks to his military service in rural Algeria, “[J]’ai pu acquérir l’expérience des populations musulmanes.” 55 CAC, 19970146/1 (dossier: Augustin Bernabeu), letter from Emile Bouleau to Yves Pérony, “Objet: Monsieur Bernabeu, Chef du Hameau Forestier de Harkis de Fuveau,” nº 591/INSP./C., Oct. 17, 1964. 52 312 “une raison supplémentaire de ne pas accorder à leur monitrice le respect et la déférence indispensable à son action.”56 Interestingly, Bouleau made no mention in his letter of Bernabeu’s comportment toward the harki citizens, though the camp director’s combative nature suggests that he likely was not respectful in his interactions with these individuals either. Pérony decided to relieve Bernabeu of his position as of November 15, 1964.57 This example with Bernabeu was not atypical; one only has to look as far as the first camp director and social counselor hired for Fuveau who received negative evaluations for their comportment while running the Glennes forest hamlet. These situations demonstrate the potential for problems arising out of the setup of the forest hamlets: power concentrated into the hands of one or two encadrement agents and the lack of oversight to promptly handle such problems. Fuveau’s next camp director, Georges Pouron, who assumed his position on November 27, 1964, also was a career military man. Though he was born in France, from 1949 to 1962 he lived in Madagascar and French Equatorial Africa (AEF), where he served as a gendarme.58 Although no documentation is available concerning Pouron’s job performance or interactions with the forest hamlet residents and government officials, his dismissal was significant. It demonstrates that after these spaces became permanent the national government did not allot to the forest hamlets the necessary resources to ensure their initial goal to integrate the harki residents into the surrounding community. Immediately after the Ministry of Social Affairs took over the responsibility of supplying and funding encadrement agents for the forest hamlets from the Ministry of Interior on January 1, 1967, it downsized this corps. As a result, Pouron’s position was one of those eliminated. He received notice that he would be dismissed on August 1, 1967 due to the cuts to the Ministry of CAC, 19970146/1 (dossier: Augustin Bernabeu), letter from Madame Giravalli to Yves Pérony, “Objet: Difficultés rencontrées par Madame Darmon,” Oct. 24, 1964. 57 CAC, 19970146/1 (dossier: Augustin Bernabeu), letter from Yves Pérony to Augustin Bernabeu, nº 3870/SFIM/MG, Oct. 22, 1964. 58 CAC, 19970146/5 (dossier: Georges Pouron), “Notice Individuelle: Georges Pouron.” 56 313 Social Affairs budget, which created another obstacle to integrating the Fuvelian harki population.59 Even though relying heavily on the camp director and social counselor to facilitate the harki population’s integration was arguably a flawed policy from the outset, it nevertheless was the primary means that the Ministry of Repatriates provided to integrate the adult forest hamlet residents into their communities. The SFIM encouraged local officials to play an active part in the harki citizens’ integration. However, these officials were not employees of the ministries responsible for the population’s encadrement whose job descriptions included this role. As explained in the previous chapter, the Ministry of Repatriates listed among the camp director’s responsibilities acting as an interlocutor with departmental and local officials for individual harkis’ administrative matters (birth certificates and pensions, for example) and aiding these individuals when they interacted with municipal and departmental services.60 Pérony had insisted in December 1962 that the best method to assure the “refugees’” integration and avoid their exclusive reliance on a specialized structure was to incorporate them into existing social services.61 The camp director’s assistance toward this end— such as accompanying them to meetings and offering French language classes—was a vital part of this plan. Eliminating the camp director in Fuveau meant taking away one of the two individuals responsible for facilitating interactions between the Fuvelian harki population, which numbered 220 people in January 1967, and local government officials.62 In an October 1974 report the Deputy Secretary General of the Bouches-du-Rhône Office of Liaison and Advancement of Migrants, Didier Cultiaux, strongly critiqued the situation in the Fuveau and la Roque d’Anthéron forest hamlets. Referring to this personnel as “très insuffisant en nombre et en qualité,” Cultiaux called the CAC, 19970146/5 (dossier: Georges Pouron), Letter from the Director of the General Administration for Personnel and Budget (Ministry of Finances) to the Director of Population and Migrations (Ministry of Social Affairs), June 16, 1967. 60 CAC, 19920149/3/1, Minister of State for Repatriates (SFIM), “Consignes du sous-officier détaché au chantier de forestage.” 61 ADV, 746 W 62, Minister of State for Repatriates, 1, Dec. 19, 1962. 62 ACNMF, 32/1, Captain Sessa (ATOM-CNMF, Antenne de Marseille), “Étude sur les activités de: L’Antenne de Marseille et le Centre Social de la Cité ‘Les Tilleuls,’” 3, Jan. 13, 1967. 59 314 choice made by Parisian administrators to eliminate the camp directors in order to cut costs “deplorable,” because it left only one “isolated” social counselor.63 Cultiaux’s report also included a critique of the living arrangements of the Fuveau and la Roque d’Anthéron forest hamlets’ social counselors: “[I]l ne faudrait pas que les monitrices sociales habitent les hameaux… Ce sont elles qui s’assimilent aux musulmans et elles n’ont aucune autorité.”64 Mireille Darmon was born near Blida, Algeria in 1924 and left her home country at the end of the war. She began her employment on the Fuveau forest hamlet in February 1964 and lived there until 1991, when children of harkis reportedly chased her off for the years of oppression she subjected their parents to, including her failure to give them the tools imperative for their integration.65 The lack of authority to which Cultiaux refers in 1974 to a large extent stemmed from the awakening of consciousness by older harki children, now fluent in French through their education, of Darmon’s negligence. As one daughter of a harki who grew up in the camp related in an interview: “Elle ne les a fait pas participer à la vie française. Plutôt elle les a aidé à les reculer, à les cacher pour qu’en fait ils ne s’en sortent pas et qu’ils soient toujours sous sa coupe…”66 While the camp director was a part of the government’s policies to integrate the harki population, the July 1965 Ministry of Interior report previously cited explains that the social counselor was the “keystone” of its policies: Il fallait éviter à la fois qu[e les familles de harkis] rebutent leur voisinage européen et se replient sur elles-mêmes. Par ailleurs, les adultes presque tous illettrés ne pouvaient accomplir eux-mêmes aucune des formalités administratives quasi-quotidienne dans des familles souvent nombreuses. Il a donc été nécessaire d’instaurer un dispositif qui permette de suivre de très près les implantations de familles musulmanes, du moins quand elles étaient To remedy this problem, Cultiaux recommended adding an onsite camp director for each forest hamlet and an itinerant deputy interdepartmental forest hamlet inspector who would circulate among the Bouches-du-Rhône and Vaucluse forest hamlets. ACNMF, 32/2, Didier Cultiaux to the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefect, “Objet: Situation des anciens harkis dans le département des Bouches-du-Rhône,” 4-6, Nº 677, Oct. 30, 1974. 64 Ibid., 6. 65 Family K., interview. 66 Ibid. 63 315 groupées. La clef de voûte de toute l’organisation de tutelle sociale est constituée par un réseau de 90 Monitrices sociales…”67 Mireille Darmon encapsulates the flaws inherent in the importance of encadrement to the government’s forest hamlet integration policy. This policy instituted a system of dependence on one person (or two people) fluent in Arabic and/or Berber, whose French linguistic competence and western social behaviors created a power dynamic open to corruption. At the same time, the encadrement agents were the sole means the policy provided for teaching the adult harki population French language and customs so that these individuals would be able to function independently. The French language simultaneously was source of and legitimized their power over the harki citizens under their authority. When the agents did not fulfill their socio-educative mission the harki population became mired in a situation of dependence on those whose responsibilities included filling out paperwork for government assistance, translating mail from government agencies, interacting with schoolteachers and medical personnel, and distributing clothes from charitable organizations.68 The Fuveau forest hamlet’s isolation and the lack of personnel in place to properly oversee that Darmon was indeed teaching the harkis and their wives French perpetuated and exacerbated this situation of dependence. At the same time, during Fuveau’s first decade the government did not enact policies giving financial support to hire language teachers who could aid the social counselor in this function. A 1977 report by the ONF noted that illiteracy still posed a grave population for many of the harkis on forestry worksites throughout France. For thirty weeks between May 1976 and May 1977 state educational agencies offered the men in the Bouches-duRhône and Vaucluse departments four hours of French classes per week, demonstrating that neither AN, 5 AG 1/22, Minister of the Interior, “Rapport sur l’application…,” 122, July 26, 1965. This report was issued after the Ministry of Interior had assumed the Ministry of Repatriates’ functions concerning the forest hamlets and before it would pass them on to the Ministry of Social Affairs. 68 AN, F1a 5138, SFIM, “Role et attributions….” 67 316 Darmon, nor anyone else had fulfilled this role.69 Moreover, a 2002 report concerning the Fuveau harki population’s living conditions noted that only three of the twenty-two harkis and their wives interviewed were able to express themselves in French without a translator.70 The Fuveau harki citizens’ lack of French language skills, in part the responsibility of Darmon, added another obstacle to leaving the forest hamlet along with being assured a job and free housing while residing there. At the Fuveau forest hamlet, a clientelistic system emerged in which Darmon profited from the adult harki population’s incomprehension of the French language and social welfare system. Several interviewees offered examples of such situations. Darmon was in charge of distributing bottles of gas for cooking and heating each family’s home. According to one harki, while each family had the right to five bottles per month, Darmon would sometimes hold these back from harkis she disfavored, which created jealousies among them.71 Another interviewee revealed that she would make the harkis do chores in order to receive the bags of clothes that the Red Cross donated for their families.72 This same person revealed that following her sister’s grave accident in which she was struck by a car near the forest hamlet entrance (the camp was located off a two-lane highway) and entered into a coma Darmon instructed her father to sign a paper, explaining that the document was so that social services would not take his daughter away. The family later learned that he ceded his right to sue the driver.73 The Fuvelian harkis’ dependence on social counselor Darmon to read their mail and fill out forms sometimes impeded their access to benefits to which they were entitled given their postimperial classification as “harkis” by the French government. This financial assistance was crucial to helping the harki families become more independent. Records from the departmental veterans’ CAC, 19910097/48, Regional Director of the ONF for the Mediterranean Region to the Director of the ONF, “Objet: Gestion des anciens harkis par l’Office National des Forêts,” 71-72, nº 168 GR/JD/CR, Apr. 28, 1977. 70 Archives Communales de Fuveau (hereafter ACF), Arts et Management de la Ville, “Étude sur le devenir du site de la cité Brogilum à Fuveau,” 20, Oct. 2002. 71 Abdelkader Z., interview. 72 Family K., interview. 73 Ibid. 69 317 office (ONAC) in Marseille demonstrate that Darmon helped twenty-five harkis fill out paperwork and procure the proper documentation from other state agencies for veterans’ cards, once they became eligible for this status following a December 1974 law. 74 Nevertheless, there is scant evidence of Darmon fulfilling her obligation of helping the families to fill out the paperwork to seek social welfare services to which they were entitled at this office and the Bouches-du-Rhône Repatriates Service. Of the twenty-five files examined at the former office and the twenty social welfare files consulted at the latter, representing thirty-three harkis, Darmon only helped two individuals seek financial assistance, one in 1977 and the other in 1981.75 Cultiaux’s October 1974 report about the harki population in the Bouches-du-Rhône department noted that harki citizens residing in Marseille, including those in the Tilleuls cité urbaine (an urban collective reclassement housing project), were in a stronger financial position than harkis outside of the capital. The proximity of social welfare offices and the personnel in place to inform the harkis of the benefits to which they were entitled facilitated their access to these benefits.76 Indeed, consulting sixteen Tilleuls harkis’ files in the ONAC office in Marseille and thirty-two Tilleuls harkis’ files in the Bouches-du-Rhône Repatriate Service proves that these urban harkis accessed social welfare services sooner (as early as 1966) and far more often than the Fuveau harkis while Darmon was the social counselor. Cultiaux even went as far to declare that the non-Marseillais harkis residing outside the forest hamlets, even if few had succeeded in integrating, were better off than those in the forest hamlets. He reported that local governments, one potential source of JORF, “Loi nº 7401944 du 9 décembre 1974 donnant vocation à la qualité de combattant aux personnes ayant participé aux opérations effectuées en Afrique du Nord, entre le 1er janvier 1952 et le 2 juillet 1962,” Dec. 10, 1974, 12284. The records for the twenty-five men who requested veteran’s cards while residing at the Fuveau forest hamlet are located in the Bouches-du-Rhône Departmental Veterans Office in Marseille (AONACBR). 75 The social welfare files are part of the department’s repatriates’ service archives (ASRBR), located in a storage space at the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefecture in Marseille. The two instances where Darmon filled out paperwork for Fuveau harkis are: ASRBR social welfare file of Ben Abdallah R., Madame Darmon to the Director of the Bouches-du-Rhône Repatriates Service, “Objet: Subvention d’installation,” Jan. 26, 1977 and AONACBR, individual file of Larbi S., Form for financial assistance filled out by Mireille Darmon, Jan. 14, 1981. 76 ACNMF, 32/2, Didier Cultiaux, “Objet: Situation des anciens harkis…,” 2. 74 318 financial assistance, were more or less accommodating and repatriates associations (he did not indicate whether these were harki, pied-noir, or joint associations) helped the harkis to seek financial assistance.77 A better financial situation, if the harkis were informed about their rights to social welfare benefits, made leaving the forest hamlets possible, should a family desire. This demonstrates another way that the set up of the forest hamlets’ encadrement structure exacerbated the Fuveau harki population’s isolation. The First Decade in Fuveau: Isolation and Integration According to a report in one of the local newspapers, Le Provençal, during the April 15, 1964 ceremony at the Fuveau forest hamlet Mayor Philip predicted the harki population’s “rapide intégration dans la commune.”78 This prediction would be incorrect in part owing to the failure of local officials, particularly Mayor Philip (who would be in office until March 1977), to enact policies to help integrate the harki residents into their community or treat them as such. An article the same day in the other local newspaper, Le Mériodional, noted the similarity between the Fuveau forest hamlet and the life the harkis left behind by sharing an observation of one of the schoolteachers who had just migrated from Sétif: “Tout à fait un village d’Algérie!” Indeed, the forest hamlet resembled a microcosm of colonial Algeria, yet it was missing the traditional social structures the harki population knew in Algeria. The reporter Jacques Vautier, who referred to himself as “arabisant” (leaving one to wonder whether his familiarity with Arab cultures was acquired from having lived in North Africa), collected the following testimonies from the harkis as they made their way toward their new homes, as depicted in figure 33: -Ici, c’est notre pays! -Nous ne demandons qu’à travailler, à assurer la vie de nos familles et de nos enfants. 77 78 Ibid., 3. “Un village de harkis…,” Le Provençal, Apr. 16, 1964. 319 -Nous nous plairons ici, car il y a du soleil. -La campagne est sauvage, elle est belle, nous serons à l’aise. -Enfin, quitter la tente, avoir un toit, un travail, un motif de vivre! -Ces drapeaux qui nous accueillent sont des signes de joie; l’avenir est moins sombre, moins triste. -Que désirer encore? Que les voisins nous considèrent comme des amis. Nous ferons tout pour que ce bon voisinage soit réel.79 Figure 33: A harki and his family walking to their new home in the Fuveau forest hamlet. Pictured in the background are several of the 150 square meter buildings, each of which housed 4 harki families. As this image illustrates, the terrain was still uneven and rocky. Source: Le Provençal, Apr. 16, 1964. Despite this positive outlook, the isolated setup of the Fuveau forest hamlet would challenge the harki population’s integration into the Fuvelian community. Fuveau’s harki citizens indeed became a separate and separated community, living a refugee-like existence and treated as 79 Vautier, “50 harkis et leurs familles…,” Le Mériodional, Apr. 16, 1964. 320 undesirable immigrants by many around them. The Fuveau forest hamlet, and by extension the other seventy-one ones organized in the same way, were spaces that isolated their harki populations—and did not promote integration. As mentioned in the previous chapter, by the mid1970s government officials evaluated the forest hamlet integration policy as a failure, both the policy in itself and its implementation. The national government’s initial vision for the forest hamlets in 1962 set them up to be unsuccessful. Its subsequent decision in 1966 to change the status of twentyfive of the forest hamlets, including Fuveau, from “temporary” to “permanent,” negated a central feature of the government’s integration policy for the forest hamlets. Finally, as will be treated in the next chapter, the choice in the mid-1970s to rebuild the houses on the same site and keep the harkis under the encadrement of a social counselor, employed over a decade ago to help them transition into life in metropolitan life, thwarted the remaining possibility for the integration policy to succeed. In the testimonies quoted above, the harkis expressed relief that they had left the ways of life imposed on them at the Rivesaltes camp (though the tents were gone by January 1963). They welcomed a new life on this bucolic landscape that reminded them of the homeland they were forced to recently flee. And the last interviewee hoped to become integrated among the town’s other residents. Yet the harki population’s isolation, which was threefold—exile from their established communities and ways of life, few interactions with local and departmental government officials, and distance and differentiation from other Fuvelian residents—challenged their integration into Fuveau’s community. Departmental and local officials grouped the families in the Fuveau forest hamlet together artificially, which demonstrated little regard for the harki population’s ethnic, linguistic, and regional differences. The diversity of populations and the transient nature of the forest hamlets resulted in the harki population’s social disintegration (désintégration sociale) and isolation from customary ways of 321 life, including their hierarchical societies comprised of family units.80 The social counselor and/or the camp director took the place of what had once been the role of elders. Regulations instituted by the Ministries of Repatriates and Agriculture stipulated that once a harki was no longer employed on a forestry worksite he and his family must give up their residence in the forest hamlet immediately. While in some cases families resisted this rule, payroll records from the ONF nevertheless provide an accurate depiction of the composition the population in the Fuveau forest hamlet.81 According to these records, a total of 124 harkis worked on the 2 worksites which, accounting for a few instances of adult children forestry workers, translated into roughly the same number of families residing in the Fuveau forest hamlet from 1964 until today.82 Cross-referencing these names with civil status documents at the Fuveau town hall, social welfare documents at the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefecture, and military records from the departmental veterans office reveals the birthplace of sixty-four of the harki men, including nineteen of forest hamlet’s original inhabitants.83 There was a wide geographical distribution across Algeria focused in rural areas. With European settlers concentrated on the Algerian coast and in cities, ways of life in many of these rural and mountainous regions remained relatively undisrupted until the Algerian War for Independence when the French Army recruited In Sociologie de l’Algérie Pierre Bourdieu describes the various types of social disintegration that took place in colonial Algeria owing to disruption caused by the imposition of French governing, economic, and social structures. Pierre Bourdieu, Sociologie de l’Algérie (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1963 [1958]), 105-26. 81 The ONF was created in January 1966 under the authority of the Ministry of Agriculture to oversee the upkeep of and policies concerning France’s state-owned forests. The archives for the Departmental division of the ONF in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, including payroll records (the harkis were paid every two weeks), are located in its Aixen-Provence office (AONFBR). 82 There is one unique case of a non-ONF worker living in the forest hamlet. The widow of a harki who was captured in 1962 and died five years later as a result of injuries suffered during his incarceration migrated to France in 1986 and moved into the Fuveau forest hamlet where her cousin resided. ASRBR, social welfare file of Taouès C. 83 With some Fuveau residents having served in multiple capacities during the Algerian War for Independence, these records show seventeen harkis, six moghaznis (responsible for protecting SAS members), two GMS (rural police forces), six conscripts or volunteers in the regular army, and two men described as agricultural workers for the French Army. In addition to fighting in the Algerian War for Independence, one man was a tirailleur algérien during the interwar period, one served in a peacekeeping regiment of tirailleurs algériens in Germany after the Second World War, three fought in the Second World War, and two fought in the Indochinese War. As this information suggests, the ages of the men employed on the Fuveau worksites varied; the oldest worker was born in 1907 and the youngest was born in 1946. The birthdates for these men can be found on their individual pay slips in the AONFBDR. 80 322 rural Algerians for their knowledge of the countryside.84 Living in such close proximity in Fuveau— more than two hundred individuals together on a five-acre plot—unsettled their various traditional social and cultural structures. The flow of harkis into and out of the Fuveau forest hamlet during its first decade— transient during the first four years, then increasingly stable—was another example of disrupting traditional structures and challenged their integration. These population movements leading some harki families to reside in the Fuveau forest hamlet for a brief amount of time, as advocated in the government’s initial policies, added another obstacle to harki population members’ integration into the surrounding community. When the forest hamlets were originally envisioned as a two-year solution, the Ministry of Repatriates viewed such movements as a sign of progress that workers had found housing and jobs in the private sector.85 Yet the Ministry of Repatriates’ vision for the forest hamlet experiment shifted from temporary to permanent in early 1964, before Fuveau opened. The movements to and from the Fuveau forest hamlet during the 1960s most often meant that families were transferred to or from other forest hamlets—they did not symbolize the population’s integration. As mentioned above, 50 harkis began working at the Fuveau forestry worksites on the day after their April 15, 1964 arrival.86 ONF payroll records show that two workers left after two and a half months (one left a forwarding address in the Moselle department) and five other workers would move from Fuveau by the end of 1964.87 Following the national level policies enacted in January 1966 referenced in chapter 4, most new arrivals to the Fuveau forest hamlet transferred Rivet, Le Maghreb à l’épreuve, 294-95. CAC, 19910097/40, M. Doniol, “Objet: Inspection des chantiers…,” 16. 86 This figure does not include one of the fifty harkis who arrived from Rivesaltes on April 15 and immediately was hospitalized in the Psychiatric Center in nearby Aix-en-Provence. He and his family returned to the Rivesaltes camp a little over one month later. CAC, 19920149/5/11, Emile Bouleau to Yves Pérony, “Objet: Famille F.,” Nº 288/Insp., May 27, 1964. The additional worker appears to be the son of a harki, who disappeared from payroll records after May 14, 1964. It is unclear whether the eighteen-year-old (Abdelkader ben Mohamed H.) left the forest hamlet since a man with the same last name whose name was Mohamed (ben is an Arabic term used in names to indicate “the son of”) and was thirty-four years older, Mohamed ben Abdelkader H., remained employed by the ONF in Fuveau until June 27, 1967. AONFBR, Fiches de paie, Fuveau. 87 AONFBR, Fiches de paie, Fuveau. 84 85 323 from other forest hamlets, particularly those that were slated for closure. By the end of April 1968, the Fuveau forestry worksites had employed a total of 102 harki men, which translated into roughly the same number families residing in the forest hamlet during its first 4 years. After this time, population movements slowed down significantly. A handful of those who moved to Fuveau in the late 1960s came from the “Centre de transit de Lascours” in the Gard. Until 1970, this site was a reception center for the harkis, some of whom had been incarcerated by the FLN, who migrated from Algeria after the Rivesaltes camp closed. According to available records from ONAC, four men who were placed in the Fuveau forest hamlet passed through Lascours, each after having been prisoners of the FLN for approximately five years.88 The last two harkis to begin working at the Fuveau forest hamlet transferred from the recently-closed St. Hilaire forest hamlet in the Allier Department on August 1, 1973.89 Besides their regional diversity, Fuveau’s harkis were ethnically and linguistically heterogeneous. As the social counselor Darmon noted in a July 1972 report, the Fuveau forest hamlet included families of Arab, Kabyle, and Chaouia descent.90 Information gathered from a variety of sources exposes the ethnicity of 45 of Fuveau’s 124 harkis: 23 Arabs, 9 Kabyles, and 13 Chaouias. Among its original 50 inhabitants, these sources reveal 10 Arabs, 3 Kabyles, and 2 Chaouias. This ethnic diversity, which in turn meant linguistic differences (both Arabic and Tamazight plus regional dialects within these languages), posed problems for the harki population during its initial years. One Fuveau harki who was among the forest hamlet’s first inhabitants explained in an interview that those who were not conversant in both Berber and Arabic were at a AONACBR, dossiers for Mohamed (Honoré) B., Areski B., Mohamed C., and Smaïl R. AONFBR, Fiches de paie, Fuveau. The two men were Mohamed C. and Daoudi K. 90 CAC, 19870256/7, Mireille Darmon, “Hameau de Fuveau. Situation du hameau,” 1, July 1972. The Chaouias are of Berber descent and tend to live in the Aurès mountains in northeastern Algeria just south of Constantine. Kabyles, the largest Berber group in Algeria, and Chaouias, the second-largest group, speak dialects of the Berber language (Tamazight). 88 89 324 disadvantage.91 This challenge was in addition to their struggle to comprehend the French language. Beyond linguistic obstacles, ingrained ethnic rivalries from Algeria sometimes contributed to a strained atmosphere among the population and, on occasion, sparked physical fights. As Regional Forest Hamlet Inspector Louis Sessa wrote in 1969 to the President of the Departmental Council explaining a fight between a Kabyle harki and a group of Arab harkis on Fuveau’s forestry worksites, “[I]l existe une animosité latente entre les arabes et les kabyles.”92 Indeed during the previous year, fights between Arab and Kabyle harkis had resulted in the transfer of two harki families to other forest hamlets.93 The social counselor’s report in mid-1972, by which time the population had stabilized, noted that the situation was calmer: “Il règne une bonne ambiance et une grande solidarité.”94 Darmon’s positive evaluation nevertheless must be weighed against the fact that any problems she reported in the forest hamlet would have ultimately been a reflection of her inability to control the harki population and therefore a self-indictment of her job performance. Fuveau was not the only ethnically diverse forest hamlet; for example, Jouques and la Roque d’Anthéron, both in the Bouches-du-Rhône department, counted Arabs and Kabyles among its forest hamlet residents. 95 Yet, Fuveau’s ethnic heterogeneity contrasted with some other forest hamlets, such as the four in the Vaucluse. Three of the Vaucluse forest hamlets—Apt, Cucuron, and Pertuis—were constituted of mostly Arab families with a few Chaouias from the Saint-Mauricel’Ardoise camp and its fourth, Sault, contained exclusively Kabyle families. In fact, in a letter to SFIM director Pérony the mayor of Sault specifically requested Kabyles, which necessitated that Forest Hamlet Inspector Emile Bouleau travel to the Rivesaltes camp to select them since there Abdelkader Z., Interview with the author, Dec. 19, 2007, Fuveau. ADBR, 135 W 51, Inspector Louis Sessa to Louis Philibert, “Objet: Harkis de Fuveau,” Jan. 10, 1969. 93 AONFBR, dossier: Fiches individuelles Fuveau 1968, “Compte rendu de modification d’effectif, chantier de Fuveau,” June 6, 1968, and “Compte rendu de modification d’effectif, chantier de Fuveau,” Aug. 23, 1968. 94 CAC, 19870256/7, Darmon, “Hameau de Fuveau.” 95 A report written by Colonel Schoen of the CNMF after a July 1964 visit to the Marseille region noted: “Jouques… Incidents entre Kabyles (forestiers) et Arabes (autres emplois). Que sera-ce dans un an ou deux[?]” ACNMF, 32/1, Colonel Schoen, “Visite à Marseille,” 2, July 22, 1964. Indeed Jouques’ twenty-five original families included eighteen of Kabyle descent and seven of Arab descent. Abi Samra and Finas, “Regroupement et Dispersion,” 96. 91 92 325 were only five Kabyle families remaining in the nearby Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camp. 96 Mayor Charles Martel justified his preference for families of Kabyle origins in his letter to Pérony by his misguided belief in “the Kabyle myth,” the superiority of Kabyles to Arabs: “Cette assimilation [des harkis] au point de vue ethnique ne présente pas de gros inconvénients puisque les kabyles de race berbère, appartiennent, comme les Provençaux, au même fond racial méditerranéen….” This sixpage letter moreover demonstrated that the mayor had given much thought to the place of the harkis in his town and the setup of their living situation.97 The absence of documentary materials makes it difficult to determine precisely why ethnicity was not a factor for the government officials who assigned harki families from the Rivesaltes camp to the Fuveau forest hamlet initially. However, this situation suggests departmental and local government officials’ lack of understanding of—or perhaps interest in—the harki population. The availability of isolated land in the forest on the outskirts of Fuveau, due to the mining industry’s decline, fit into the Ministry of Repatriates’ prescription for choosing a site. It is nevertheless unclear whether Mayor Philip’s position as the president of the union of Bouches-duRhône mayors exerted pressure on him to offer his village as a potential site or whether he took a genuine interest in the harki population. What is clear from the proceedings of Fuveau’s monthly town council meetings, containing minutes from its open and closed sessions, is that the mayor never brought up the topic of establishing a forest hamlet in this open forum. Therefore, it is impossible to gauge the effect of his department-wide office on this decision, and more important, the opinion of other local officials. By not publicly discussing this decision, whose implications included increasing Fuveau’s population by nearly 10 percent in one day, Mayor Philip set a precedent for excluding the harkis from municipal affairs and the municipality itself. In fact, the first Moumen, Les Français musulmans en Vaucluse, 84-85. CAC, 19920149/3/2, Letter from Charles Martel to Yves Pérony, 1, May 3, 1963. On the Kabyle Myth, see Patricia M. E. Lorcin, Imperial Identities. Stereotyping, Prejudice and Race in Colonial Algeria (New York: I.B. Tauris & Co Ltd, 1995). 96 97 326 time that the harkis were discussed in Fuveau’s town council meetings was on April 24, 1972—eight years after the forest hamlet opened.98 Before this time, any discussions that took place about the harkis—of which there exists no documentary evidence in Fuveau’s municipal archives—were conducted off the official record. This suggests that the harkis’ affairs did not concern the local government in the same way as those of other town residents. A statement issued by town council in January 1972 demonstrates the distance that the local government inserted between itself and Fuveau’s harki citizens. It also shows that discussions concerning harki citizens did indeed take place among at least some members of the town council (the participation of all members is unknown) outside of official meetings. Following a heated debate among Fuvelians over whether to continue to educate harki children at the forest hamlet after a new elementary school had opened at the other end of the municipality, the town council published the following statement in the January 1, 1972 edition of Le Provençal: “Le Conseil municipal rappelle… que l’administration qui régit la bonne marche du hameau forestier (Narkis) [sic] incombe exclusivement au ministère des Affaires sociales…” 99 No official record of this discussion exists in the register of town council meeting proceedings. Moreover, the Fuveau government’s first public statement concerning the forest hamlet residents made clear its position: harki citizens were external to the municipality’s affairs. This exclusion of the harkis from municipal affairs was not the case in all towns. In contrast, when the mayor of la Roque d’Anthéron was deciding whether to open a forest hamlet in his municipality, he convoked an emergency session of the town council on March 3, 1963 with the agenda item: “Installation de Harkis.” After reading aloud an official request from the departmental prefect to open a double forest hamlet in the town with a description of how the forest hamlet Fuveau, Register of Town Council Meeting Proceedings, “Nº 72-32 – Ecoles pour les enfants de Harkis,” Apr. 24, 1972. 99 “Fuveau: Avis de la mairie,” Le Provençal, Jan. 1, 1972. It is unclear whether the newspaper or the town council misspelled “harkis.” 98 327 would function, Mayor Paul Onoratini opened the floor to his colleagues. They unanimously accepted the prefect’s proposal, offering, among other reasons: “Considérant… que l’union et l’amour réciproque des hommes du globe est nécessaire et qu’il appartient à tous d’aider au maximum nos frères qui souffrent de quelques races qu’il appartient et que la France se doit d’aider les Harkis, qui, au péril de leur vie ont choisi notre pays et notre civilisation.”100 Topics relating to the harkis—including schooling for the children and the construction of the buildings—would be on la Roque d’Anthéron town council’s agenda five additional times before “Le hameau de la Baume” opened in May 1964, and then six more times before the end of the decade. The difference between these two mayors’ initial vision of the forest hamlet’s relationship to their municipality—Captain Emile Bouleau noted in December 1965, “Le hameau de la Roque, grâce à Monsieur Onoratini, est le plus complet et mieux organisé de toute la région”—had future implications for the harkis.101 As will be explained below, when the national government enacted a policy requiring municipalities to take part in rebuilding houses in the early 1970s, the mayor of la Roque d’Anthéron opted to move the families closer to town to help their integration, while the mayor of Fuveau decided to build new houses on the same isolated site. While harki citizens’ isolation from Fuvelians was both physical and cultural, officials would later judge their physical isolation to be the greater impediment to the success of the forest hamlet integration policy. The national government’s conception for the forest hamlets’ setup and functioning combined with Mayor Philip and departmental officials’ choice to situate Fuveau forest hamlet on a secluded plot three kilometers from town created, from the outset, their physical isolation. The tone that the mayor and his town council subsequently set by treating of the harkis as outsiders to municipal affairs exacerbated this physical isolation and likely had a negative effect on La Roque d’Anthéron, Register of Town Council Meeting Proceedings, “Séance extraordinaire du 3 mars 1963.” AN, F1a 5142, Inspecteur Bouleau, “Fiche de renseignements sur les personnes qui ont aidé les harkis – M. le maire Onoratini,” Dec. 3, 1965. 100 101 328 Fuvelians’ perception of the isolated population beyond any existing “racial” prejudices some individuals’ harbored toward Algerians. The harkis’ different “culture,” as defined by Sayad in the introduction, already set them apart and isolated them from other town residents. When the harki population arrived, few of them spoke French. They did not share a common history with other Fuvelians. The two group’s religions and traditions were different. Their social customs and attitudes, such as those concerning marriage and family, varied. Yet, these cultural differences did not in themselves preclude the harki population’s integration. Instead, departmental officials evaluating the forest hamlet integration policy in the early and mid-1970s deemed the population’s physical isolation from their surrounding community the greatest factor impeding its success. The director of the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefecture’s SFM office wrote in April 1973 concerning the relationship between “Europeans” and the harkis living in the forest hamlets: “[L]es hameaux, …par leur situation géographique gênent considérablement les contacts avec les européens. Seuls les jeunes cherchent à s’évader du milieu familial et tribal pour se lier avec des jeunes amis européens des villages voisins.”102 Eighteen months later, the deputy secretary general of the Bouches-du-Rhône Office of Liaison and Advancement of Migrants succinctly summarized the situation of the department’s four forest hamlets: “[L]es problèmes résultent surtout de leur isolement…”103 According to members of the harki population and social counselor Darmon, townspeople did not visit the Fuveau forest hamlet, with the exception of occasional itinerant merchants. At the same time, the forest hamlet’s location coupled with a lack of means to easily travel into town (few harkis had cars until the early 1970s and no buses linked the forest hamlet to the town), limited the harki population’s ability to seek out interactions.104 Town hall records show that nine harkis chose to remarry their wives in a French ceremony, ostensibly as an attempt to integrate into society. ACNMF, 32/2, Captain Louis Sessa (Director of the SFM office in the Bouches-du-Rhône department and Marseille), “Rapport Annuel 1972 concernant les Rapatriés Français-Musulmans,” 5, Apr. 11, 1973. 103 ACNMF, 32/2, Cultiaux, “Situation des anciens harkis,” 3. 104 CAC, 19870256/7, Darmon, “Hameau de Fuveau.” 102 329 Among the eighteen official witnesses for these marriages, in eleven cases this person was a Fuvelian harki, in six instances either the camp director or social counselor was a witness, and in one case the town hall secretary filled in.105 The Fuvelian harki community remained apart from other town residents. Given that the social counselor’s job was to act on the adults’ behalf in administrative affairs, these individuals had little necessity to leave their isolated living space. Departmental and local officials, responsible for giving the harki citizens the same access to social services as any other residents, according to December 1962 instructions from the Minister of Repatriates, did not enact policies that would facilitate such interactions and help the harki population to integrate into their community.106 The only regular contact between harki adults and townspeople during the first decade consisted of women walking down highway 96 into town for food provisions. The few sources concerning townspeople’s attitudes toward the adult harkis during their first decade in Fuveau present a fairly consistent picture of indifference, unwelcomeness, and distance. In an interview conducted in July 2008, a harki wife, Ferhat K., and her daughter Aïcha who grew up in the camp related that during school breaks and for trips to the grocery store in the late afternoons, the women relied on their children to act as interlocutors with vendors. But they were on their own for the farmer’s market held twice a week in the mornings. Aïcha described the harki wives’ interactions with townspeople: “Avec les anciens il [n’]y avait pas de problèmes. Ils arrivaient enfin à se faire comprendre. Il y avait des rejets bien sur avec certaines personnes, mais en groupe, non…” Ferhat then proudly interjected in Arabic (which her daughter translated), “On est allées avec nos vêtements traditionnels à Fuveau et personne ne nous a embêtées.” The October 1974 report by the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefecture cited above offers the following explanation for this common type of behavior by residents of its four towns with forest hamlets: “Pour les Français de souche, et en dépit 105 106 Fuveau town hall, “Actes de Mariage.” ADV, 746 W 62, Minister of State for Repatriates, 1, Dec. 19, 1962. 330 des services rendus, [les harkis] sont toujours considérés comme des ‘Arabes’ et ne sont l’objet d’aucune bienveillance particulière.”107 Aïcha added that while the parents did not encounter many problems, the harki children (especially the boys), on the other hand, were increasingly negatively perceived by townspeople.108 Indeed, explicit tensions between Fuvelians and the harki population, particularly the children, became pronounced in the late 1970s. Wives of harkis residing in the Fuveau forest hamlet were particularly affected by the physical and cultural isolation, which was compounded by their native culture discouraging women to leave the private space. While their children attended school and their husbands worked, they stayed in the forest hamlet performing household chores and taking care of small children. Given their immobility aside from when they went to the market without their husbands or children, they had little opportunity to learn about French culture and language, except from the social counselor. As explained above, the national government’s setup of the forest hamlets enabled this system of dependence and the lack of oversight meant that no means were in place to ensure that the social counselor was performing her duties of teaching French language. Only a few harki wives residing in Fuveau ever learned how to speak French; instead they relied initially upon the social counselor and subsequently their children to communicate with the outside world. One harki wife recounted in 2003 about the situation in a published testimony: “Je suis l’une des rares femmes de harkis à parler français. Les autres ne peuvent rien faire sans leurs enfants ni faire les courses, ni téléphoner, ni lire une lettre, ni sortir du camp, ni remplir le moindre papier administratif.”109 Government officials’ vision for the harkis’ jobs isolated them from the their neighbors because they worked long hours on remote sites exclusively with other harkis. From Monday to Saturday mornings, trucks picked up the two teams of harkis dressed in military fatigues at the ACNMF, 32/2, Cultiaux, “Situation des anciens harkis,” 2, Oct. 30, 1974. K. Family, interview. 109 The testimony of Mrs. Zendji-Choucha was published in: Gladieu and Kerchouche, Destins de Harkis, 106. 107 108 331 Fuveau forest hamlet at seven o’clock. Their work was physically taxing with workplace accidents a regular occurrence, to which personnel files at the ONF attest. One harki, Mokhfi L., even perished in 1993 of a heart attack just after he left the worksite (this followed three serious accidents over the previous decade).110 A July 1975 Ministry of Agriculture document listed ten out of Fuveau’s thirtytwo workers as “handicapped.”111 According to payroll records from the 1960s, the men worked ten hour days between twenty-three and twenty-seven days per month, which left them little time to interact with townspeople.112 The teams were dropped off each morning at a worksite located within a fifteen to twenty kilometer circumference of Fuveau, an area comprising 72,000 hectares. Annual reports in 1967 and from 1969 to 1972 showed that each year the men worked on the outskirts of approximately twenty different municipalities in addition to Fuveau. Their tasks primarily consisted of preventing forest fires by clearing brushwood from the ground, building firebreaks, and creating and maintaining paths.113 The only non-harkis whom the men came into contact with were the forestry agents who were responsible for their encadrement. In addition to the truck driver, a pied-noir worksite director (chef de chantier) who spoke Arabic supervised each team’s work and handled discipline problems. According to the 1964 local newspaper articles, one of the directors was an “agent technique” and the other was an “agent de surveillance,” however both were listed as “chefs de chantier” in ONF payroll records.114 During the summer months, the harkis also served as first responders to forest fires in eleven municipalities including and surrounding Fuveau. 115 As the General Director of the Forestry Commission claimed, they were “pompiers auxiliaries,” a situation See the following personnel files in the AONFBR for examples of workplace accidents: Ali H., Benaissa L., Mokhfi L., Mokhtar R., Benabdellah R., Salah S., and Saïd T. 111 CAC, 19910097/48, Ministry of Agriculture, “Travailleurs Ex Harkis, Recensement au 1er Juillet 1975,” 1. 112 AONFBR, Fiches de paie. 113 ADBR, 125 W 173, National Forests Office, Bouches-du-Rhône department, “Chantier de forestage de Fuveau. Programme des travaux prévus pour l’exercice 1967, description du secteur.” Similar documents for 1969, 1970, 1971, and 1972 are also located in this carton. 114 “Un village de harkis…,” Le Provençal, Apr. 16, 1964 and Vautier, “50 harkis et leurs familles,” Le Méridional, Apr. 16, 1964. 115 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1964), “Procès-verbal de la réunion tenue le 24 mars 1964, à la 38ème Conservation des Eaux et Forêts à AIX EN PROVENCE en vue d’étudier les conditions de la participation des harkis à la lutte contre les incendies de forêts dans les Bouches-du-Rhône.” 110 332 analogous to the harkis’ role during the Algerian War for Independence when they served as “troupes auxiliaires” in the French Army.116 The set up of the Fuveau forest hamlet gave the children of harkis the most opportunities to interact with those outside of the camp. Initially, they attended school on site in two mobile classrooms provided by the Ministry of Repatriates with two teachers who had previously taught in Algeria (one was Algerian and the other French).117 The classes primarily focused on their French language skills in order to prepare them to attend local establishments. Beginning in the fall of 1965, the younger children attended Ecole primaire d’Emile Loubet 2.5 kilometers away in Fuveau and the middle school aged children travelled to a nearby town with other Fuvelian children to attend the Collège de Gréasque. The linguistic transition was particularly difficult for older children, some of who were put into classes with younger children. One harki son, Bouziane, related that because he was thirteen when he finished CM2 (the equivalent of fifth grade in the United States), he was too old to start the middle school in Gréasque. Along with several other children in Fuveau, Bouziane was sent to the Centre éducatif d’Ongles (Basses-Alpes), opened in March 1965 on the site of a former forest hamlet with the purpose of providing older harki children remedial and vocational education classes in construction.118 Younger children struggled in school as well, owing in part to the French language not being spoken at home. Data gathered in 1972 for the harki children living in the thirty-six forest hamlets, seventeen cités urbaines, and two camps revealed that 68.7 percent of them were held back at least one elementary school grade and they were double as likely as their CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1964), Director General of the Forestry Commission to the Forestry Commissioner in Nice, “Objet: Emploi des ex-harkis affectés à la defense des forêts provençales contre l’incendie,” 1, EF/D4 Nº 7142, Oct. 13, 1964. 117 Vautier, “50 harkis et leurs familles,” Le Méridional, Apr. 16, 1964. ADBR, 131 W 377, Communication téléphonique de M. Aymeric (Inspecteur primaire), “Situation au 30 mai 1964.” 118 Bouziane K., interview with the author, Fuveau, July 23, 2008. AN, 5 AG 1/22, Ministry of Interior, “Rapport sur l’application,” 124, July 1, 1965. 116 333 “French” peers to be behind children of the same age.119 In this report social counselor Darmon classified the Fuveau harki children’s overall situation as “niveau scolaire bas.”120 Until early 1971 other than the few children at the center in Ongles, Fuveau’s harki children attended local schools, which allowed them to come into regular contact with the French language and other French citizens. However, a classroom for young children was opened on the site once again in 1971, but only remained briefly in part given the intervention of the town council. Despite having claimed in a public communication published in the January 1, 1972 edition of Le Provençal that the forest hamlet lie outside of its jurisdiction, during its April 24, 1972 meeting, the councilmen voted unanimously not to keep this classroom open. They cited three reasons: the lack of space in the forest hamlet given the growing families, the importance of integrating harki children into local schools, and the possibility of creating a nursery school for young children in the Barque neighborhood. The previous year a daycare center had opened in la Barque, located at the other end of Fuveau from the forest hamlet. The town council envisioned creating a school, however, according to Ministry of Education rules, opening a nursery school necessitated forty-five children, which was more than resided in la Barque. The town council reasoned: “C’est pour cette raison que nous espérons que les jeunes enfants du hameau forestier pourraient amener la fréquentation de la nouvelle maternelle à l’effectif requis.” These words and its conclusion, the first mention of integration in the minutes, indicates that finding enough children to attend the nursery school was the most important factor in the town council’s decision: “Conclusion: Avoir un effectif suffisant pour faire reconnaître la classe maternelle pour les 2 motifs suivants: A) les enfants dont les parents résident à la Barque ou dans son périmètre immédiat. B) Les enfants du hameau forestier dont le transport est régulièrement assuré par notre service de ramassage scolaire. A partir de cette 119 120 ACNMF, 6, Servier, “Enquête sur les Musulmans Français,” Part 2, 3, 1972. Ibid., Part 2, 31. 334 réalisation nous sommes convaincus que l’intégration se fera parfaitement.”121 Integration was an afterthought for the harki children who would have to travel six kilometers to the school. Date May 1964122 Nov. 1964123 Dec. 1965124 Jan. 1967125 Oct. 1967126 Jan. 1972127 Jan. 1973128 May 1974129 Jan. 1975130 May 1976131 Number of harki males 50 47 (1 unmarried) Number of wives/ widows --46 Number of descendants --99 Number of families 50 48 Total number of inhabitants 196 193 49 (5 unmarried) --39 35 33 31 32 31 --------29 28 ----- --------168 160 ----- 49 ------33 31 32 31 223 220 --236 230 219 230 240 Table 6: Population of the Fuveau forest hamlet from 1964 to 1976. The reason for the school debate was the high birthrate in the forest hamlet, which far outpaced that of Fuvelians and set the harki population apart from their neighbors. According to data from INSEE, the average Fuvelian household, including those residing in the forest hamlet, in 1968 and 1975 had three people.132 In comparison, as table 6 illustrates, the average forest hamlet household had five people in 1965 and over seven people in 1975. An examination of family records Fuveau, Register of Town Council Meeting Proceedings, “Nº 72-32 – Ecoles pour les enfants de Harkis,” Apr. 24, 1972. 122 ACNMF 32/1, unsigned document, “Bouches-du-Rhône,” May 21, 1964. 123 AN, F1a 5142, Inspector Emile Bouleau, “Recensement numérique des anciens harkis et supplétifs musulmans refugiés dans le département des Bouches-du-Rhône,” Dec. 9, 1964. These figures can also be found in multiple documents in ACNMF, 32/1. 124 ACNMF, 32/1, CNMF, “Département des Bouches-du-Rhône, Effectifs et répartition des Musulmans Français (au 31 Décembre 1965).” 125 ACNMF, 32/1, Captain Sessa, “Étude sur les activités…” 3. 126 AONFBR, “1967 Salaires FSIRAN Chantiers de La Ciotat, Jouques, Fuveau,” District Chief Antoine Casorla, “Objet: Convention générale d’emploi des anciens harkis,” Jan. 24, 1968. 127 ACNMF, 6, Servier, “Enquête sur les Musulmans Français,” Part 2, 31. 128 ACNMF, 32/2, Sessa, “Rapport Annuel 1972…,” Annexe 1. 129 CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1974), Réunion Interministérielle du 30 mai 1974. 130 ACNMF, 32/2, Louis Sessa (chargé de l’Antenne de Marseille du SFM), “Rapport d’Activités pour 1973 et 1974,” Annexe 1, Jan. 1, 1975. 131 ADBR, 135 W 41, Louis Sessa (Director of BIAC in Marseille), “Rapport sur la situation des Français Musulmans installés dans le département des Bouches-du-Rhône,” Map, May, 18, 1976. 132 INSEE, Fuveau (13040 – Commune): Chiffres clés, “FAM G1M – Evolution de la taille de ménages,” <http://www.insee.fr/fr/bases-de-donnees/default.asp?page=statistiques-locales.htm.>. 121 335 at the Fuveau town hall and the Marseille repatriates service reveals that eighteen of the thirty-one harki families who remained permanently in the forest hamlet had eight or more children, including one family with eighteen children. A large number of children made it difficult for these families to find suitable housing alternatives outside of the forest hamlet. Yet their living conditions in the prefabricated lightweight houses had rapidly degraded by the mid-1970s, as was the case in forest hamlets and other collective reclassement situations across France. This deterioration and the failed integration of these individuals who had been isolated from view for over a decade soon became visible to the French public. The next chapter shifts back to the national level to analyze the government and harki population’s responses to the precarious situation of France’s harki citizens. 336 CHAPTER 6 Refugees, Repatriates, and Immigrants. The “Harki Problem” -LE PROBLEME DES HARKISLes problèmes posés en France par l’accueil, l’installation et le reclassement des algériens musulmans ayant servi en ALGERIE aux côtés de l’Armée ou de l’Administration Française en qualité de harkis, supplétifs, etc … restent toujours douloureux et sans solution.1 -Service des Français Musulmans (SFM), Ministry of Interior, March 12, 1974 After over a decade of silence and inaction at the national level regarding the harki population’s difficulties integrating into the French community, the government agenda in the mid1970s began to include what some documents referred to as the “le problème des harkis,” including that in the epigraph, which bore this phrase as its title. As many sources indicate, one reason—or perhaps the principal reason—that government officials demonstrated interest in these citizens’ problems was that they remained an untapped voting bloc. A report written by the director of the SFM office in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in 1973 noted: “Le motif de l’intérêt porté à nos ex-supplétifs bien souvent oubliés même par ceux qui les ont utilisés et aimés: les Elections législatives [de 1972]. Il fallait trouver des électeurs faciles à manier, simples, aimant les promesses, respectueux des traditions, marqués par leur passé militaire… et on a redécouvert ‘Les Harkis.’”2 After “rediscovering” France’s harki citizens, most promises that candidates and officials at all levels made to them would, however, go unfulfilled. The concrete issues of particular concern for the population included job training for men and children, scholastic performance among the youth, access to indemnity payments, and the living 1 2 CAC, 19880077/20, SFM (Ministry of Interior), “Le problème des harkis,” Mar. 12, 1974. ACNMF, 32/2, Sessa, “Rapport Annuel 1972…,” 1. 337 conditions of the population “regroupée” in the cités d’accueil, cités urbaines, and forest hamlets. At this time, only 10 percent of the harki population resided in these spaces—labeled “camps” and “ghettos” by leaders of the newly emerging harki associations and appearing in numerous press articles.3 Nevertheless, in the mid-1970s, thanks in large part to the actions and words of leaders of harki associations, which at times linked the harkis’ plight to that of Jews during the Second World War, the camps significantly emerged as the lasting symbol of the entire harki population’s failed integration and marginalization. A more abstract—and contradictory—issue consistently plagued the entire harki population: its troubled relationship with French citizenship. Despite their service to France during the Algerian War for Independence and the fact that almost all harki repatriates chose to become French citizens, government officials and the French population often confused them and their family members for Algerian immigrants. Following the suggestion from a report issued by a working group to study the challenges that the harkis faced, Prime Minister Pierre Messmer issued a letter in June 1973 to the members of his cabinet, regional prefects, and departmental prefects underscoring that they must be treated as French citizens and given access to accompanying benefits. Referencing the nationality procedure that most harkis had chosen to undergo upon their arrival in France, Messmer wrote: “Pour mettre fin à une situation contraire à la législation [du 21 juillet 1962] et, de surcroît, inacceptable au plan humain, je vous demande de bien vouloir rappeler à toutes les administrations et services relevant de votre autorité que les rapatriés français musulmans jouissent de la plénitude des droits attachés à la possession de la qualité de citoyen français et ne doivent, par conséquent, faire l’objet d’aucune mesure discriminatoire qui pourrait les mettre dans une situation différente de Jean Servier estimated that the total harki population on Jan. 1, 1972 comprised 162,000 individuals, 16,000 of which were “regroupés” in collective reclassement housing. ACNMF, 6, Servier, “Enquête sur les Français Musulmans,” Part 1, 1 and Part 2, 1. 3 338 celle de leurs concitoyens d’origine métropolitaine.”4 Nine months later, the president of the CNMF informed the Minister of Labor that Messmer’s memo had not made a significant difference, for harkis still faced discrimination from government agents and potential employers: “Des informations recueillies en divers points de notre territoire me donnent à penser que l’esprit de cette circulaire n’a pas encore été entendu par tous les agents en contact avec cette catégorie de nos compatriotes.”5 Analogous to how the decisions concerning the harkis’ repatriation, nationality, and housing that government officials made immediately after the war had enduring negative consequences for the population, those made in the mid-1970s, which in effect enacted few changes to previous policies and continued to treat the harki population as inferior repatriates to the pieds-noirs, would have repercussions for decades. This chapter first places the challenges the harki population faced owing to its muddled status—the “harki problem”—into national and transnational political contexts. It then gives an overview of the national-level policy discussions concerning the population that began in 1970. It examines harki association leaders and harki children’s increasingly violent demonstrations, during which they used the camps as a vehicle for their protests and essentialized harki citizens’ plight by laying their focus on the spaces, commonly associated with refugees. It next looks at the effect of these protests on public opinion and government policies, including the government’s revision to its integration policies. Despite the heterogeneity of individual experiences, harki citizens’ de jure status as “Muslim repatriates” and de facto treatment as Algerian immigrants (and sometimes refugees) by government officials and other French citizens translated into a similar exile from French society and a common “oubli” by the government. The chapter concludes by analyzing how the resulting national-level policy changes influenced the SHAT, 3R 79/7, Pierre Messmer to the Ministers and Secretaries of State and the Regional and Departmental Prefects, “Objet: Situation des Musulmans français originaires d’Algérie ayant opté pour la nationalité française après l’indépendance de l’Algérie,” 2, nº 8582/SG, June 26, 1973. 5 ACNMF, 3/7, letter from Alexandre Parodi to the Minister of Labor, Employment, and Population, Mar. 14, 1974. 4 339 Fuveau forest hamlet and returns to the discussion appearing throughout this section concerning the harki population’s unique relationship to France as “harki citizens.” Reevaluating Integration Policies In the early 1970s the entire harki population faced two particular challenges that underscored their differences, one relative to “French” repatriates and the other to Algerian immigrants. First, the government had passed a law in July 1970 to financially compensate “French citizens” who had lost property and material goods in its former overseas possessions.6 While these benefits were technically available to the harkis, Social Affairs Minister Edgar Faure noted almost three years after its passage that the law had “very rarely” been applied to them.7 The nature of group landownership in rural Algeria—family members often owned parcels together—and the fact that many fled the violence in Algeria in haste without important papers made it very challenging for the harkis to provide the proper documentation to benefit from the legislation. Moreover, family members kept possession of the harkis’ land after they fled to France, thereby countering the argument that they had lost their property. 8 As previously demonstrated, the harki population already lagged behind the pieds-noirs in terms of government aid for jobs and housing under the 1961 Boulin law. Now the government created a new gap between the two groups of repatriates, which only would be fully addressed with a law in 2005. The second challenge the harki population encountered during the early 1970s with respect to their status was that government officials and other French citizens often mistook harkis for Algerian immigrants. As explained in chapter four, harki citizens’ portfolio had shifted from the JORF, “Loi nº 70-632 du 15 juillet 1970…” CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1973), letter from Minister Edgar Faure to Prime Minister Pierre Messmer, 1, Mar. 8, 1973. 8 Conseil Economique et Social, “La Situation sociale des enfants de Harkis,” prepared by Hafida Chabi (Paris: JORF Avis et Rapports du CES, 2007), 44-45. 6 7 340 Ministry of Repatriates to the Ministry of the Interior—responsible for internal affairs and named in opposition to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs—and finally to the Ministry of Social Affairs (which subsequently became the Ministry of Labor, Jobs, and Populations), and specifically the Office of Population and Migrations. This office primarily dealt with immigrants. The confusion between the harkis and other North African immigrants was particularly difficult in light of the increase in racism toward foreigners during the early 1970s and a rupture in the political relationship between France and Algeria. Following numerous racist incidents in France during summer 1973, including clashes at a public meeting of the far right party Ordre Nouveau encouraging French citizens to resist against “l’immigration sauvage,” in September the Algerian government, citing this rise in racism, stopped all emigration to France.9 Mistaken by many for Algerian immigrants, not fully integrated into repatriate status, and with some dwelling in refugee conditions in camps the harki population was entangled in a unique situation. On August 13, 1970, Minister of Interior Raymond Marcellin held a meeting with representatives of the ministries of Interior, Agriculture, and Labor and a delegation of twelve harkis concerning harki citizens’ “insertion” in the French community and the specific problems they faced. Five of these men resided in forest hamlets, two in cités urbaines, two in the Bias and Saint-Mauricel’Ardoise cités d’accueil, and three outside state-funded housing (known as isolés) in the Paris region. Marcellin opened the meeting by assuring the harkis that their service in the French Army was not forgotten, to which this gathering of “concerned” high-level officials attested. Following the twohour discussion, more than half of which focused on the situation in the forest hamlets, the Ministry of Interior issued a list of eleven resolutions. These included providing job training in professions other than the saturated building sector for harki children, making a uniform policy for forestry workers’ salaries, and undertaking a study to find housing in the Parisian suburbs for the isolés. Atop 9 Weil, La France et ses étrangers, 101. 341 the list of resolutions sat the “desserrement” of the forest hamlets. At the start of the meeting, the harkis from the Gonfaron (Var) and Mouans-Sartoux (Alpes-Maritimes) forest hamlets communicated that the lightweight prefabricated dwellings (37.5 square meters in size) had become too small for their growing families. Consequently, they asked to be rehoused in larger permanent structures. One harki stated his preference for remaining on the same site, whereas another preferred moving to an apartment in town so as to be integrated into the community. The officials concluded that a case-by-case study must be completed in each forest hamlet to determine how to proceed. Yet, no policy changes were implemented to address these harkis’ concerns.10 The pressure on the government to take action in support of the harki population primarily emanated from two sources, both of which underscored that harki citizens suffered from their unique status. First, in 1971 the CNMF financed a sociological study undertaken by University of Montpellier sociologist Jean Servier to examine the population’s situation. With the support of the Director of Population and Migrations, Michel Massenet, Servier and his researchers carried out an ambitious project to collect data from the thirty-six forest hamlets, seventeen cités urbaines, and two cités d’accueil.11 This data was complemented by the results of a lengthy questionnaire for the entire harki population that Massenet’s office sent to each departmental Prefecture. The list of twentyeight questions for the families included information about past and present residences, nationality, allocations received, relations with French and Muslim neighbors, and the children’s schooling and All the information in this paragraph comes from: CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1970), “Compte rendu de la réception d’une délégation d’anciens supplétifs de l’Armée Française par Monsieur le Ministre de l’Intérieur le jeudi 13 août 1970, à 12 heures,” 1-7. Earlier that morning, the nine government officials had convened to prepare for the meeting, the summary of which is located in: CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1970), “Compte rendu de la réunion qu’a tenue le jeudi 13 août 1970, à 11 heures, en son cabinet, Monsieur Marcellin, Ministre de l’Intérieur.” 11 Servier and his researchers, including Anne Heinis, distributed questionnaires to each of these spaces either by mail or by conducting onsite visits. ACNMF, 6, Servier, “Enquête sur les Musulmans Français,” Part 2, 1. As explained in chapter 2, in spring 1962 Massenet had chaired a Commission whose findings advocated that the government immediately institute a repatriation plan for the harkis, a recommendation that was not followed. 10 342 employment.12 Servier was invited to the first meeting of the Barbeau group to share the findings of his 114-page study.13 The results attested to the failure of the Boulin law and subsequent policies to successfully integrate harki citizens’ into French society vis-à-vis housing and employment, with the camps visibly demonstrating the government’s shortfalls. Beyond the concrete problems of housing and employment, the study highlighted that the harki population’s unique status as Arab and Berber— and not Caucasian—repatriates complicated their integration into French and Algerian communities alike. As Servier wrote, some—though not all—of those who arrived in France from a higher social standing and with education provided examples of successful integration in the French community. However, those from a humble background composing the majority of the population, most often illiterate peasants, felt marginalized. He explained: “Ils occupent en France des emplois très modestes, sont désorientés et déracinés, rejetés par les Algériens qui les considèrent comme des traitres à la cause algérienne, rejetés également par les Français qui les assimilent aux migrants algériens, les humiliant ainsi profondément.”14 They were of Algerian origin, but they were not Algerian “immigrants” who chose to come to France for work opportunities; they had been forced from Algeria by their choice to fight for France during the Algerian War for Independence. More importantly, they were French citizens—like “French repatriates”—but they were not always treated as such since they were easily confused by virtue of their appearance and given the government offices for immigrant populations to which they were assigned. The second source of pressure on the government to take concrete actions to ameliorate the harki population’s situation was external—associations. Even before the first harkis arrived in The accompanying memo instructed prefects to distribute the questionnaire to every fifth harki family on its alphabetical record so as not to skew the results in one direction or the other. CAC, 19870256/7, Office of Population and Migrations (Ministry of Labor, Jobs, and Population), “Objet: Enquête sur la situation des anciens supplétifs,” PSM.3/nº 5184, Dec. 10, 1970. 13 CAC, 19910097/42, Barbeau Commission, “Rapport sur la situation…,” 1. 13 CAC, 19910097/42, Faure to Messmer, 2. 14 ACNMF, 6, Servier, “Enquête sur les Musulmans Français,” Part 2, 17. 12 343 France associations were created to help them, notably the CNMF. Officially founded in January 1963 by French citizens who had fought alongside “Muslim French” soldiers during the war, the association listed as its goals in the January 5, 1963 edition of the JORF: defense of moral and material interests of the Muslim French; giving aid to the government as it welcomes, helps to settle in, and finds jobs for Muslim French families in France; and coordinating and leading private initiatives with the same objectives. In 1964 the government began subsidizing the association’s efforts, which included selecting and overseeing social counselors in collective reclassement housing and distributing funds to specific harki causes.15 Yet, a 1974 CNMF memo underscored, while tireless in efforts to aid harki citizens receive the benefits they were legally owed and defend their interests generally (evident by the thirty-four cartons of archival documents catalogued in 2008), the CNMF was an association for harkis, not led by harkis.16 Its two presidents were Vice-President of the Council of State Alexandre Parodi (1963-1979) and a wealthy French banker, André Worsmer (1979-2007), who during his obligatory military service from 1959 to 1960 had commanded a harka and, in his words, “Je suis devenu attaché à mes hommes.”17 Beginning in 1971 harkis and Muslim Algerian elites—many of whose material conditions they in part owed to the aid of the CNMF—created their own associations. Several of these leaders believed that the associations led by “Frenchmen” were too paternalistic and failed to represent harki citizens’ interests. The more successfully integrated harkis now focused their attention on recognition of their contributions to the French Army and indemnity payments, like those the French repatriates benefitted from under the July 1970 law.18 Meanwhile the CNMF, for example, concentrated on social and educational policies, particularly aiding the numerous harki children who ACNMF, 3/2, “Comité National pour les Musulmans Français,” 1. ACNMF, 16, “Note sur les ‘Harkis,’” 2, Feb. 1974. Mohand Hamoumou details the history of and challenges that associations for and by harkis faced in: Hamoumou, Et ils sont devenus harkis, 297-315. On the tensions between harki children and the CNMF, see Wormser, Pour l’honneur des harkis, 75-80. 17 André Wormser, Interview with the author, Paris, July 11, 2003. Wormser’s posthumously published memoirs include a history of the association: Wormser, Pour l’honneur des harkis. 18 Hamoumou, Et ils sont devenus harkis, 299. 15 16 344 performed poorly in school.19 While 140 harki associations were created between 1971 and 1983, which was a sign of mobilization, the associations’ lack of unity (in part due to the large number) diminished their success. 20 Ahmed Djebbour—the leader of the Front National des Rapatriés Français de Confession Islamique (FNRFCI), a confederation of forty associations from regions stretching from le Nord to Provence created in October 1972—quickly became the most visible voice of the harki population to the public and the one most listened to by government officials.21 French Algeria proponent Jean-Marie Le Pen influenced Djebbour, a former pro-French Algeria deputy for the department of Algiers. Le Pen had recently established a far right political party, the Front National, from which Djebbour borrowed the beginning of his association’s name.22 The end of the name, “de confession islamique,” was Djebbour’s attempt to distance harki citizens from other “Français Musulmans,” particularly given the tensions between France and Algeria at the time.23 Referring the harkis as “sous-rapatriés” given their special nationality process, the difficulties they had accessing indemnities, and the fact that many were still “parked” in inhuman living conditions in camps, Djebbour maintained as his objective educating the public about the population’s plight. During an October 1973 press conference, excerpts of which were reprinted in Le Figaro and Le Monde, Djebbour stated, “Nous voulons attirer l’attention de l’opinion publique indifférente et mal informée sur les anomalies inadmissibles qu’une administration fait peser sur les rapatriés musulmans.”24 In the context of the Servier report and these new associations placing pressure on the government, on October 27, 1972, Pierre Messmer—the newly appointed Prime Minister—called ACNMF, 20, “Le Comité National pour les Musulmans Français (1962-1999),” 2. Hamoumou, Et ils sont devenus harkis, 297. Le Mouvement d’Assistance et de Défense des Rapatriés Musulmans d’Afrique du Nord (MADRMAN), founded on August 1, 1971, is recognized as the first harki association led by a “Français musulman.” However, its president, Ahmed Kaberseli was a Muslim elite, not a harki. 21 Hamoumou, Et ils sont devenus harkis, 300-01. 22 CAC, 19880077/20, Ministry of Interior, “Le problème des harkis,” 5. 23 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, J.C. Guillebau, “Les harkis oubliés par l’histoire. I. Onze ans après…,” Le Monde, July 3, 1973. 24 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Robert Begou, “Les rapatriés musulmans: ‘Une législation discriminatoire nous est appliquée,” Le Figaro, Oct. 6-7, 1973. 19 20 345 on Minister of Social Affairs Faure to appoint an interministerial working group to study the problems facing harki citizens and propose measures to facilitate their integration.25 Government officials increasingly recognized that the government had failed in its integration policies for the harki population, particularly visible in the remaining collective reclassement living situations, and realized that the harkis had difficulties accessing the July 1970 law. Having lost their possessions in Algeria and not being compensated with indemnity payments in France left many harki families, with a birthrate that government officials described as “extrêmement elevé,” in dire financial straits.26 The “Barbeau Group,” named after its president Michel Barbeau (Director of Population and Migrations at the Ministry of Social Affairs), was comprised of representatives from eleven different ministries and Alexandre Parodi, the president of the CNMF.27 The commission met four times between December 1972 and January 1973 before submitting a report in March 1973. In the letter accompanying this document Faure wrote to Messmer that one of the group’s principal findings concerned “la qualité de ‘Français’” of the harkis, despite their French nationality. Faure explained: La méconnaissance de cette citoyenneté est trop souvent la source de regrettables malentendus de la part des populations environnantes et se traduit dans les rapports des intéressés avec les organismes et services publics par un sentiment de frustration, étant donné l’option par laquelle ils se sont volontairement engagés dans la communauté française. La reconnaissance de la nationalité française devrait donc leur permettre de recourir au premier chef à l’intervention pleine et entière des services publics de droit commun. Toutefois, compte tenu de leur insertion sociale, une action complémentaire ainsi que des mesures nouvelles de caractère spécifique s’avèrent nécessaires dans bien des domaines.28 CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1973), “Rapport sur la situation des Français Musulmans rapatriés d’Algérie,” 1, Mar. 8, 1973. 26 Ibid., 3. 27 The government representatives at the meetings were from Prime Minister’s office and the ministries of National Defense; Social Affairs; Interior; Economy and Finances; National Education; Planning, Housing, and Tourism; Agriculture and Rural Development; Public Health; Veterans and War Victims; and Youth, Sports, and Activities. The list of names is available in the Appendix to the Barbeau Group’s report: CAC, 19910097/42, “Rapport sur la situation…” 28 CAC, 19910097/42, Faure to Messmer, 2, Mar. 8, 1973. 25 346 In short, through the presentations made by Servier, who attended the first meeting, and committee members’ own observations (including those of Parodi, whose association had been actively involved in aiding the harki population for a decade), the Barbeau group recognized the shortcomings of government integration policies for the population and its suffering due to questions concerning their French citizenship. On May 22, 1973, the deputy director of Prime Minister Messmer’s cabinet presided over an interministerial meeting to discuss this report and the list of solutions proposed to address “the harki problem.” 29 The topics covered included, among others, housing, recognition, and their social integration into welfare services. In terms of collective housing situations, particularly the forest hamlets, the Barbeau group favored “le brassage des populations afin de favoriser l’intégration des musulmans français à la communauté française.” Toward this end, it recommended giving two hundred thousand francs immediately to expand the size of the forest hamlet residences and building fifty HLM apartments in 1973 and two hundred per year for the next five years to rehouse the harkis in the cités d’accueil and forest hamlets.30 The government approved allocating 150,000 francs for improvements on the forest hamlets and erecting 50 HLM residences in 1973, but it deferred the decision concerning construction of 200 HLM residences per year. 31 This goal of constructing enough HLM apartments to close the forest hamlets and two cités d’accueil by 1978 would not be met; at the end of 1979 nineteen forest hamlets and one of the cités d’accueil still remained. The government representatives at the meetings were from Prime Minister’s office and the ministries of Justice; Interior; Armies; Economy and Finances; National Education; Planning, Housing, and Tourism; Agriculture and Rural Development; Public Health; and Veterans and War Victims. The list of names is available on the last page of the minutes: CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1973), Secretariat General of the Government, “Relevé des décisions de la réunion interministérielle du 22 mai 1973 consacrée à l’examen des suites à donner au rapport fait par le ministère du travail, de l’emploi et de la population sur la situation des Français musulmans rapatriés d’Algérie,” June 7, 1973. 30 CAC, 19910097/42, “Rapport sur la situation…,” 3-4. 31 CAC, 19910097/42, Secretariat General of the Government, “Relevé des décisions…,” 1-2. 29 347 To address some of the moral problems the harkis and their families faced because the French government had not officially recognized their contributions during the Algerian War for Independence, the Barbeau Group recommended honoring them with the “Titre de Reconnaissance de la Nation,” as had been given to all French soldiers who had spent more than three months fighting in Algeria. This title would also give them access to material benefits from the office for veterans (ONAC).32 At the May 23 meeting, the minister of Veterans explained that the harkis (and other auxiliary forces—moghazni policemen, for example) were not officially classified as soldiers during the war and therefore ineligible for government recognition.33 Even though they fought on the battlefield their status as “auxiliary soldiers” rendered them civilian combatants during the war, which Parodi wrote in a subsequent memo to the minister of Veterans made them feel as though they were not being treated as “Français à part entière.”34 The government therefore did not approve the Barbeau Group’s proposal. Instead it asked the minister of Veterans in concert with other ministries to create a special status to recognize the harkis and other auxiliary forces’ efforts during the war.35 These auxiliary soldiers would not receive the government’s official recognition until a 1994 law, a source of consternation for the entire harki population. Finally, concerning harki citizens’ difficult “insertion sociale” and the confusion between them and other Algerian immigrants, the Barbeau Group suggested placing special counselors in each departmental prefecture who could direct the harkis to the proper offices that handled claims for French citizens. It also advocated adding itinerant social counselors in areas with large harki populations (notably those surrounding forest hamlets and cités urbaines) who could help them access social welfare benefits. 36 The government authorized these suggestions, though it left the implementation up to a variety of CAC, 19910097/42, “Rapport sur la situation…,” 6. CAC, 19910097/42, Secretariat General of the Government, “Relevé des décisions…,” 2. 34 ACNMF, 3/11, Alexandre Parodi to Minister of Veterans André Bord, “Titre de Reconnaisance de la Nation,” undated. 35 CAC, 19910097/42, Secretariat General of the Government, “Relevé des décisions…,” 3. 36 CAC, 19910097/42, “Rapport sur la situation…,” 8. 32 33 348 officials.37 Additional counselors would not be added to the prefectures until after a wave of protests from the harki population in 1975 and a new round of interministerial meetings. In the months following the May 1973 interministerial meeting, Djebbour began to escalate his rhetoric concerning harki citizens’ mistreatment by the government. He honed in particularly on the camps—cités d’accueil, cités urbaines, and forest hamlets—as symbols of failed integration and misery and even made parallels with the encamped harkis’ situation and that of Jews during the Second World War. After the police refused to allow former harki soldiers participate in a July 14, 1973 procession at the Arc de Triomphe alongside other veterans of the Algerian War for Independence, Le Monde quoted Djebbour calling on the government to close “camps de concentration où sont entassés de très nombreux harkis.”38 At this time approximately 16,000 of the 180,000 harki population members resided in camps, however, the impression Djebbour gave gravely exaggerated harki citizens’ situations—both the number residing in camps and the actual living conditions—by inserting images of the Holocaust. 39 These images came at a time when memories of the Second World War emerged into the public space following decades of repression.40 Djebbour even addressed a letter to French parliamentary members demanding the closure of the “camps d’internement,” his designation for the forest hamlets, claiming the support of 650,000 French Muslims. 41 With his fiery words finding their place into France’s most read newspapers and to French politicians, albeit infrequently, Djebbour increasingly condemned the CAC, 19910097/42, Secretariat General of the Government, “Relevé des décisions…,” 4. Djebbour also criticized French government officials for recent negotiations with their Algerian homologues, whom he linked to the massacre of sixty thousand harkis following the war: “Que les fantômes de soixante mille cadavres soient présents aux yeux de nos gouvernements lorsqu’ils doivent négocier avec nos assassins d’hier.” SPDP, dossier: Harkis, “Les harkis et la fête nationale,” Le Monde, July 20, 1973. 39 ACNMF, 16, CNMF, “Note sur les ‘Harkis,’” 3. 40 According to Henry Rousso, 1971-74 marked “the return of repressed memories,” the third phase in what he terms “the Vichy syndrome.” The first phase (1944-54) was “grief and contradictions” and the second (1954-1971) “the resistancialist myth” during which the French population repressed its memories of the war. Rousso, Le syndrôme de Vichy de 1944 à nos jours 2nd ed. (Paris: Seuil, 1990), 19. 41 CAC, 19880077/20, SFM, “Le problème des harkis,” 2. 37 38 349 government’s inaction to dismantle the camps and “[reconnaître] dans les faits de leur dignité de citoyens français.” 42 Government officials believed that the turning point for Djebbour’s call for violence was Arab coalition forces’ successful surprise attacks on Israel during the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war, which gave his cause inspiration to fight for the harki population’s rights as French citizens in their country. 43 In November and December 1973, Djebbours’s press conferences and meetings, according to these officials, “visèrent… à dramatiser la situation et à pousser les harkis à des actes extrêmes.”44 Djebbour accelerated his rhetoric about the camps and the harki population’s French citizenship. In March 1974, the Catholic newspaper La Croix published an article, which quoted him using “camps de la honte” as a moniker for the cités d’accueil and labeling the forest hamlets “bagnes” and “Cayenne transplanté en France” (a reference to the forced labor penal colony in French Guyana).45 Protests and Revising Integration Policies At this time, a more militant figure emerged who rallied harkis and particularly their children to publicly protest, initially through non-violent actions and then by armed violence. These acts forced government officials’ hands. M’hamed Laradji, a native Algerian who fought as a “regular” soldier in the French Army (not in the auxiliary forces), had been the leader of FNRFCI in Normandy before creating his own association, the Confédération des Français musulmans rapatriés d’Algérie et leurs amis (CFMRAA), which became a rival to the FNRFCI.46 Laradji’s difficulties accessing indemnity payments from the French government to compensate for the land his family SPDP, dossier: Harkis, “Le sort des anciens harkis,” Le Monde, Jan. 15, 1974. While the Arab coalition was unable to hold its initial gains, these successful strikes nevertheless vindicated the Arab World’s embarrassing losses during the 1967 Six-Day War. 44 CAC, 19980077/20, SFM, “Le problème des harkis,” 3. 45 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Anne Gallois, “Les harkis en France: déracinés et oubliés,” La Croix, Mar. 23, 1974. 46 CAC, 19980077/20, Ministry of Interior “Le problème des harkis,” 4. 42 43 350 lost in Algeria led him to undertake a fight against the government for the mistreatment of the entire French Muslim repatriate population, but especially the harkis.47 Close to former OAS members, as was Djebbour, he began a hunger strike in a church in Evreux on January 1, 1974 “pour prendre conscience au gouvernement français que les harkis sont des citoyens à part entière.”48 His actions sparked continuous hunger strikes, primarily in places of worship, across France and even one in Geneva on the anniversary of the Evian Accords in March 1975. Laradji’s words and actions attracted government officials’ attention, in part owing to the press coverage he received, which sometimes essentialized the harki population’s situation, particularly relative to living in the camps. For example, on October 12, 1974, at the height of a month-long hunger strike at La Madeleine church in Paris undertaken by eight members of Laradji’s association, Le Monde published an article titled “Pour obtenir leurs droits de Français à part entière.” While the journalist quoted Laradji several times, he wrote the following in his own words (ostensibly inflected by those of Laradji): “La plus grande partie des Français musulmans rapatriés d’Algérie—ils représentent actuellement une population de près de cinq cent mille personnes—vivent en marge de la société, dans des camps… rejetés par leur patrie d’adoption, la France…. Pour la totalité, même pour ceux qui ont été reclassés professionnellement, notamment par les anciens des SAS, c’est, de toute manière le ‘ghetto.’”49 As cited above, in 1974 approximately 16,000 of the 180,000 harki population members resided in camps—not “la plus grande partie des Français musulmans rapatriés d’Algérie.” Given such press articles and even occasional coverage on the evening news of these words and actions, the harkis’ citizenship and “ghetto” living conditions became an unavoidable political issue, which the Bouches-du-Rhône SFM director called the “goût du jour.” 50 In particular, politicians outside of newly-elected President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing’s Rassemblement pour la SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Guy Le Bolzer, “Qui est Laradji l’homme qui se bat pour les harkis?,” Le Figaro, Aug. 14, 1975. CAC, 19980077/20, SFM, “Le problème des harkis,” 4. 49 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Leo Palacio, “Pour obtenir leurs droits de Français à part entière,” Le Monde, Oct. 12, 1974. 50 ACNMF, 32/2, Sessa, “Rapport d’Activités pour 1973 et 1974,” 1, Jan. 1, 1975. 47 48 351 France (RPF) party latched onto “the harki problem.” The President, through allegiances he had formed with harki associations such as the FNRFCI and the CFMRAA, had received many votes from harki citizens in the May 1974 elections. On October 13-14, 1974, Le Monde published a press release by three Centre démocrate deputies with their suggestions for how those in power should act in the face of the failure of successive administrations to integrate the harki population: “Les douloureux problèmes que pose l’intégration de ceux qui ont manifesté courageusement leur fidélité à la France ne sont pas toujours réglés. Ils sont particulièrement complexes et nécessiteraient la création d’une délégation confiée à un haut fonctionnaire, qui aurait l’autorité nécessaire pour agir comme médiateur auprès des différentes administrations concernées.” 51 Moreover, deputies of various political allegiances during an October 16 National Assembly session condemned the government’s inaction toward this mistreated group. For example, Député Edouard Frédéric-Dupont (Républicain indépendant): Le gouvernement doit faire un effort pour éviter qu’ils [les Français musulmans] soient parqués dans des ghettos et pour améliorer leur condition matérielle… Député Georges Frêche (Parti socialiste de la France): Une délégation de notre parti est allée à la Madeleine leur apporter notre soutien. Mais nous avons décidé de ne pas poser de question car l’heure n’est plus à la désignation des commissions: les harkis veulent la justice, la dignité et la solidarité nationale et nous regrettons que le conseil des ministres n’en ait pas traité ce matin.52 Under political pressure, Giscard d’Estaing’s cabinet director went to the Madeleine church in order to “confirmer l’intérêt personnel que le président porte pour les Français-Musulmans.” However, SPDP, dossier: Harkis, “L’un des huit harkis de l’église de la Madeleine est dans un état très grave,” Le Monde, Oct. 1314, 1974. 52 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Pierre Chaumeil, “Justice pour les Harkis!,” Aspects de la France, Oct. 24, 1974. Frêche’s statement of support for the harkis in 1974 contrasts with the critical words he uttered during a February 11, 2006 ceremony in homage to a former pied-noir leader. Frêche, President of the Regional Council for Languedoc-Roussillon, condemned the participation of harkis in a protest concerning the controversial February 23, 2005 law sponsored by the UMP party (a descendant of the Gaullist RPF party): “[Les gaullistes] ont massacré les vôtres en Algérie et encore vous allez leur lécher les bottes! (...) Vous êtes des sous-hommes.” While Frêche maintained that his words were pointed toward one particular harki, the leader of the AJIR association for the Hérault department, his polemical reference was widely interpreted as aimed toward the entire community. The designation “sous-hommes” sparked an uproar in the harki community and beyond, which led to Frêche’s censure from the Socialist party. These events in 1974 and 2005 demonstrate the politicization of the harki population. “Georges Frêche: ‘Je visais un homme, pas la communauté harki,’” Associated Press, Feb. 13, 2006 and “Les propos de Georges Frêches sur les harkis déclenchent un tollé,” La Croix, Feb. 14, 2006. 51 352 this rhetoric was not backed up by policy changes. The hunger strikes continued and soon the “camps de concentration,” as Djebbour referred to them, became the loci for the harki population’s protests. On April 22, 1975, when the prefect of the Lot-et-Garonne department arrived at the Bias Camp for a meeting to discuss the problems at the camp he was greeted by a sign that read “Bienvenue au camp de concentration” stretched across its entrance.53 On May 7, Laradji and the vice president of CFMRAA and a former OAS militant, André Christophe, brought arms to the Bias camp and encouraged the youth to rise up against the government’s segregation. For two weeks they occupied its administrative and school buildings, blocked access to the camp entrance, and handed out to passing motorists tracts that explained their situation and demanded that the government close “les camps de la honte.” The night of May 14-15, harki youth set fire to the onsite school and the next day between 100 and 150 protesters took siege on the camp offices, breaking windows and attacking the policemen guarding this space.54 In the interim, on May 13, 1975, Prime Minister Jacques Chirac created a “Permanent Interministerial Commission to study the problems of the French of Islamic origin repatriated from North Africa” under the presidency of Minister of Interior Michel Poniatowski. In addition to government representatives, its members included the presidents of the three most prominent harki associations: Laradji representing the CFMRAA, the new president of the FNRFCI Abdellatif Khiari, and Ahmed Kaberseli of the MADRMAN.55 As Poniatowski explained in a circular to departmental and regional prefects two months later, the Commission’s objective was to “hâter l’intégration harmonieuse de nos compatriotes originaires d’Afrique du Nord.” He listed as the commission’s Lanoizelez, “La CARA de Bias,” 84-85. Since October 30, 1973, quarterly meetings to discuss problems residents faced had taken place at the Bias Camp and the neighboring Sainte-Livrade Camp, which housed Indochinese refugees. Minutes of these meetings are located in: CAC, 19870256/7. 54 Ibid., 85. 55 CAC, 19910097/48, Minister of State for the Interior to the Regional and Departmental Prefects, Circulaire nº 75 340, “Objet: Création d’une Commission Interministérielle pour les problèmes,” 4, July 4, 1975. 53 353 priority the progressive elimination of the cités d’accueil and forest hamlets “afin de mettre un terme à une ségrégration fâcheuse.” 56 The establishment of this commission, one in a long line of government delegations to “study” the problems in the harki community, did not stop the protests. In fact, the social movements subsequently spread and escalated. M’Hamed Laradji arrived at the Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camp on May 18, 1975 with Christophe and Jean-Pierre Nicolas, a second lieutenant during the Algerian War for Independence. They urged the camp’s youth to follow the actions of its Bias brethren.57 One harki son, who was twenty-two years old at the time, recalled in a 2011 documentary the words that Laradji pronounced at the camp’s entrance on May 19: “Jeunes, révoltez-vous! Vous êtes pas venus en France pour rester dans les ghettos.”58 From there, thirty young men and women (aged twelve to twenty-five) stormed camp director François Langlet’s office with the three leaders and, according to Langlet, the camp residents “hurlent, vocifèrent, me menacent, [et] paraissent déchainés.”59 For over a month, as Langlet chronicled in minute detail, the youth—spurred on by Laradji, Christophe, and Nicolas— destroyed and pillaged the camp administrative offices, cut off the electricity to the camp staff’s apartments, protested outside the town hall, and, as depicted in figure 34, closed the camp’s gates to block anyone from entering and leaving.60 The protests culminated on June 19 when four armed, masked sons of harkis took hostage Langlet, who had moved his office to the Saint-Laurent-desArbres town hall. If the police intervened, they threatened to detonate dynamite, which one armed assailant was photographed holding on the balcony of the town hall (see figure 35). The harki sons informed the mayor that they would release Langlet only if members of the Interministerial Ibid. CAC, 19870256/7, François Langlet (Director of the Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise cité d’accueil), Handwritten letter, “Chronologie des faits,” 2, June 11, 1975. 58 Hocine, le combat d’une vie, dir. Jean-Claude Honnorat, http://vimeo.com/28820197 (Sept. 2011). 59 CAC, 19870256/7, Langlet, “Chronologie des faits,” 1. 60 Ibid. For updates on the situation at Bias and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise by a civil servant in the Population and Migrations office of the Ministry of Labor see, CAC, 19870256/7, “Note à l’attention de Monsieur le Directeur de la Population et des Migrations,” May 22, 1975, May 26, 1975, May 27, 1975, and May 29, 1975. 56 57 354 Commission traveled from Paris to meet with them.61 Twenty-eight hours later, they retreated from this condition and left the town hall in a car driven by Laradji with assurances of immunity from prosecution.62 Figure 34: Children of harkis blocking the entrance to the Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camp. Source: Agence France-Presse archives, June 2, 1975. The harki sons also took two secretaries hostage, but released them immediately. CAC, 19870256/7, Prefect of the Gard department to the Ministers of Interior and Labor and the Director of Population and Migrations (Labor), Urgent Telegram, “Objet: Prise d’otages par des ressortissants de la Cité de Saint Maurice l Ardoise,” nº 841, June 19, 1975. 62 Jacques-M. Bourget and Christian Durandet, “L’Affaire des fils de harkis,” L’Aurore, June 21-22, 1975. 61 355 Figure 35: Masked harki sons bearing rifles and dynamite on the balcony of the Saint-Laurent-des-Arbres town hall. Inside, two other harki sons held camp director François Langlet hostage. Source: Jacques-M. Bourget and Christian Durandet, “L’Affaire des fils de harkis,” L’Aurore, June 2122, 1975. Though July remained comparatively calm at the camps, in early August a new wave of violence erupted. These events once again thrust harki citizens’ plight into the news with numerous articles appearing in periodicals across the political spectrum, such as “Harkis: quinze ans de honte” (Le Point), “Les Français musulmans attendant des mesures concrètes d’intégration” (Le Figaro), and “La Révolte des harkis” (Le Nouvel Observateur).63 This situation even garnered international attention with an article in the International Herald Tribune titled “The Harkis Who Live as Pariahs in France” and another in The Times of London about the Kradaoui Affair.64 On July 31, Algerian officials forbade a seven year-old harki child, Borzani Kradaoui, from returning to France from Algeria where he was visiting family with his mother. His father had not taken the trip since the Algerian SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Jules Roy, “Harkis: quinze ans de honte,” Le Point, Aug. 18, 1975, 17; Laurent Greilsamer, “Les Français musulmans attendant des mesures concrètes d’intégration,” Le Figaro, Aug. 9, 1975; and Guy Sitbon, “La révolte des harkis,” Le Nouvel Observateur, Aug. 25, 1975. 64 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Jack Monet, “The Harkis Who Live as Pariahs in France,” International Herald Tribune, Aug. 12, 1975 and Richard Wigg, “Algerian workers seized by sons of former Muslim soldiers for the return of boy to France,” The Times, Aug. 8, 1975. 63 356 government forbade former harki soldiers from entering the country. At the same time, Algerian customs law stipulated that a child was not permitted to leave unless given paternal consent, which Borzani’s father was not present to do. In retaliation, on August 6 ten harki children from the SaintMaurice-l’Ardoise camp went to a nearby factory where they wounded two Algerian immigrant laborers and took four others back with them to the camp as their prisoners. Two days later, following Borzani’s safe return from Oran, the harki children released their hostages.65 As in June, the offenders struck a deal not to be prosecuted for their actions. However, officials did not offer Laradji this same opportunity and he was subsequently imprisoned for several months.66 Absent their leader, additional hostage situations nevertheless raged throughout month; the image in figure 36 depicts riot police on the Bias camp’s perimeter following a hostage situation. Meanwhile, less violent protests spread to forest hamlets near the Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camp, including Apt, Cucuron, Jouques, and Pertuis.67 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, “Arabes contre Arabes. À qui la faute?,” Libération, Aug. 8, 1975 and Pierre Dumas, “L’escalade,” L’Aurore, Aug. 18, 1975. 66 Crapanzano, The Harkis, 148. 67 Moumen, Les Français musulmans en Vaucluse, 154-55 and ADBR, PHI 420/285, “Les harkis ‘forestiers’ d’Apt et du Lubéron en grève,” Le Provençal, Aug. 14, 1975. 65 357 Figure 36: Riot police outside of the Bias camp on August 18, 1975, after harki children took a leader of the Algerian immigrant association ADAF hostage. Source: Agence France-Presse archives. Before examining government policy changes during the “été de révolte,” it must be noted that the choice of Algerian immigrant hostages in the “Kradaoui affair” appeared to serve two purposes, which underscore the harki population’s difficult relationship with French citizenship. First, as the numerous local and national news outlets that reported this incident maintained, imprisoning Algerian nationals would impel the Algerian government to engage in a hostage exchange. Second, this decision also seemed to have a symbolic meaning, as the title of a front-page article in the August 8, 1975 edition of Libération evokes: “Arabes contre Arabes. À qui la faute?” The harki youth, struggling to find their identity, wanted to differentiate themselves from other Algerian immigrants and underline their unique situation: rejected by most Algerians who believed their fathers were traitors and many in the French community who were racist toward them, like any 358 other Arab youth.68 As a June 1975 Paris-Match article titled “Les Harkis dans le ghetto” quoted one Saint Maurice l’Ardoise resident saying: “‘Mon père, dit Belkacem, 23 ans, sans travail, mon père était un crétin. Il a choisi la France. Regardez où on en est. Tout le monde nous rejette et nous traite de bougnoules…’”69 These articles were a harbinger of the difficulties that government policies, enacted thirteen years after the harki population was “parked” in camps, would have addressing its citizenship. The same day that the harki sons took the Algerian immigrants hostage, August 6, Minister of Interior Poniatowski presented on the TF1 evening news a list of “solutions” that the government proposed to address the “problems et difficulties” that the harki population faced. The series of measures decided on during a Council of Ministers meeting that day included indemnity payments to harkis imprisoned in Algeria after the war, consideration of time in captivity for harkis’ salaries and pensions, a “a very large effort” in job training for harki children to help them “completely integrate into the nation,” and the elimination of the Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise and Bias camps by the end of 1976. The Minister of Interior also revealed that the Permanent Interministerial Commission would study further several other measures relating to housing and employment.70 Following its September 24 meeting, Poniatowski sent a circular to the regional and departmental prefects to which he attached the eleven measures that his commission approved.71 In addition to those decided by the Council of Ministers, the commission proposed financial assistance for harki families who left the camps and forest hamlets; a permanent professional status for forestry workers to address inconsistencies in salary and working conditions; financial incentives to towns that hired On the complex struggle of harki children, particularly those who grew up in camps, to find their identity, see: Crapanzano, The Harkis and Crapanzano, “The Dead but Living Father, the Living but Dead Father,” in The Dead Father: A Psychoanalytic Inquiry, ed. L. J. Kalinich and S. W. Taylor (London: Routledge, 2009), 163-173. 69 CAC, 19870256/7, Philippe Ganier-Raymond, “Les Harkis dans le ghetto,” 37, Paris Match, June 14, 1975. 70 “20 heures,” TF1 (Aug. 6, 1975), accessed by <www.ina.fr>. The decisions are also summarized in: CAC, 19870444/15, D. Bourkoba (Mission Interministérielle pour les Français Musulmans), “L’action du gouvernment en faveur des Français Musulmans,” 5-6, Oct. 18, 1979. 71 CAC, 19910097/48, Minister of State for the Interior Poniatowski to the Regional and Departmental Prefects, Circulaire nº 75-486, “Objet: Mesures prises en faveur des français raptriés d’origine musulmane,” 1, Sept. 26, 1975. 68 359 harkis and provided housing for their family; the creation of bureaux d’information, d’aide administrative et de conseils pour les Français musulmans (BIAC) in areas with a sizeable population of isolés; and a large-scale effort to information harki citizens of these measures.72 Poniatowski underscored that since most of these items related to rehousing, the prefects had an important responsibility to follow through with local HLM offices and local officials to ensure the implementation of these policies.73 During its October 1, 1975 meeting, the Council of Ministers approved these measures and followed up with a promise to eliminate the remaining twenty-nine forest hamlets by the end of 1979.74 At this point, much of the onus to implement these policies was devolved to local officials, without much oversight from the national government. Poniatowski sent another circular to the regional and departmental prefects seven months later decrying the “rythme trop lent” of rehousing the harki population in camps and forest hamlets (already prescribed by earlier instructions listed above). HLM companies had only constructed fifty of the five-hundred apartments they were supposed to complete by the end of 1975. Moreover, based on reports he had received of harkis being turned away from rental properties, he contended, “Il est également anormal que nos compatriotes musulmans soient l’objet de discriminations, de la part d’organismes constructeurs qui, sous des prétextes divers, leur refusent parfois accès à la propriété.”75 Despite the increased attention that national level officials accorded to harki citizens in the mid-1970s and modifications to government integration policies, the harki population would still remain plagued by their unique status that challenged their French citizenship and decisions government officials made when they arrived in France, notably their placement in camps. This CAC, 19910097/48, “Réunion de la Commission Interministérielle Permanente pour les problèmes des Français Musulmans Rapatriés d’Afrique du Nord – mercredi 24 septembre 1975.” 73 CAC, 19910097/48, Poniatowski, “Objet: Mesures prises en faveur…,” 2, Sept. 26, 1975. 74 CAC 19870444/15, R. Saint-Jean (Office of Social Welfare for French of North African Origin), “Note pour Monsieur Bourokba, Chef de la Mission Interministérielle pour les Français Musulmans. Annexe 1: Résorption des hameaux de forestage,” 1, Dec. 6, 1979. 75 CAC, 19910097/48, Minister of State for the Interior Poniatowski to the Regional and Departmental Prefects, Circulaire nº 76-239, “Objet: Mesures prises en faveur des français raptriés d’origine musulmane,” 1, Apr. 29, 1976. 72 360 unique status—difficulties accessing benefits they legally had a right to as repatriates and treatment as Algerian immigrants despite their French nationality—affected the entire harki population, whether or not they resided in camps or forest hamlets. Nevertheless, with the publicly visible protests, camps and forest hamlets became the symbol of the population’s failed integration and the government’s mistreatment of the “harki problem.” While the Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camp closed in October 1976, the Bias camp would remain open until 2000, as the mayor of the town refused to allow the construction of buildings in which the families would be rehoused on municipal land.76 Moreover, by the end of 1979, only ten of the twenty-nine forest hamlets had been eliminated.77 This chapter returns to the story of the Fuveau forest hamlet, specifically its “elimination,” which is symbolic of the government’s failed integration policies for its harki citizens. The Failure of Revised Integration Policies in Fuveau Trente et un nouveaux logements destinés à des familles françaises musulmanes ont été inaugurés hier matin à Fuveau… Ces nouveaux logements sont destinés à remplacer l’ancien hameau de forestage se trouvant à proximité, où les intéressés étaient logés dans des conditions précaires… Cette opération découle de mesures décidées par le Conseil des ministres du 6 août 1975, tendant à améliorer la situation de cette catégorie des Français. [C’est] l’intégration en milieu ouvert…voulue par le gouvernement….78 On August 10, 1976 the Fuveau “hameau de forestage” was rebaptized “la Cité Brogilum,” the Latin word for “breuil,” signifying an enclosed wooded space serving as a hunting preserve or dense vegetation in a field.79 However, the reconstruction of the forest hamlet buildings (and the new name, which became interchangeable with the old one) did nothing to address the Fuveau harki citizens’ integration, the goal of the 1975 policy decisions by national officials. The forest hamlet’s location and the encadrement structure—the two greatest challenges to integration—remained the Lanoizelez, “La CARA de Bias,” 100. CAC 19870444/15, R. Saint-Jean “Résorption des hameaux de forestage,” 1, Dec. 6, 1979. 78 Michel Proust, “Inauguration de trente et un logements pour des Français musulmans,” Le Provençal, Aug. 11, 1976. 79 For the definition of “breuil,” the French word for “brogilum,” see: <http://www.cnrtl.fr/etymologie/breuil>. 76 77 361 same. The excerpt cited above of an article published on August 11 in Le Provençal points toward several ways that the government’s 1975 policy changes were unsuccessful in Fuveau: living conditions, isolation, and French citizenship. Some of these failures also reflect the tension between national policies and local initiatives as well as the ineffectiveness of the national government to ensure the harki population’s integration. Figure 37: The fourteen original barracks, two barracks constructed in 1971, and an ONF hangar for work supplies are depicted by the white rectangles on the left side of the image. The six rows of new houses, totaling thirty-one residences, are labeled A-F and appear to the right of the older buildings. The social counselor’s new house is the gray box amidst the barracks. Source: ASANHLMM, 54/1. First, as the article indicates, the thirty-one houses (plus one for social counselor Darmon), lined up in six rows of four or five, were to replace the lightweight prefabricated houses whose living conditions had become unsafe (see figure 37). While the new residences—named “type ‘Alger’” by the architectural firm—were bigger and permanent structures, they nevertheless did not take into account the large size of the harki families and contained several construction faults.80 With the exception of two buildings constructed in 1971 to address demographic concerns (the average family ASANHLMM, 54/2, Jules Viaux & Ses Fils to the President of the SANHLMM, “Objet: Village Harkis,” 1, Feb. 5, 1975. 80 362 in 1972 comprised almost seven individuals),81 the other flimsy original residences were hastily built in 1964 to last for only a short time. Each apartment originally contained four single beds in two bedrooms. Therefore, as families moved away from the forest hamlet, other families took over their 37.5 square meter apartments. One family appropriated an entire building of barracks, where it remained until 1997 before it was evicted. The patriarch, Ali H.—who served in the French Army during the Second World War, the Indochinese War, and as a harki during the Algerian War for Independence, after which he was an FLN prisoner for a month—is pictured wearing his military medals in front of the dilapidated structure in figure 38.82 He refused to move his family to one of the new residences for two reasons, one relating the problems that led to government discussions and harki population protests in the mid-1970s and the other to the buildings that local officials had commissioned. On one hand, he would be unable to pay the rent because, as a non-salaried worker for the ONF, he received neither his salary nor worker’s compensation benefits for twenty months following an on the job accident,83 and he had been unable to access indemnity payments he was owed as a former harki soldier.84 On the other, the size of the new buildings could not accommodate his family containing fifteen children aged one to twenty-two in the summer of 1976.85 While the new houses were larger, they were insufficient for the fourteen families with upwards of eight children in 1975. As table 7 demonstrates, two-thirds of the houses had three or less bedrooms and only one-tenth contained five or six bedrooms. ADBR, 135 W 41, Louis Sessa (Director of BIAC in Marseille), “Rapport sur la situation des Français Musulmans installés dans le département des Bouches-du-Rhône,” Map, May, 18, 1976 and Fuveau, Register of Town Council Meeting Proceedings, “Nº 72-32 – Ecoles pour les enfants de Harkis,” Apr. 24, 1972. 82 AONACBR, individual file of Ali H., “Demande de Carte du Combattant,” Annexe 1, Aug. 14, 1973. 83 AONFBR, individual file of Ali H., Forestry Expert Raymond Bois to Mr. Figura (Mutualité Sociale Agricole), “Objet: Situation de M. H. Ali,” 1, Nº 3408 RB/AR, Nov. 2, 1976. 84 ASRBR, social welfare file of Ali H. 85 Ibid. 81 363 Number of bedrooms 1 2 3 4 5 6 Number of houses 3 8 9 8 2 1 Size of house 53m2 64m2 85m2 95m2 115m2 127m2 Table 7: Size and number of the thirty-one new houses in Fuveau. Source: ACF, SANHLMM, “Fuveau Cité Brogilum. Vente Logements HLM,” 3, 1988. Figure 38: Ali H. (right), whose family included nineteen children, pictured in front of one of the original forest hamlet buildings in 1996 with a former GMS soldier who resides in Fuveau. The H. family arrived in Fuveau on September 1, 1966 from the Sault forest hamlet in the Vaucluse and remained until August 1997, when authorities forcibly evicted it. Photograph used with the permission of Saïd Merabte, president of the regional Association Justice Information Réparation pour les harkis (AJIR). The other defects with the new residences, which had been built by apprentices and not professional workers, resulted from the “lamentable design of the site” and “poor quality” of construction, as a 2002 report conducted by an independent firm indicated. The design faults included a lack of privacy owing to the houses being clustered together (see figure 39), an absence of outdoor gathering spaces, and no playgrounds. Rubble from the barracks demolished in 1976 still 364 littered the ground and posed safety concerns for the children. The report also noted the houses had been constructed almost directly on the ground and contained poorly-insulated walls and roofs, which caused cracks in the walls and continual dampness and mildew inside the houses.86 These problems manifested themselves almost immediately. Following a rainstorm less than three weeks after the Cité Brogilum opened, given the lack of gutters and poor construction, some of the houses flooded, which required firemen to vacuum out the water.87 Moreover, the unpaved driveways and grounds became mud puddles, blocking all cars from entering the forest hamlet and the unstable ground created a dangerous situation for the residents, particularly the children. As the floors had been constructed almost directly on the land mud had even seeped up into some residences.88 These initial difficult living conditions were compounded by the fact that the residences did not contain heat for the first year. The local construction and management company now in charge of the forest hamlet, the Société Anonyme Nouvelle d’HLM de Marseille (SANHLMM), decided to place the same oil-fired stoves that had heated the 37.5 square meter barracks into the dining room of their new homes. However, following the family’s complaints as the temperatures dropped that winter, the company soon realized that this method of heating was grossly insufficient for the new residences measuring double or triple the size of the old ones. It therefore installed radiators and boilers in summer 1977.89 While the Fuvelian harki citizens’ living conditions did improve, the poor construction and design of the buildings did not markedly improve their situation. ACF, Arts et Management de la Ville, “Étude sur le devenir…,” 16, Oct. 2002. ASANHLMM, 54/1, “Les harkis de Fuveau en colère: notre village est inondé,” Le Provençal, date not indicated. 88 ASANHLMM, 54/1, “Vivre à la française, oui!... mais au sec,” Le Provençal, date not indicated. Both articles are from the same day. 89 ASANHLMM, 54/2, SANHLMM, “Fuveau – Cité Brogilum. Construction du hameau de forestage à Fuveau,” 1-2, Sept. 4, 1980. 86 87 365 Figure 39: Row of four reconstructed residences at the Fuveau forest hamlet. The houses’ proximity and poor sound insulation did not afford the families much privacy. Photograph taken by the author in December 2007. The second indication of the ineffectiveness of the government’s revised integration policies for harki citizens is that the reconstruction of the Fuveau forest hamlet was not a result of the October 1975 Council of Ministers decision to eliminate the twenty-nine remaining forest hamlets by the end of 1979. National policies did not influence the reconstruction of the Fuveau forest hamlet. Local officials had decided in late 1973 to keep the forest hamlet on the same isolated site and even though construction did not begin until one month after the Council of Minister’s August 1975 meeting, they did not modify their plans following the national government’s policy changes.90 This decision countered the national government’s primary objective of integrating the “populations ASANHLMM, 54/2, Director of the SANHLMM to the Bouches-du-Rhône Departmental Director for Facilities, “Objet: Ville de Fuveau. Relogement des anciennes familles de harkis. Difficultés rencontrées dans le démarrage de travaux,” 1-2, Aug. 25, 1975. 90 366 regroupées” into the French community and did not appear to be “l’intégration en milieu ouvert…voulue par le gouvernement,” as the August 1976 Le Provençal article cited above claimed. On November 26, 1973 Mayor Philip, a representative of the Houillères de Provence, architects, the interdepartmental forest hamlet inspector, and representatives from the departmental prefect’s office met at the forest hamlet with the goal of “[l’]établissement du programme de construction.”91 The following week during Fuveau’s town council meeting, the mayor read aloud a letter from the departmental prefect concerning rehousing the harkis in “logements ‘en dur.’” Town council members subsequently deliberated and decided that the town would buy the land from the Houillères de Provence and “céder une parcelle pour permettre la construction d’une trentaine de logements.”92 Instead, the SANHLMM ended up purchasing the land in September 1975 just before it undertook the construction project. 93 The departmental director for facilities explained in a January 1974 letter to the president of the SANHLMM the reason for rebuilding the forest hamlet on the same site as: “…l’entretien de la forêt justifie leur présence et leur logement sur place.”94 Departmental and Fuvealian officials, moreover, made this decision without consulting the harki citizens about whether they wished to remain three kilometers from town and simultaneously ignored the suggestions of departmental SFM director, Louis Sessa. In an April 1973 report, referencing the recent recommendations of the Barbeau group to facilitate the harki population’s integration, Sessa maintained that it was possible for the harkis to remain forestry workers and live closer to town: “Tout en conservant leur emploi d’agent forestier aux chefs de familles, il est envisagé de poursuivre l’effort d’intégration des familles déjà amorcée en leur faveur et qui deviendra ASANHLMM, 54/1, Director General to the Bouches-du-Rhône prefect, “Objet: Commune de Fuveau. Logements ‘en dur’ des migrants employés aux travaux de forestage. Réunion du 26 Novembre 1973 à 15 Heures sur le Terrain,” 2, Nov. 15, 1973. 92 Fuveau, Register of Town Council Meeting Proceedings, “Nº 73-92 – Logement des Harkis,” Dec. 5, 1973. 93 ASANHLMM, 54/1, “Vente par les Houillères de Bassin du Centre et du Midi à la Société Anonyme Nouvelle d’HLM de Marseille,” 3, Sept. 19, 1975. 94 ASANHLMM, 54/2, Bouches-du-Rhône departmental director of facilities to the President of the SANHLMM, “Objet: Commune de Fuveau. Logement des Migrants employés aux travaux de forestage,” 1, Jan. 29, 1974. 91 367 plus concrète lorsqu’elles seront relogées en HLM et brassées avec des familles françaises bien assimilées.”95 A few pages later, he noted that many of the harkis in the department’s forest hamlets did want to be integrated: “Interrogés sur leur avenir, ces travailleurs acceptent d’envisager leur départ des hameaux pour des cités où ils seront brassés avec des populations de souche.”96 The mayor of la Roque d’Anthéron chose integration for the harki families in his village by moving them, between January 1975 and February 1976, from the forest hamlet to an HLM located in town.97 All of these men were able to conserve their employment as forestry workers. In contrast, in Fuveau (and in Jouques) local officials chose to keep their harki citizens segregated. In the midst of nationwide demonstrations by harki children in summer 1991, those in Fuveau protested their isolation. The town hall issued a statement with an explanation of this decision by the mayor in 1975, Max Guiguet: “[A] l’époque le secrétariat aux rapatriés était favorable à l’éclatement des hameaux de harkis pour une meilleure insertion dans les structures d’habitat local. Cette solution n’a pas abouti sous la pression de l’ONF pour des commodités de transport du personnel forestier.”98 Among the documentation in archives from the ONF, the SANHLMM, Fuveau, and the Bouches-du-Rhône department, there is no evidence of this explanation given at the time. Moreover, the harkis in la Roque d’Anthéron (where municipal officials had consistently taken more actions to help them and include them in its community) employed by the same ONF office as the Fuveau harkis moved into town and kept their employment. Therefore, the national government discourse of turning “milieux fermés” into “milieux ouverts” was accompanied by Fuvelian officials’ paternalistic measures that continued to segregate the population of “French Muslims” from other French citizens and keep them under the encadrement of a social counselor. At the same time, national government officials interpreted the reconstruction ACNMF, 32/2, Sessa, “Rapport Annuel 1972…,” 2. Ibid., 4. 97 ADBR, 135 W 51, “Les Français-Musulmans. Rapport d’activités du B.I.A.C.,” 1, May 18, 1976. 98 ADBR, 135 W 51, “Communiqué de la Municipalité de Fuveau,” July 1, 1991. 95 96 368 project in Fuveau as the elimination of the forest hamlet. A document in the CNMF archives that lists the twenty-seven forest hamlets open on January 10, 1977 does not include Fuveau, even though the harki families still resided on the same isolated terrain.99 A July 1976 document noted this situation in the margin with the handwritten words: “pavillons reconstruits sur place – milieu ouvert.”100 Indeed, another chart from August 1978 includes Fuveau’s harkis in the category of “nombre de travailleurs ONF vivant hors hameaux.” 101 These documents reveal that rebuilding the houses on the same isolated terrain and keeping the same encadrement structure in place constituted for the government closing the Fuveau forest hamlet. Yet, the reconstruction of new buildings would do nothing to address their integration as the second epigraph to the previous chapter, a petition written in July 1993 by a Fuvelian resident affiliated with the National Front party, alleged: “Si on peut trouver de l’argent pour ‘intégrer’ d’inintégrables immigrés, il est temps d’en trouver pour aider enfin les Français Harkis. Pour cela, il faut démanteler le camp de harkis de FUVEAU.”102 Conclusion: Refugees, Repatriates, Immigrants? In the August 11, 1976 newspaper article cited above, titled “Inauguration de trente et un logements pour des Français musulmans,” the journalist referred to the harki population as “familles françaises musulmanes” and “cette catégorie des Français.”103 No amount of reminders to public officials or private citizens from national politicians would suffice to distance the harki population from either their inferior nationality status in colonial Algeria (Français musulmans), possible ACNMF, 16, “Hameaux Forestiers,” Jan. 10, 1977. This chart includes la Roque d’Anthéron, which was closed on February 1, 1976. 100 ACNMF, 16, “Hameaux Forestiers au 1er juillet 1976.” 101 ACNMF, 16, “État des Hameaux Forestiers août 1978.” This chart also puts la Roque d’Anthéron’s harkis into the category of “nombre de travailleurs ONF vivant hors hameaux,” a true statement in this case. 102 APMH, Petition from Loïc de Marion (National Front) to the Bouches-du-Rhône Prefect, July 1993. On the original document the second sentence is in boldface and larger type size than the first sentence. 103 Proust, “Inauguration de trente et un logements…” 99 369 confusion with Algerian immigrants, or their distinctiveness from other French citizens. Moreover “Français musulmans rapatriés” would become in the early 1980s the government’s preferred term for harki population members. They were legally French citizens, but rarely considered or treated as such. The exiled harkis and their families—whether or not they ever resided in camps—had a unique status amalgamating refugees, repatriates, and immigrants. They were harki citizens. Harkis and their families arrived in France from Algeria owing to their well-founded fear of persecution by FLN members for the “political opinion” the men had taken during the war. The harkis’ situation falls under the definition of “refugee” by the 1951 Geneva Convention—except this statute requires refugees to migrate to a country where they do not hold nationality. The harkis’ exceptional nationality provisions—they could become French citizens by a pro forma procedure— simultaneously negated the possibility for them to claim refugee status and differentiated them from French repatriates. Nevertheless, the French government treated them as refugees by placing over half in camps upon their arrival, which it did not do with the French repatriates, many of who fled to France in similar refugee circumstances. This treatment upon their arrival was reinforced by government discourse as official documents at this time continually labeled the harki population as refugees. This categorization of the harki population as refugees soon after the war while a significant number resided in the Rivesaltes and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise camps perhaps is not very surprising. However, a document written by a Ministry of Armies official in late 1966—by which time over 53,000 harkis had acquired French nationality (see table 3 in chapter two)—offered an assessment of “la situation des réfugiés musulmans.” The author broke the harki citizens into three categories. One-third, many of who had been officers, had assimilated well into life in metropolitan France. They were among the first to arrive in France and few anticipated returning to Algeria. He labeled the second category (approximately 40 to 50 percent) as “les instables et les hésitants.” Most of these harkis and their families left Algeria owing to their inability to sustain themselves 370 economically after the war and not the FLN violence. Therefore, he argued, they came to France for the financial benefits associated with repatriate status and would return to Algeria once the situation had stabilized. He also noted their extreme similarity to “simples migrants du travail” and believed that some could make some progress toward assimilation. The final category (15 to 25 percent) included harki citizens whom he deemed “ne justifient guère les efforts consentis en leur faveur.” Argumentative, nomadic, completely inadaptable, and “allergiques à tout travail,” he predicted that they would eventually be forced to return to Algeria by a French government act.104 At the same time, harki citizens consistently faced difficulties fitting into their de jure status of repatriates because state legislation for “rapatriés” focused on those of European descent, as rehousing policies following the 1961 Boulin law and the 1970 indemnity law confirm. For the SFIM liaison with department prefectures at the Rivesaltes camp, the former was “une sorte ‘d’apartheid’ dûe à une seule catégorie de citoyens.”105 For harki association leader Djebbour, the entire situation created a class of “sous-rapatriés.” 106 The harkis were rarely considered “repatriates” and encountered delays and roadblocks to accessing their rights as repatriates. Finally, prevalent public perceptions of visible differences of their Arab or Berber bodies regularly led to the harki population’s confusion with Algerian immigrants. These differences, a construction, set them apart from “French” citizens. Because the harkis fell under the definition of immigrant, a person who moves to a foreign country, and were often treated as such they concomitantly faced the prejudices inherent to this classification. Algerian immigrants in France are often perceived as racialized others. SHAT, 10T 549/3a, EMAT 2e bureau (Immigration algérienne en France), “Situation de la migration algérienne en métropole à la fin de l’année 1966,” 4. 105 CAC, 19970146/2, Robert Bourgat, “Objet: Situation des ‘Harki’ recasés…,” 2. 106 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Robert Begou, “Les rapatriés musulmans: ‘Une législation discriminatoire nous est appliquée,” Le Figaro, Oct. 6-7, 1973. 104 371 The public actions and words of harki associations in the 1970s simultaneously illuminated the unique position of the entire harki population—harki citizens—and essentialized their situation by focusing on the camps, which were a symbol of their failed integration and refugees. The BourgLastic and Larzac transit camps that sheltered harki families in tents for several months in 1962, the Rivesaltes and Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise housing camps open for twenty-seven and fourteen months respectively, the Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise and Bias cités d’accueil containing “unhouseable” members of the harki population for over a decade, the seventy-two forest hamlets like Fuveau, and the seventyone cités urbaines became harkis citizens’ lieux de mémoire. These spaces represent the government’s failure to enact an effective integration policy for their inhabitants—in 1962, in 1975, and afterward. The conclusion of this dissertation will show the significance of these local camp situations for the national legislative and memorial initiatives to commemorate and properly indemnify harki citizens, which did not begin until the middle of the 1990s. 372 CONCLUSION Harki Citizens. Remembering the “oubliés de l’Histoire” Dans cette loi [de 1994], c’est la première fois où la République reconnaît… les sacrifices des forces supplétives et assimilés, des prisonniers. On essaie à la fois de reconnaître les sacrifices et d’aider matériellement… Par contre, parfois l’administration—certains maires, certains offices HLM—n’étaient [pas] très actifs… et il n’y a pas beaucoup [de harkis] qui en profit[ait].1 - Former Minister delegate in charge of Repatriates Roger Romani, March 2008 La France, en quittant le sol algérien, n’a pas su empêcher [les massacres de harkis], c’est vrai. Elle n’a pas pu sauver ses enfants.2 - President Jacques Chirac, Journée nationale d’hommage aux harkis, September 25, 2001 Je regrette que [le débat sur l’article quatre de la loi de 2005] ait masqué 80 percent de la teneur de cette loi. Il y avait des choses extraordinaires et très importantes. C’est la meilleure loi—et ce n’est pas parce que c’est moi qui l’ai portée, je vous le dis franchement—c’est la meilleure loi qu’on a pu faire pour les harkis et leurs enfants depuis toujours.3 - Minister of State for Veterans Hamlaoui Mekachera, February 2007 Beginning in the mid-1990s, over three decades after the end of the Algerian War for Independence, the French government enacted three measures to commemorate and compensate its harki citizens: two laws (1994 and 2005) and a national day in their honor (2001). In discussions surrounding these initiatives, derivatives of “oubli” and the term “oubliés de l’Histoire” were ubiquitous in many government officials’ discourse to describe the harki population’s relationships Roger Romani, Interview with the author, Mar. 30, 2008, Luxembourg Palace, Paris. “Chirac: ‘les massacres (de harkis) commis en 1962 doivent être reconnus,’” Agence France-Presse, Sept. 25, 2001. 3 Hamlaoui Mekachera, Interview with the author, Feb. 15, 2007, Ministry of Defense, Paris. 1 2 373 to French government and society since the ceasefire. Some officials recognized that France’s harki citizens—whether through their “sacrifices” for France in Algeria or their isolation in France—had not simply been passively forgotten. The French government willfully and actively forgot them. Despite all three measures’ laudable attempts to remember and pay homage to France’s harki citizens, each had shortcomings. Government officials failed to ensure that harki citizens would be able to receive the concrete benefits made available by the 1994 law, to which the words of its author, Minister delegate in charge of Repatriates Roger Romani, in the epigraph attest.4 The portion of President Jacques Chirac’s speech at the inaugural National Day in Homage to the Harkis in 2001 cited in the epigraph provided a revisionist version of the harkis’ history. The French government in 1962 was indeed aware of the massacres that took place in Algeria, which documents cited in chapter two confirm, but opted not to intervene for President de Gaulle’s fear of reigniting the war and his belief that after the ceasefire “[l]a France ne doit plus avoir aucune responsabilité dans le maintien de l’ordre.”5 Finally, measures in the 2005 law, which had been inserted under pressure from the pied-noir community, minimized the French government’s commemoration of its harki citizens, which its sponsor, Minister of State Mekachera regretted (see above). The legislation that he had intended to principally recognize the harki population became best known for its controversial fourth article advocating that scholastic programs “reconnaissent en particulier le rôle positif de la présence française outre-mer.”6 The government enacted these three initiatives in favor of France’s harki citizens in part as a reaction to protests by harki children over previous government’s policies toward them, which will JORF, “Loi nº 94-488 du 11 juin 1994 relative aux rapatriés anciens membres des formations supplétives et assimilés ou victimes de la captivité en Algérie,” June 14, 1994, 8567. 5 Quoted in Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 151. 6 JORF, “Loi n°2005-158 du 23 février 2005…” On the public debate that ensued after the law was passed concerning how the French government should memorialize past discriminatory actions or persecutions, see Romain Bertrand, Mémoires d’empire, la controverse autour du “fait” colonial (Broissieux: Éditions du Croquant, 2006); Isabelle Flahault (ed.), “L’État et les mémoires,” special issue of Regards sur l’actualité no. 325 (Nov. 2006); Jean-Philippe Mathy, Melancholy Politics: Loss, Mourning, and Memory in Late Modern France (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011), 154-66; and Patrick Weil, “Politique de la mémoire: l’interdit de la commémoration,” Esprit no. 332 (Feb. 2007): 124-42. 4 374 be treated in the next section. They also unfolded within a more general context relative to the past and present relationships between France and Algeria as well as the French government’s commemoration of its history. Beginning in the 1980s French society increasingly focused on the notion of commemoration. Pierre Nora’s Lieux de mémoire, published in four volumes beginning in 1984, turned the public’s gaze toward these lieux—places, events, peoples, leaders, symbols, books, ideas, and traditions. Nora contended that lieux de mémoire “exist because there are no longer any milieux de mémoire, settings in which memory is a real part of everyday experience.”7 Events such as the exorbitant Goude parade for the bicentennial of the French Revolution attested to the government’s fervor for commemorating certain, mostly glorifying, episodes of France’s past. At the same time, in the early 1990s, plural memories of the Algerian War for Independence emerged into the public space, thanks in part to documentaries airing on public television that exposed the controversies and intricacies of the war. Peter Batty’s La guerre d’Algérie was broadcast in five episodes in August and September 1990, while Benjamin Stora’s four-part documentary, Les années algériennes, appeared in September and October 1991. Stora explained his project as a visual history, which presented “la confrontation et la circulation des différentes mémoires.”8 According to a poll carried out in 1992, 83 percent of French youths aged 17 to 30 learned about the Algerian War for Independence from watching television, substantiating the rationale for Stora’s documentary.9 In addition to the increasing visibility in France of memories of this war, the Second Algerian War began raging on the other side of the Mediterranean in spring 1991. In both nations, it evoked memories of the 1954-62 war—notably those of violence—and attested to the failures of Algeria’s Pierre Nora, “General Introduction: Between Memory and History,” in Realms of Memory, vol. 1, trans. Arthur Goldhammer (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 1. 8 Dimitri Nicolaïdis, “Entretien de Benjamin Stora,” in Oublier nos crimes: L’amnésie nationale, une spécificité française? (Paris: Autrement, 1994), 209. 9 Branche, La guerre d’Algérie, 93. 7 375 postcolonial governments after the French government briskly cut ties with its former departments.10 In the mid-1990s the French government began to confront more controversial—“present time”—events in its history first through a momentous speech and then through legislation.11 As explained in the introduction, on July 16, 1995, President Chirac symbolically chose to dedicate his first public allocution after his election to acknowledging the role that the French State had played in the persecution of Jews and victims of the Third Reich’s persecution of minorities. By admitting the French government’s complicity, most notoriously in the Vél d’Hiv roundup, Chirac simultaneously commemorated the victims and their families and acknowledged the responsibility of France’s government at the time. 12 Four years later, the French government addressed the other recent “conflict” whose plural memories circulated in society. On October 18, 1999, the Parliament passed a law that changed the name of what official documents had until then called “les opérations effectués en Afrique du Nord,” “les événements d’Algérie,” and “les opérations de maintien de l’ordre” to “la guerre d’Algérie.”13 Such euphemisms had stifled the plural memories of the war and minimized the enormous, continuing effects of France’s colonization of Algeria on political, social, and cultural institutions in both nations. In May 2001 the Parliament passed the Taubira law, which recognized that the slave trade and slavery—in which France took part from the fifteenth century through the abolition of slavery in 1848—constituted a crime against humanity.14 Therefore, the On the 1990s Algerian war, see James Le Sueur, Between Terror and Democracy: Algeria since 1989 (New York: Zed Books, 2010). 11 L’histoire du temps présent has several definitions. Its chronological definition situates this historical period as beginning with the Second World War. Its thematic definition (preferred by Henry Rousso, the former director of the Institut de l’Histoire du Temp Présent) focuses on events whose actors are still living (“un passé qui n’est pas mort”). Gérard Noiriel, “Pour une autre histoire du temps présent,” in Les origines républicaines de Vichy (Paris: Hachette, 1999), 10. 12 Many scholars argue that the policies of the 1940-44 French State presented a rupture with those of previous and future republican governments. See, for example, Weil, Qu’est-ce qu’un Français?, 97-134. For an opposing viewpoint, see Noiriel, Les origines républicaines de Vichy. 13 JORF, “Loi nº 99-882 du 18 octobre 1999…” 14 JORF, “Loi nº 2001-434 du 21 mai 2001 tendant à la reconnaissance de la traite et de l’esclavage en tant que crime contre l’humanité,” May 23, 2001, 8175. Eleven years prior, Parliament had passed the Gayssot law making crimes against humanity, as defined by the Nuremburg Statutes, punishable by law. JORF, “Loi nº 90-615 du 13 juillet 1990, 10 376 French government had begun to adopt legislation that sought to address its role in past discriminatory acts and persecutions and demonstrated an evolving relationship with its colonial past.15 This final chapter first examines the specific context leading to the elaboration of the three commemorative initiatives for France’s harki citizens. In summer 1991, harki children carried out widespread protests over the failure of three decades of policies intended to help their families integrate into French society. Next, it investigates in more detail the 1994 law, the 2001 day of recognition, and the 2005 law, continuing to place these measures within the French government’s awakened commemorative consciousness and events specific to Franco-Algerian postcolonial relations. Finally, this chapter analyzes the government’s commemorative policies toward the harki citizens alongside previous policies concerning their nationality, repatriation, housing, and integration. I demonstrate that the harki population’s position between France and Algeria as well as their history spanning the colonial and postcolonial eras fostered a unique citizenship that has affected not only harki citizens themselves but also contemporary French society as a whole. From 1975 to 1991: Protests, Status Quo, and More Protests Sixteen years after harki children protested the living conditions of the families who remained in camps and the failed integration of many of France’s harki citizens, in summer 1991 demonstrations by harki children and grandchildren erupted. These actions once again targeted the failure of government policies intended to help harki citizens’ integrate into French society and tendant à réprimer tout acte raciste, antisémite ou xenophobe,” July 14, 1990, 8333. On these memorial laws and the January 2001 law recognizing the Armenian genocide, see Flahault (ed.), “L’État et les mémoires” and Weil, “Politique de la mémoire.” 15 The laws cited in the previous footnote and the 2005 law also sparked questions about the role memorial initiatives by the government in writing history. During the controversy over article four of the 2005 law, President Chirac was quoted as saying: “Dans la République, il n’y a pas d’histoire officielle… Ce n’est pas à la loi d’écrire l’histoire. L’écriture de l’Histoire, c’est l’affaire des historiens.” Béatrice Gurrey, “Mémoire coloniale: Jacques Chirac temporise,” Le Monde, Dec. 10, 2005. 377 decried the lack of recognition by the French government of their families’ sacrifices. The protests occurred within the general contexts of government actions to commemorate certain events in French history and the new wave of violence in Algeria. In comparison with the 1975 demonstrations, which were localized, those in 1991 took place in more venues across France and attracted increased media coverage.16 The remaining camps—Fuveau, Jouques, Mas-Thibert, and Bias—and other towns with large concentrations of harki citizens showcased to the public that harki families still lived in camps and ghetto conditions. Although the number of families residing in these spaces was very small, media outlets’ images of camps became a signifier of the harki population to the public and evoked in the population itself memories of the camps in which the government placed them upon their arrival in France. At this time when French citizens identified an array of places, events, peoples, leaders, symbols, books, ideas, and traditions as manifestations and reminders of their past, the camps became harki citizens’ lieux de mémoire in France. To help the aging harkis and their wives integrate into French society, government officials at the national and local levels needed to ensure implementation of the policies proposed by the Council of Ministers in 1975. Though some officials believed that it was already too late for harkis and their wives to integrate into French society, this opportunity during the late 1970s was, in many ways, the last while men were still part of the active work force. However, the government failed to follow through on its policies and promises. This inaction during the late 1970s and 1980s proved detrimental to not only the older generation of harkis but also their children. Many of them were born in the 1960s and were coming of age in a country whose president had tried to pass laws to encourage North African immigrants to return home in the late 1970s. Moreover, the increasingly popular far-right National Front party heightened tensions toward North Africans through its antiimmigrant platform in the early 1980s. While these policies by President Giscard d’Estaing and 16 1991 is the first year that Le Monde included the term “harki” as one of the key words in its annual index. 378 sentiments by Jean-Marie Le Pen were not aimed toward harki citizens (in fact, Le Pen invited harkis into his party), the backlash nevertheless influenced them. By virtue of their Algerian origins they were indistinguishable from other North African immigrants in France, whom Le Pen, Giscard d’Estaing, and other politicians blamed for the unemployment crisis that had plagued society since the mid 1970s.17 After the 1975 summer of protests, the French government put in place Bureaux d’information, d’aide administrative et de conseils pour les Français musulmans (BIAC) across France and promised the closure of the forest hamlets and camps by the end of 1979. The latter would not happen and the BIAC were eliminated in June 1981 after the government discovered that these offices had misused funds intended to help harki families. Soon after his election, President François Mitterrand (the first socialist president since the Popular Front) appointed a Secretary of State for Repatriates, who created in May 1982 the Office national à l’action sociale, éducative et culturelle (ONASEC) with offices in every regional prefecture across France. These offices “vise[nt] à donner aux Français musulmans rapatriés les moyens économiques correspondant à l’exercice de leur citoyenneté: emploi, éducation, logement, formation, expression culturelle.” 18 Yet, the ONASEC (like the BIAC) failed in its mission to promote harki citizens’ integration owing to electoral politics and ineffective policies. 19 Soon after his appointment by right-leaning Prime Minister Jacques Chirac in 1986 (the first instance of a President and Prime Minister from different political parties during the Fifth Republic), a new Secretary of State for Repatriates opened an investigation into this institution instituted by his predecessor. The ensuing report determined that over half of the money intended for the harki population went to the functioning of the ONASEC On the “lois de retour,” see Weil, La France et ses étrangers, 144-92. On the rise of the National Front, see Françoise Gaspard, Une petite ville en France (Paris: Gallimard, 1990). 18 JORF, Assemblée Nationale Débats Parlementaires (hereafter ANDP), Gérard Bapt (rapporteur spécial chargé des rapatriés), Nov. 13, 1984. 19 For an analysis of how the political situation between the socialists and the National Front party in the early 1980s influenced policies of Mitterrand’s government, see Choi, “The Muslim Veteran…,” 35-39. 17 379 offices.20 Once again, harki citizens became caught up in partisan politics and did not receive the aid from the French government intended to address their integration difficulties. These failures let to a second summer of protests. In October 1990 isolated protests occurred at the Bias camp, which, despite promises from Prime Minister Chirac in 1975 that it would be eliminated by the end of 1976, still remained open. As a result of the events at the Bias camp, Prime Minister Michel Rocard established the Mission de Réflexion sur les Harkis in December. This commission, unlike its predecessors, was composed primarily of harkis and Algerian elites who had fought in the French Army (twelve out of fourteen members). In May 1991 the commission released a report, which opened by admitting the failures of previous government policies and commissions that the government had put in place: “Près de trente ans après son rapatriement en France dans des conditions particulièrement hostiles, la communauté rapatriée d’origine nord-africaine n’a pas réussi, pour la grande majorité de ses membres, son intégration au sein de la société française. Les politiques suivies depuis de nombreuses années n’ont pas permis d’atteindre cet objectif.” 21 After listing thirty proposals ranging from concrete aid such as educational scholarships to the creation of “conditions d’une véritable citoyenneté,” the report closed by warning the government that it must address the harki population’s needs immediately to avoid a volatile situation: “Cette attente est demeurée longtemps patiente et silencieuse, mais la mission est convaincue qu’elle ne le restera pas durablement. Une nouvelle déception provoquera fatalement une explosion.”22 The Commission’s prediction came true just one month later. SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Annette Levy-Willard, “Les drôles de fenêtres par où s’est envolé l’argent des harkis,” Libération, June 24, 1986. 21 ACNMF, 20, “Rapport à Madame le Premier Ministre de la Mission de Réflexion sur la communauté rapatriée d’origine nord-africaine,” 1, May 1991. 22 Ibid., 42. 20 380 In June 1991, violence erupted by the second and now the third generation of harkis, who cried out against what they believed had been thirty years of empty promises by the French government. The revolts began on June 25 when two sons of harkis, who lived in la cité des Oliviers in Narbonne near the Bias camp, and two other non-harki youths, were jailed for throwing Molotov cocktails that ignited storefronts and cars. A few hours after their arrests, sixty sons of harkis set siege to the city demanding the release of their friends and new governmental measures to benefit France’s harki citizens. The next day, Minister of Social Affairs Jean-Louis Bianco promised, “‘dans les 48 heures, les crédits nécessaires seront débloqués pour les bourses scolaires et surtout l’emploi.’”23 Despite the immediate governmental response and promises, violence spread around the country with incidents such as blocked highways, barricading camp entrances, and setting fire to cars. On July 2, the youths who had been arrested on June 25 were denied bail, which sparked new manifestations of violence and appeals to the public. The violence, in particular, grabbed the attention of the media, which honed in on actions by male harki children (few females participated in the protests). Newspapers that covered these strikes frequently employed words such as “révolte,” “ghetto,” “agitation,” and “banlieue,” images associated with other Arab immigrants. Article titles about the harki sons’ actions encompassed: “Harkis: attention danger!,”24 “Narbonne, le cri des fils de harkis,”25 and “Violences chez les harkis.”26 Muller, Le silence des harkis, 137. SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Florence Mahe, “Harkis: attention danger!,” Quotidien de Paris, July 9, 1991. 25 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, Christian Goutorbe, “Narbonne: le cri des fils de harkis,” Le Figaro, June 25, 1991. 26 SPDP, dossier: Harkis, “Violences chez les harkis,” Le Monde, July 6, 1991. 23 24 381 Figure 40: Protest at the Fuveau forest hamlet, July 1, 1991. Source: Agence France-Presse archives. The harki children not only wanted to change their present situation, but during these protests they also became increasingly focused on having their families’ history recognized by the French state and the public. To combat and justify the violent images proliferating in the press (see figure 40), harki children in Fuveau passed out the following tract to motorists on the adjacent National Highway 96 and at tollbooths on the A8 interstate explaining their cause: AVIS À LA POPULATION Les harkis de Fuveau comme dans toute la France sont en lutte. Depuis plusieurs jours les chaines de télévision et l’ensemble des médias nous présentent comme des voyous et des terroristes. En réalité qui sommes nous? Des Français qui veulent tout simplement être vraiment reconnu en tant que tel. C’est à dire : -Avoir le droit à un emploi pour vivre décemment, 382 -Avoir le droit à un logement et non être parqués dans des ‘réserves à indiens’ -Que nos parents soilent [sic] indemnisés de ce qu’ils ont perdu après avoir servi de ‘chair à canon’. Nous vous posons la question: Est-ce être des terroristes que de demander des droits aussi élémentaires? Depuis trentes [sic] ans les gouvernements nous ont fait des prommesses [sic] (qu’ils ont renouvellé [sic] lors de chaque campagne électorale). Aujoud’hui [sic] nous ne voulons plus de paroles mais nous exigeons du gouvernement des actes! À vous de juger, nous avons besoin de votre soutien.27 This tract, similar to others distributed by harki citizens around France, summarized their core frustration: the government did not treat them as full French citizens. Some protests by harki citizens took a more peaceful approach, while still insisting on their second-class citizenship. On July 13, between hundreds, perhaps one thousand, former harki soldiers and their families led a march from la Place de la Bastille to la Place de la République in Paris wearing badges such as “Mon pays, la France?” and “Où est la France?” (see figure 41). The next day, Bastille Day, newly-inaugurated center-left Prime Minister Edith Cresson unveiled a twenty-five point plan in favor of the harkis with the title “Pour une véritable citoyenneté.” Although the French government in part recognized the problems faced by the harki population, the measures it took ignored many of the suggestions from the Mission de Réflexion sur les Harkis. According to Le Monde journalist, Alain Rollat, the new measures “ne retient qu’un tiers en laissant apparemment de côté celles qui étaient jugées les plus importantes par les principaux intéressés.”28 In particular, Cresson did not call for a parliamentary debate, which would have constituted a symbolic way to mark the official recognition of the services rendered by the harkis to the French state. She did not authorize to the former harki soldiers the indemnity payments that they had been denied for decades. Finally, the Prime Minister did not apply suggestions that would have helped to prevent the 27 28 ADBR, 1693 W 232, “Avis à la population,” July 1991. Alain Rollat, “Déphasages,” Le Monde, July 15, 1991. 383 daily discriminations that children and grandchildren of harkis faced each day.29 Sociologist Laurent Muller, who worked with the harki population during his military service in the late 1980s, concurred with Rollat’s opinion that the government ignored the recommendations that could help the harki citizens most in need: “En résumé, toutes les mesures spécifiques aux harkis, apparemment accessibles au plus grand nombre, ne sont en fait réservées qu’à une minorité composée de personnes déterminées, sachant composer avec les arcanes d’une administration bien contraignante.”30 For example, only eighteen people qualified for a fund that had been set up for the most poverty-stricken harkis of the first generation. Moreover, these harkis received between five hundred and one thousand francs each.31 In short, Cresson’s government implemented neither the measures recommended by the commission that would recognize the harkis’ contributions to the Algerian War for Independence nor those that would provide concrete assistance to the most destitute members of the population. These protests, nevertheless, did bring the government’s attention to its harki citizens’ plight and opened a parliamentary debate about recognizing the harkis’ sacrifices. Ibid. Muller, Le silence des harkis, 160. 31 Ibid. 29 30 384 Figure 41: Peaceful march led by harkis and their families on July 13, 1991. Source: Agence France-Presse archives. Harki Citizens and Commemoration Soon after rightwing Prime Minister Edouard Balladur named Roger Romani Minister delegate in charge of repatriates in 1993, he created a working group to address the problems of the “Français musulmans rapatriés,” as government officials now referred to harki citizens. Like many other ministers before him, Romani critiqued previous administrations for the population’s failed integration: “L’accueil de la communauté Français musulman d’Algérie s’est effectuée dans de telles conditions d’impropriété que, 30 ans après, elle n’a toujours pas trouvé sa place au sein de la communauté nationale, comme l’ont montré les graves incidents de l’été 1991.”32 As a result of the working group’s findings, Romani sponsored a law, which the Parliament passed on June 11, 1994. The first article of “la loi dite Romani” affirmed the gratitude of the French Republic toward the CAC, 19980027/3, “Note sur le chiffrage des mesures attendues à l’issue du Groupe de Travail sur les FMR,” Feb. 18. 1994. 32 385 harkis: “La République française témoigne sa reconnaissance envers les rapatriés anciens membres des formations supplétives et assimilés ou victimes de la captivité en Algérie pour les sacrifices qu’ils ont consentis.”33 In addition to officially recognizing former auxiliary soldiers, some of whom had been prisoners of war, the legislation allocated a total of 2.5 billion francs to assist France’s harki citizens. 34 While the harki community welcomed this law and some received partial indemnity payments, the government took as long as three years to enact legislation allowing harki citizens to receive the money intended to compensate them for previous financial measures for repatriates that they had been unable to access.35 Moreover, Romani admitted in a 2008 interview with the author, as cited in the epigraph, that the law’s financial benefits were not as far reaching as he intended. With the passage of these financial measures, many harki citizens wanted public recognition for their acts and sacrifices during the war. This goal became a more tangible possibility in 1999, when the French government recognized the Algerian War as a war by changing the official lexicon to “la guerre d’Algérie.” Many harki citizens’ chief demands for the government evolved from jobs, indemnity payments, educational scholarships, and recognition in 1991 to public commemoration, free circulation to Algeria, and the French government taking responsibility for “abandoning” former auxiliary soldiers after the March 1962 ceasefire in the late 1990s. With many harkis having perished and those remaining in their sixties, seventies, and eighties, it was too late for them to integrate into French society. Calls for commemoration of the harki population intensified after Algerian President Bouteflika’s June 2000 state visit to France during which he refused to discuss with President Chirac JORF, “Loi nº 94-488 du 11 juin 1994…,” 8567. ACNMF, 20, Ministre délégué aux relations avec le Sénat, chargé de rapatriés, “Mise en œuvre du plan d’action en faveur des anciens membres de formations supplétives et de leurs familles. Loi nº 94-488 du 11 juin 1994,” 4. 35 One of the principal texts to apply the law was passed in 1997: JORF, “Décret nº 97-677 du 31 mai 1997 modifiant le décret nº 94-648 du 22 juillet 1994 portant application de la loi nº 94-488 du 11 juin 1994 relative aux rapatriés anciens membres des formations supplétives et assimilés ou victimes de la captivité en Algérie,” June 1, 1997, 8758. In his memoirs, former CNMF president André Wormser wrote about the 1994 law: “Notable avancée, donc, que cette loi. Mais, je déplorais la lenteur de ses applications.” Wormser, Pour l’honneur des harkis, 109. 33 34 386 the possibility of harkis visiting Algeria and referred to them as “collabos.” The harki community was infuriated by these remarks, despite President Chirac’s denunciation (albeit a month later). Some believed that the French government should have been more insistent with the Algerian government to ensure that harkis would be able to visit family and friends in Algeria whom they had not seen since the end of the war. Following the incident, the French government was under constant pressure by not only harki associations but also members of government, the press, and academics to officially recognize the harkis’ contributions to the Algerian War for Independence. This pressure unfolded in the political context of the historicization of the relationship between France and Algeria and of increased public interest in the war. In particular, one of its more controversial aspects, torture, which FLN members accused the harkis of carrying out, garnered attention. In June 2000, Le Monde ran an article detailing the torture and rape of a female FLN-supporter, Louisette Ighilahriz, by French soldiers. 36 In May 2001, French general Paul Aussaresses released his unapologetic memoirs recounting the torture he committed and ordered during the war.37 Finally, this same year, historian Raphaëlle Branche published her dissertation, La torture et l’armée pendant la guerre d’Algérie, which coincided with, and arguably sparked, an increased interest for the war.38 On September 25, 2001, the French government extended to the harkis its formal recognition for their services during the Algerian War for Independence. President Jacques Chirac presided over a ceremony for the Journée nationale d’hommage aux Harkis held in the courtyard of the Hôtel national des Invalides, the symbolic site of the French Army. Soldiers placed a plaque in the main courtyard of the Invalides that reiterated article one of the June 11, 1994 law. Similar plaques were unveiled in twenty-seven cities and towns across the country with large harki Florence Beaugé, “Torturée par l’armée française en Algérie, ‘Lila’ recherche l’homme qui l’a sauvée,” Le Monde, June 19, 2000. 37 Paul Aussaresses, Services spéciaux: Algérie 1955-1957 (Paris: Perrin, 2001). 38 Raphaëlle Branche, La torture et l’armée pendant la guerre d’Algérie (Paris: Gallimard, 2001). 36 387 populations. President Chirac also individually acknowledged one hundred harkis with medals of honor. In his speech, Chirac recognized a “debt of honor” to the harkis for their service by stating: Les anciens des forces supplétives, les harkis et leurs familles ont été les victimes d’une terrible tragédie. Les massacres commis en 1962, frappant les militaires comme les civils, les femmes comme les enfants, laisseront pour toujours l’empreinte de la barbarie. Ils doivent être reconnus…. La France, en quittant le sol algérien, n’a pas su les empêcher, c’est vrai. Elle n’a pas pu sauver ses enfants. Qu’elles soient tombées avant ou après le cessez-le-feu, nous devons à toutes les victimes l’hommage du souvenir. Oublier une partie d’entre elles, ce serait les trahir toutes. Aux combattants, à ces hommes, à ces femmes, j’exprime la reconnaissance de la Nation. La République ne laissera pas l’injure raviver les douleurs du passé. Elle ne laissera pas l’abandon s’ajouter au sacrifice, l’oubli recouvrir la mort et la souffrance.39 This act of commemoration by the French government was a victory for its harki citizens. Chirac’s speech represented the culmination of a four-decade battle to receive acknowledgement for their actions. Although they were pleased with such recognition, members of the harki community exposed three complaints about Chirac’s discourse. First, some protested it was a rewriting, not a recognition, of history since he did not admit any responsibility of the French government for their fate.40 Specifically, they were infuriated by Chirac’s statement, “La France, en quittant le sol algérien, n’a pas su les [les massacres] empêcher, c’est vrai. Elle n’a pas pu sauver ses enfants.” Chirac asserted that France could not save the harkis and their family members from the massacres. However, as chapter two of this dissertation demonstrated, the French government was aware of the massacres and yet did nothing to stop them. Further, some in the harki community argued that the French government gave orders to disarm its harki soldiers, “abandoned” them, tried to prevent their repatriation to France, and did not intercede with the new Algerian government to prevent the massacres. This was the history that harki citizens wanted the French government to take responsibility for. Second, harki citizens had hoped that the President would have asked for forgiveness for the instructions of the Debré government, by threat of sanctions, not to allow 39 40 “Chirac: ‘les massacres (de harkis) commis en 1962 doivent être reconnus,’” Agence France-Presse, Sept. 25, 2001. John Lichfield, “Chirac recognises ‘debt of honour’ to Algerians,” The Independent, Sept. 26, 2001. 388 returning French soldiers from Algeria to bring harkis back to France to save them. 41 Lastly, members of the harki population had wanted Chirac to make, and follow through on, promises to insist that the Algerian government allow former harki soldiers to visit Algeria. To continue to address the compensation and commemoration of France’s harki citizens, Secretary of State for Veterans Hamlaoui Mekachera—an Algerian who had served as a career French Army officer—delivered a speech before the National Assembly on December 2, 2003 to open a debate about allocating indemnity payments to all repatriates to France. While the scope of the legislation would be broad, Mekachera’s intention was to focus particularly on France’s harki citizens, a category of repatriates whom he claimed “a été trop longtemps oubliée par l’histoire.”42 The Secretary of State described the harkis’ history, which spanned the colonial and postcolonial periods and geographically stretched from Algeria to France, in these terms: “Leur engagement total au service de la France, la tragédie immense qu’ils ont vécue, leur abandon et leur détresse morale ont été longtemps ignorés de la communauté nationale. Les familles ont souffert de l’isolement et des conditions de vie qui leur ont été réservées à leur arrivée sur leur nouvelle terre d’accueil. Leur insertion dans le tissu économique et social n’en a été que plus difficile.”43 According to Mekachera, French society was unaware of the harkis’ tragic history—before and after decolonization and in Algeria as well as France. The new law he sponsored aimed to rectify this situation. On March 10, 2004, Minister of Defense Michelle Alliot-Marie presented the first draft of the law signed by Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin to the National Assembly. The first article expressed the Nation’s gratitude to all women and men who participated in France’s colonial ventures in Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and all other former colonies. The next three articles included financial measures to repay the harkis and their widows for lost goods in Algeria and their sacrifices Philippe Bernard, “Harkis: l’aveu du président,” Le Monde, Oct. 2, 2001. JORF, ANDP, “2e Séance du 2 décembre 2003,” Dec. 3, 2003, 11520. 43 Ibid. 41 42 389 in France and the final two articles concerned indemnities for all repatriates.44 This law reflected Mekachera’s contention that the law was created to primarily benefit the harkis. Nevertheless, when the law returned from Senate and National Assembly committees in June 2004, articles two through four became articles six, seven, and nine, thereby moving these measures for the harkis down. Instead, the Senate and the National Assembly inserted three articles concerning all repatriates and an article to benefit the harkis specifically. The transcript of the June 11 National Assembly debate reveals pressure from the pieds-noirs to include more measures to recognize them. Article two, added by the Senate, bestowed the title of “combattants morts pour la France en Afrique du Nord” that had been reserved for soldiers to civilian victims of both the Algerian War for Independence, notably those who perished after the March 19 ceasefire, and the much less violent independence struggles in Morocco and Tunisia. The Senate also added article five, which made it illegal to call someone a “harki” as an insult (as a synonym for traitor) and to deny that harkis and other auxiliary forces had been tortured and massacred after the ceasefire. The National Assembly added articles three and four. Article three established a “Fondation pour la mémoire de la guerre d’Algérie, des combats du Maroc et de Tunisie,” which would constitute an oral history repository for repatriates. Finally, article four stated: “Les programmes de recherche universitaire accordent à l’histoire de la présence française outre-mer, notamment en Afrique du Nord, la place qu’elle mérite. Les programmes scolaires reconnaissent en particulier le rôle positif de la présence française outre-mer, notamment en Afrique du Nord, et accordent à l’histoire et aux sacrifices des combattants de l’armée française issus de ces territoires la place éminente à laquelle ils ont droit.”45 These amendments were incorporated into the final version of the law passed by Parliament on February 23, 2005. The fourth article immediately became a point of public debate JORF, “Projet de loi portant reconnaissance de la Nation et contribution nationale en faveur des Français rapatriés,” Mar. 10, 2004. 45 JORF, “Projet de loi portant reconnaissance de la Nation et contribution nationale en faveur des Français rapatriés,” June 11, 2004. The final version of the law retained all of these measures. 44 390 since the government was asking educators to emphasize the positive influences of colonialism, when there were many negative aspects. This article advocated that descriptions of the harkis and other native soldiers in the French Army be included in French textbooks. However, the phrase “le rôle positif de la présence française outre-mer,” changed the meaning of this sentence. The debate over this controversial article lasted almost ten months before this sentence was repealed from the law. Thanks to this legislation, harkis or their widows received indemnity payments that had been delayed over forty years. Yet the debate sparked by the article that legislators inserted under pressure from the pied-noir community overshadowed the French government’s commemoration of its harki citizens. From Algeria to France, From the Colonial to the Postcolonial On September 25, 2009, I stood among some fifty townspeople, local officials, and members of the harki population, including three former soldiers, for the ninth annual Journée nationale d’hommage aux harkis in Fuveau. I watched the solemn twelve-minute ceremony unfold. A veteran wearing his military uniform adorned with medals performed the call to arms while holding a tricolor flag with “À nous le souvenir. À eux l’immortalité” embroidered in gold thread. Fuveau’s mayor and deputy mayor, two Bouches-du-Rhône departmental officials, and a former harki soldier and a former GMS soldier placed at the base of the monument three sprays of flowers girded with ribbons reading “Hommage Aux Soldats Harkis De France.” During the second half of the brief ceremony, I listened while an official from the departmental veterans office in Marseille and Mayor Jean Bonfillon delivered short speeches, which the national ONAC office in Paris had prepared for officials across France. After welcoming everyone to this symbolic place in front of the monument aux morts, the departmental representative read the phrase that the government used to announce the opening of Cité Nationale de l’Histoire 391 de l’Immigration in Paris: “Leur histoire est notre histoire.” He continued by offering the thanks of the entire nation for the harkis’ faithful service and sacrifices, including their exile from their native Algeria and from “une métropole qui ne les attendait pas.” He concluded by noting the failures—of the government and the population—to include the harkis and their families into French society: “Ils ont mérité le soutien de la communauté nationale.” 46 Mayor Bonfillon’s speech began by acknowledging the repression of the Algerian War for Independence from the French government’s “official memory,” evidenced by the use of terms such as “les événements d’Algérie.” His words recognized the ongoing effects of the war’s violence, which had left marks of psychological and moral trauma on both societies—particularly on individuals, such as the harkis. His discourse attested to precisely how the French government had failed its harki citizens, which this day in their honor sought to reverse: Nous savons tous, que trop longtemps la France a baissé les bras devant l’obligation contractée à l’égard des harkis. Elle n’a pas su reconnaître les sacrifices de leurs biens, de leurs terres, de leurs droits, et de leur sécurité, parfois même de leur vie… Au moment où les harkis s’en remettaient à elle, elle les a conduits par les chemins de l’oubli dans les camps de transit, les hameaux forestiers, et les cités urbaines. Depuis 2001, la journée nationale qui leur est dédiée interdit cette démission de la mémoire. Elle célèbre, ce que nous faisons aujourd’hui, leur fidélité et leur bravoure. Elle est à honorer, cette communauté, à faire connaître, et comprendre la dette que la France lui conserve.47 The mayor explained that the purpose of this ceremony was in part pedagogical: to heighten the awareness of their concitoyens français to the “vérité” of the harkis’ history, as written above, so that it can be properly transmitted to future generations. In so doing, the harki community and the national community could move forward together to build a stronger bond. He closed by affirming Fuveau and the entire nation’s recognition of the harkis. These men’s speeches, with texts provided by the ONAC, underscore that harki citizens’ history comprises decades of social exclusion counterbalanced with recent efforts by the 46 47 Representative of the ONAC departmental office in Marseille, public address, Fuveau, Sept. 25, 2009. Mayor Jean Bonfillon, public address, Fuveau, Sept. 25, 2009. 392 government to include them into “official” memory and history. Harki citizens’ history is more nuanced than the description given by these two speeches. Government discourse and policies since 1962 demonstrated its officials’ difficulties in negotiating between poles of incorporation (harki citizens belonged in French society) and differentiation (treating them as a different type of citizen who necessitated different treatment), which had been one of the central features of imperial governance.48 Yet, unlike in the colonies—and even Algeria where natives were accorded secondclass French citizenship—the harkis and their family members were not subjects. After undergoing the special nationality procedure open exclusively to Algerian natives, they became French citizens. However, as this dissertation has demonstrated, the government did not treat them as full French citizens. They were—and are—“harki citizens.” The harki population’s exile from both nations defines the uniqueness of their situation. Harki citizens’ exile from Algeria resulted from their choice to fight for France during the Algerian War for Independence. The end result of government policies toward the harki population since the first harkis and their family members arrived in the metropole in spring 1962 indeed exiled them from French society, as the ONAC official’s speech maintained. The mayor’s speech noted that for “trop longtemps la France a baissé les bras devant l’obligation contractée à l’égard des harkis.” The most notable example of a government policy that marginalized the harki population from French society was the choice to place harkis and their families requesting housing assistance upon their “repatriation” to France into refugee-like camps like Bourg-Lastic, Larzac, Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise, and Rivesaltes. They arrived “dans une métropole qui ne les attendait pas,” as the ONAC official pointed out. Mayor Bonfillon’s words correctly assessed that “[la France] les a conduits par les chemins de l’oubli” because these initial camps opened the door to future camp living situations. Given the post-Second World War housing crisis, the Ministry of Repatriates’ priority of rehousing 48 Cooper, Colonialism in Question, 154. 393 pieds-noirs, and the government’s vision of the harki population as unready for life in metropolitan France, the SFIM opted to rehouse 25 percent of those already in camps in cités urbaines, forest hamlets, and other camps for the “unhouseables.” All of these spaces pushed harki citizens to the fringes of French society—sometimes the literal geographic frontiers of France, as in the case of the Rivesaltes camp on the Spanish border—because they lived exclusively with other harki families and were often treated differently by the government than other French citizens. Reminiscent of previous state-run housing for foreign migrants, the French government agents whose responsibility was to oversee, or encadrer, the residents had a double objective: surveillance and education. Former civilian and military agents, many of whom had served in Algeria, carried out this encadrement, which resembled practices in the colony and metropole during the imperial era. The government’s housing policies cast its harki citizens as second-class citizens, as they had been in Algeria. Minister of Repatriates François Missoffe’s discourse initially maintained that all of these housing options were intended to be a transitional step toward integrating harki citizens into French society—a discourse of inclusion. However, in July 1964 when President de Gaulle eliminated the Ministry of Repatriates—whose job included the reclassement of the harki population—4,500 members of the harki population lived in camps, 8,500 had moved to the forest hamlets, and the cités urbaines contained approximately 1,500 apartments.49 Missoffe began to distance himself from the description of the forest hamlets as “temporary” as early as May 1963. Soon after he stepped down and the Ministry of Interior took over his functions, the isolated forest hamlets became a “permanent” solution, which challenged these harki citizens’ belonging in French society and continued to treat them like refugees. Subsequent government policies (notably those enacted in 1975 and 1991 following protests by children of harkis) sought to correct the failure of previous ones to integrate France’s harki For the number of cités urbaines apartments, see CAC, 19920149/1/4, “Programme de Construction pour les ‘Harkis: Situation au 1er janvier 1965,” 3. See page 271 for the number of residents in the forest hamlets and camps. 49 394 citizens and treat them like full French citizens. These new policies, such as the 1975 Council of Ministers plan to eliminate the remaining camps and forest hamlets, promised to make significant changes to address the harki population’s difficult relationship with French citizenship. However, both a lack of follow through by national government officials and varied implementation of these policies at the local level translated into this goal remaining unmet. At these moments of protest, the remaining camps became the symbol of the government’s “oubli” of its population of harki citizens. The harki community’s inextricable link to the so-called “événements d’Algérie” was another reason for their marginalization from French society. The French government did not begin to enact legislation to specifically compensate the harkis for their lost land and material goods and officially remember them for their role during the Algerian War for Independence until the mid-1990s. These acts to include the harkis into its policies for other veterans and repatriates coincided with France’s evolving relationship with its colonial past. Mayor Bonfillon explained that for a long time France “n’a pas su reconnaître les sacrifices de leurs biens, de leurs terres, de leurs droits, et de leur sécurité, parfois même de leur vie.” The French government arguably did “know” how to commemorate and compensate its harki citizens, but chose not to. The 1961 and 1970 laws for all repatriates were open to the harki population. Nevertheless, these individuals regularly encountered difficulties accessing these benefits. The government was aware of this situation yet did little to remedy it. Though more harki citizens were able to access benefits following the 1994 law, these benefits, as its sponsor Roger Romani admits, failed to fully compensate them. The 2005 law succeeded in financially compensating France’s harki citizens. However, the commemoration of harki soldiers and other auxiliary forces became mired in the debate over the law’s fourth article, which advocated that schoolteachers emphasize the positive effects of France’s colonial empire. The original version of this law, which Minister Mekachera intended foremost to recognize France’s harki citizens, did not contain this sentence. Instead, former pro-French Algeria deputies and others influenced by the 395 vocal pied-noir lobby inserted this phrase that was bound to strike a controversy in a French society whose colonial past still provoked bitter disputes. The harki citizens lost again in this debate over France’s colonial ventures, just as the Franco-French war in 1962 had obscured the harkis’ interests. “Leur histoire est notre histoire” was a telling choice for the third sentence of the ONAC representative’s speech because this phrase was used to announce the opening of the Cité Nationale de l’Histoire de l’Immigration in 2007. On a symbolic level, this expression linked France’s harki citizens to the controversy surrounding this museum for immigrant history. Eight scholars on its scientific steering committee collectively and publicly resigned in May 2007 to protest the creation of a Minister of Immigration, Integration, National Identity, and Co-development by newly elected President Nicolas Sarkozy. They argued in an article published in Le Monde that the association of immigration with national identity inscribes immigrants as a problem for France, even those who become French citizens.50 Moreover, “leur histoire est notre histoire” underscores the difficulties the French government continues to have categorizing the harki population. This expression seemingly attempted to incorporate the history of harkis citizens into French national history while simultaneously confirming a gap between “our” history and “their” history, which has been relegated to the periphery, like that of France’s immigrants. The marginalization of immigration history from French national history was symptomatic of how the French government has treated its immigrant populations. France’s newly arrived laborers (and their families) often resided in precarious conditions in boarding houses, cités du transit, shantytowns, HLM buildings, and SONACOTRA hostels—with some remaining in these spaces for decades. State-run housing for immigrants, like that for the harki population, included encadrement agents whose function was to Marie-Claude Blanc-Chaléard, Geneviève Dreyfus-Armand, Nancy Green, Gérard Noiriel, Patrick Simon, Vincent Viet, Marie-Christine Volovitch-Tavarès, and Patrick Weil, “Immigration et identité nationale: une association inacceptable,” Le Monde, May 21, 2007. Neither President Sarkozy, nor any member of his cabinet (including the new Minister of Immigration) was present for the museum opening in September 2007, as is customary when new national museums are inaugurated in France. 50 396 educate and police them. While the French government’s administration of harki citizens and that of immigrants display many similarities, the harkis were not immigrants. Even though the government sometimes treated them as refugees, they were not legally accorded refugee status. They were repatriates, even though they did not receive all of the rights and benefits associated with this status. Perhaps the biggest obstacle to the harkis being considered as French citizens by the government and the public was their inescapable link to Algeria and Algerian ethnicity. Many fled Algeria without their identity papers and almost all became French citizens, yet the government continued to refer to them by labels that linked them to their colonial Algerian status as inferior citizens. At the same time, and in seeming contradiction, government documents, pamphlets, and the name of integration policies from the early 1970s onward continually reminded national and local government agents responsible for implementing policies that the harkis and their families were citizens and should be treated as such. The June 1973 letter that Prime Minister Pierre Messmer wrote to the members of his cabinet, regional prefects, and departmental prefects underscoring that the harkis must be treated as French citizens contained the subject line: “Situation des Musulmans français.”51 In 1984 the Secretary of State for Repatriates published a pamphlet “Vaincre l’oubli,” which encompassed articles such as “Devenir citoyen à part entière de sa ville ou de son village.” This pamphlet explained to local officials specific measures they could take to integrate the “Français musulmans rapatriés” in their communities.52 Finally, the plan that the government created in response to harki children’s protests in 1991 was named “Pour une véritable citoyenneté” and was intended for the “communauté rapatriée d’origine nord-africaine,” whom Minister of Social Affairs and Integration Jean-Louis Bianco claimed “reste trop souvent en marge de la communauté 51 52 SHAT, 3R 79/7, Pierre Messmer, “Objet: Situation des Musulmans français,” 2, June 26, 1973. ADBR, 1451 W 115, Secretary of State for Repatriates, “Vaincre l’oubli,” Dec. 1984. 397 nationale.”53 The harkis citizens’ past in Algeria and that in France influenced how the French government treated them at the end of the colonial period and throughout the postcolonial era. The postcolonial treatment of the harki population as inferior citizens has also marked French citizens and indeed French society today. Figure 42: Aïssa B. and Abdelkader B. in front of le monument aux morts in Fuveau on September 25, 2009. Photograph taken by the author. The ceremony in Fuveau on September 25, 2009 represented a gap between the government officials’ words and actions. As I observed the events, my attention was continually drawn to the three of the remaining eleven vieux who had traveled from the isolated camp on the town’s outskirts Archives communales de la Roque d’Anthéron, Minister of Social Affairs and Integration Jean-Louis Bianco to departmental prefects, “Pour une veritable citoyenneté,” 1, July 17, 1991. 53 398 where harki families had resided over the last forty-five years. They stood with somber expressions on their faces separated from the rest of the crowd. The ceremony took place on a Friday morning at eleven o’clock, which made it difficult for anyone who worked and school-aged children to attend (in previous years it had been held in the early evening). Indeed, part of the pedagogical lesson that the mayor had listed as the ceremony’s primary objective was lost. While I listened to the mayor’s speech I waited for him to personally recognize the service and sacrifices of Mr. B., Mr. B., and Mr. Z. These men stood about fifteen meters away from him. But Mayor Bonfillon continued to read from the speech issued by the ONAC. He rarely looked up from the paper and never met the gaze of these three soldiers and citizens. After the ceremony, three townspeople—two wearing military uniforms and a former town councilman assigned to helping the harki population—shook the men’s hands and exchanged pleasantries with them. Since I had interviewed two of these men and knew the other from my dozen trips to the forest hamlet, I asked if I could take their picture in front the monument (see figure 42). Their solemn faces showed unease, even at the ceremony intended to recognize them. The crowd dispersed; two of the harkis walked to the town hall for refreshments, the third decided to go home. I stood with these two men and the former town councilman for the second part of this ceremony in their honor, communicating with them as best as possible, given their broken French. They smiled as they looked around the room. Few people approached us. The mayor did not come over to thank these men to whom France owed a debt, of honor and understanding, according to the words in his speech. He did, however, make sure to greet me after the men left, demonstrating this French citizen and government official’s unease in the presence of harki citizens. After fifteen minutes, the twenty attendees at the reception dwindled. The men thanked me, another outsider, for coming. They walked out unnoticed, without recognition from their concitoyens français. 399 APPENDIX A Interview with Monsieur le Chancelier de l’Institut Pierre Messmer* Paris, L’Institut de France, le 5 juillet 2004, 11h00 Pierre Messmer (PM): Et tout de suite je dois vous dire que je suis pas le meilleur interlocuteur sur ce sujet-là parce que j’étais ministre des Armées à l’époque et ma compétence en ce qui concerne les rapatriés d’Algérie quel qui soit, sauf naturellement les militaires, s’arrêtaient à leur retour en France. Et c’était une autre administration qui s’occupait d’eux. C’était le ministère des Rapatriés qui était alors dirigé par un homme jeune, dynamique, et qui vient de mourir qui est mort il y a très peu de temps et qui avait sous sa responsabilité l’ensemble des actions en faveur des rapatriés. C’était Monsieur Missoffe. Alors, ce qui de mon côté peut vous intéresser c’est ce qui touche à l’effectif des harkis qui ont été rapatriés et de leurs familles aussi puis qu’on a rapatrié leurs familles avec eux. Sur ce point là, vous trouverez, vous l’avez peut-être déjà trouvé, les chiffres dans un livre que j’ai écrit. Jeannette Miller (JM): Les Blancs s’en vont. PM: Les Blancs s’en vont ou un chapitre que vous l’avez vu est consacré aux harkis. Ce problème du nombre des harkis rentrés en France, enfin refugiés si je peux dire en France, est un problème qui m’a beaucoup intéressé par conséquent. Je me suis efforcé d’avoir le maximum d’information sérieux sur la question et je crois que les chiffres que j’ai donnés dans ce livre-là ne sont pas contestés. Par les historiens, ils sont plus contestés maintenant parce que vous avez dû voir il y a des regroupements qui ont été faits à l’occasion des recensements par la suite. Donc il y a pas de réelle contestation sur ces chiffres. Ce qu’il faut ajouter et ce qui peut vous intéresser par pour votre travail c’est que ces harkis et leurs familles naturellement ce sont des ruraux, sont des paysans. Ce sont pas des gens de ville, pas du tout. Et cela s’explique par le fait que les harkas à l’origine de la guerre d’Algérie avaient été constitués pour la défense des villages, pour l’auto-défense en quelque sorte. Par la suite, il y a eu des harkas qui sont devenus plus actifs, mais c’était essentiellement de la défense du village et éventuellement des villages environnants. Donc ces harkis ce sont des ruraux. Beaucoup d’entre eux parlent même pas le français. Ils comprennent, ils comprennent quelques mots, mais ils parlent pas le français. Et par conséquent lorsqu’ils vont arriver en France avec leur famille ils sont vraiment très dépaysés. Ils sont très dépaysés parce que la France n’est plus même dans les années soixante n’est plus un pays rural. Il y a en effet beaucoup de campagne en France, mais on peut pas on peut pas donner de propriété rurale aux harkis parce qu’il y a des propriétaires. La France n’est pas un pays que l’on peut coloniser et puis d’autre part même les ruraux français dans les années 60 sont des hommes, des femmes qui sont déjà très évolués qui servent du machinisme largement. Ils ont des tracteurs, ils ont toute sorte des machines. Les harkis sont incapables de servir de tout cela, totalement incapables. Alors, ils vont être regroupés parce qu’on veut pas les disperser, on veut qu’ils Pierre Messmer (1916-2007) had a lengthy military and public service career in the French colonies and metropolitan France. Upon his 1937 graduation from the elite Ecole nationale de la France d’outre-mer (ENFOMA), he extended his two-year mandatory military service into eight years in the French Army. Following the Second World War, he returned to his chosen vocation as a colonial administrator first in Indochina (1946 to 1948) and then in sub-Saharan Africa (1949 to 1959), including a two-year stint as the last Governor-General of French West Africa (AOF). In January 1960, he executed a brief tour of duty in Petite Kabylie as a lieutenant colonel in the eighth regiment of navy parachutists before being summoned to Paris to serve in President Charles de Gaulle’s cabinet. He subsequently held the following positions: Minister of Armies (1960-69), Minister of State for Overseas Departments and Territories (1971-72), and Prime Minister (1972-74). Messmer was elected to the Académie Française in 1999, and served as Chancellor of the Institut de France from 1999 until 2006. * 400 restent un peu entre eux. On les regroupait dans des camps d’abord, puis ensuite dans des espèces de villages de harkis surtout dans le Midi, dans le sud de la France où on les emploie des travaux forestiers des choses comme cela. Mais, la vérité est que à de rares exceptions près, ils vont pas s’intégrer. Pour leurs enfants, c’est autre chose. Ah, les enfants, c’est toute autre chose. Les enfants eux vont à l’école, parlent français, et vont s’intégrer progressivement dans la société française JM: Mais, est-ce qu’il y a eu des problèmes pour les enfants d’aller à l’école parce que j’ai lu dans d’autres livres et je sais que les livres qui existent sont un peu… PM: Oui, oui. Il y a eu des problèmes, c’est tout à fait vrai. Il y a des problèmes parce que le français n’était pas leur langue maternelle, c’est une langue étrangère pour eux. Quand ils rentraient chez eux, ils parlaient l’arabe ou le berbère avec leurs parents. Mais ils ont tous parlé le français, tous. Et par conséquent, ils ont beaucoup plus facilement trouvé des emplois et ils se sont beaucoup mieux intégrés que leurs parents dans la société française. Il y a pas de doute. Massivement, ils sont mieux intégrés, mais il y a des exceptions dans les deux sens: il y en a très brillants et il y en a au contraire ceux qui sont des échecs, mais dans la masse, ils se sont intégrés. Avec quelquefois des difficultés particulières parce que les autres Algériens les considéraient un peu comme des adversaires, le gouvernement algérien encore aujourd’hui considère les harkis comme des traitres, c’est ce qu’a dit en tout cas le président Bouteflika, ce qui évidemment ne facilite pas les relations. Il y a eu en effet une transition difficile, une transition entre ses parents qui ne pouvaient pas s’intégrer ou qui s’intégraient très mal et les enfants qui, eux, n’avaient pas le choix, ils étaient obligés de s’intégrer. Il y a eu une période très, très difficile, c’est vrai. A mon avis, elle est passée, elle est passée parce que les plus jeunes ce qui sont nés, en fait les plus âgés plutôt, qui sont nés à la rigueur en France. Ils ont quarante ans maintenant, ils ont des enfants et les plus âgés sont déjà à la retraite. C’est d’ailleurs un bon moment pour faire une étude historique sur ce sujet-là. Alors si vous avez des questions, allez-y. JM: Oui, oui, oui. Ce que je voudrais faire est d’étudier les lois de l’Etat français à l’égard des harkis et comment cette politique a changé, pourquoi, à quels moments, etc. et pour faire cela il faut d’abord voir la guerre d’Algérie, surtout le début des accords d’Evian en voyant qu’est-ce qui était dit sur les harkis parce qu’il me semble que de Gaulle… PM: Alors, écoutez, si vous souhaitez pour la partie guerre d’Algérie et retour d’Algérie vous avez des archives qui sont au Service historique de l’armée et si vous souhaitez les consulter, moi je vous donnerai une autorisation de le faire. Il faut que vous preniez en contact avec la direction du service historique, c’est à Vincennes. Mais si vous voulez consulter ces archives, toutes les archives sont déposées au service historique et je vous donnerai l’autorisation pour les consulter. Vous pouvez voir tous que vous voudriez là. JM: Alors, si c’est OK, je voudrais vous poser quelques questions. Alors, est-ce que, peut-être si c’est dans les archives, excusez-moi, je peux regarder là, mais est-ce que général de Gaulle avait un discours à l’égard des harkis pendant la conférence d’Evian parce que je sais que vous avez posé la question des harkis, de Gaulle il a répondu: « Vous allez rallumer la guerre d’Algérie. » PM: (Des pauses) La réponse est simple. C’est que de Gaulle veut sortir d’Algérie, veut sortir. Et aller chercher les harkis là où ils se retrouvent, comme je vous disais dans les villages, c’est chaque fois une opération militaire et ce que de Gaulle pense c’est que ces opérations militaires risquent de rallumer la guerre d’Algérie. Et ca, on veut pas. Par conséquent, il est logique avec lui-même sur 401 l’Algérie. On peut reprocher à de G d’avoir été très dur. Mais il est d’une logique impeccable. Il y a pas de contradictions dans sa politique. Alors évidemment il fait pas de sentiment. JM: Mais vous, vous avez… PM: Moi, j’étais plus jeune, alors j’avais encore un peu de sentiment (rires). JM: Je vois. Pendant que vous étiez ministre des Armées je sais que ce que j’ai lu est que les harkis étaient dans les camps et c’étaient les militaires qui ont dirigé les camps. Donc, la direction des camps, c’était dans votre domaine comme ministre des Armées? PM: Les harkis? JM: Oui. PM: Alors, c’est assez compliqué parce que vous le savez sans doute: on a réuni sous le nom de harkis des activités qui étaient assez différentes. Il y avait les harkis proprement dit. Donc, qu’est-ce que c’est qu’un harki, un vrai harki? C’est un supplétif et alors oui, c’est un supplétif de l’armée. Mais il y a d’autres groupes de moghaznis de différentes activités qui ne sont pas des supplétifs de l’armée, mais des supplétifs de l’administration. Et qui, eux, n’avaient pas ce statut de militaire. En fait, on les a tous traité de la même façon, c’est-à-dire on les assimile en harkis. Mais, il faut savoir que les harkis eux sont des supplétifs et donc dépend de l’armée, mais si je peux dire il y a des faux harkis, c’est-à-dire que dans un village, par exemple, l’officier qui chargeait de la responsabilité de ce village embauchera comme harki des gens qui serviront pour être plantés devant un bureau, pour être cycliste, pour porter des puits. Ce sont des faux harkis en réalité, mais on les traite tous de la même façon. Je n’avais pas sur la situation des harkis le même optimisme que la plupart des militaires parce que j’avais vu ce qui s’était passé en Indochine, où les supplétifs avaient été ensuite massacrés par le Viet Minh. JM: Combien, vous savez? PM: Et ça je savais. C’est pourquoi j’étais très, très réticent en ce qui concerne l’engagement des harkis et je me suis toujours efforcé à partir du jour où je suis devenu ministre de faire diminuer leur nombre. D’ailleurs vous verrez justement dans les statistiques que je donne le nombre des harkis ont diminué. Et c’est moi qui veux que le nombre de harkis diminue parce que je sais qu’il y aura un drame au moment où nous quitterons Algérie. JM: Et vous avez dit qu’à partir de 1960 il est devenu plus difficile à attirer des harkis. PM: Oui. JM: et donc c’était les deux choses ou pourquoi c’était plus difficile? Parce qu’ils s’est [sic] rendu compte que la guerre va terminer ou on a perdu? PM: Parce que tout le monde commence à comprendre que général de Gaulle veut mettre fin à la guerre. Alors, à partir de ce moment-là, chacun devient prudent. Les villageois berbères évitent de trop s’engager avec nous et les officiers comprennent qu’il vaut mieux de ne pas engager de nouveaux harkis, ce qui fait que les effectifs diminuent. 402 JM: Pour revenir à la guerre d’Indochine, pourquoi est-ce qu’il n’y avait pas de rapatriement comme avec les harkis? Parce qu’il me semble que beaucoup de Vietnamiens, de Cambodgiens, et Laotiens de l’armée française, la vaste majorité sont restés en Indochine. Pourquoi est-ce que la France a évité ce rapatriement? PM: Il faut d’abord savoir que les choses se sont pas passées de tout de la même façon. Quand la France a quitté l’Indochine, l’Indochine était encore coupée en deux – nord et sud. Dans le sud restait un gouvernement qui a très volontiers accueilli tous les gens du nord qui voulaient et qui était du nord et venait du sud. Il y en a beaucoup sauf pour les populations de montagne qui sont dans le nord de Vietnam et dans le nord de Laos qui voulaient pas quitter. Mais les Vietnamiens eux-mêmes, en particulier les Vietnamiens du nord qui étaient catholiques, ont presque tous quitté le Vietnam du nord après le départ des Français et sont installés au sud. Et le sud est resté encore, je dirais, libre plus longtemps après puis qu’il l’était toujours que les Américains ont commencé leurs interventions en revenant le gouvernement d’abord dans le sud et puis ensuite en renvoyant une véritable force. C’est-à-dire, le problème de la répression en question s’est posé après le départ américain, pas après le départ français, il s’est posé après le départ américain et à ce moment-là le Viet Minh a crée des camps de concentration et il a mis beaucoup de gens dans les camps de concentration, mais ça se passe après le départ des Américains. JM: Oui. PM: Mais nous avions vu quand même ce qui s’était passé au nord de Vietnam et on pouvait pas oublier, on pouvait pas penser que les choses se dérouleraient plus facilement pour les supplétifs en Algérie qu’avait tourné au Vietnam, au nord du Vietnam. On pouvait pas le penser et c’est toujours la même chose on va s’apercevoir la même chose en Iraq. JM: Oui, c’est triste. PM: Les supplétifs sont encore mieux usés. JM: C’est un autre travail à faire. PM: Ah mais, c’est un constant historique cela. A un certain nombre, l’histoire se répète jamais mais je crois que c’est ceux qui disaient l’histoire se répète pas mais lui arrive de balbutier. L’affaire de supplétifs malheureusement empire. JM: Pour reparler un peu du rapatriement des harkis, il semble que la politique de rapatriement ait provoqué une rupture entre vous et le ministre Joxe. Maintes fois, vous exprimez que vous avez refusé de tenir compte des déclarations du gouvernement. PM: Oui, c’est-à-dire, oui. Il y a eu une tension. La tension entre nous s’est expliquée par que, pour une double raison: l’une qui était rapidement réglée qui tient au fait que Joxe a eu la maladresse de menacer les officiers de sanctions, de certaines sanctions. Alors moi, je pouvais pas accepter cela parce que il n’y a que le ministre des Armées qui a le droit de sanctionner les militaires. Je pouvais accepter qu’un autre ministre menace les militaires de sanctions, ce n’était pas possible. Et alors c’était à ces règles sur cette affaire, mais elle s’est réglée très vite parce que Joxe a compris qu’il avait été maladroit et qu’il ne pouvait pas espérer que général de Gaulle lui donnerait raison évidemment 403 et par conséquent, c’est réglée très vite. Mais, il y a eu une autre difficulté entre nous qui a duré beaucoup plus longtemps. C’est que j’insistais naturellement pour que Joxe exige le respect des accords et qui avait été passé entre le FLN et nous. Et que nous respections nous mais que le FLN ne respectait pas toujours, en particulier, en ce qui concerne les harkis. Et Joxe qui d’une part avait le souci de ne pas briser les accords, le même que de Gaulle avait le souci de ne pas commencer la guerre, disons Joxe temporisait, voir insister pour qui proteste et même qui menace. Et lui se contentait de, si je peux dire, d’intervention « polie » et ça, ça créait entre nous une tension assez forte pendant quelque mois et Joxe savait bien que sur ce sujet c’était lui qui respectait la politique de général de Gaulle beaucoup plus que moi et par conséquent… JM: A l’égard des harkis? PM: Oui. Sa politique vraiment était dans l’esprit qu’avait été celle de général de Gaulle. Et par conséquent, il acceptait, euh, je ne dirais pas de fermer les yeux car il ne fermait pas les yeux, il était trop intelligent et trop compétent pour cela. Mais il acceptait de tolérer des excès que moi je ne tolérais pas. C’était cela, le fond du débat entre nous. JM: Mais j’ai lu dans quelques livres et peut-être ce n’est pas le cas qu’il y avait des bateaux qui ont été renvoyés à Alger. Non? PM: Ce n’est pas vrai. Non. Ce n’est pas vrai. Ca était dit beaucoup à l’époque et écrit, il y a pas un seul exemple de contrôler, de retour de harkis qui viennent en France et qu’on a envoyé en Algérie. Il n’y a pas un exemple. On en a beaucoup parlé, oui. On en a beaucoup parlé parce qu’il y a des exemples en revanche de harkis qui avec l’accord de leurs officiers ont embarqué clandestinement. Alors, ça oui. Oui, les embarquements clandestins, la réponse est oui. Il y en a eu, on peut pas dire combien exactement, mais il y en a eu pas mal. Mais le retour, non. Vous savez, à l’époque il y avait une polémique terrible en France. Il faut pas oublier que c’est l’époque où il y a encore des actions précises de l’OAS. L’OAS est encore active à l’époque. L’OAS a essayé d’assassiner le général de Gaulle. Alors, naturellement les hommes OAS faisaient cette propagande anti-gaulliste, mais maintenant vraiment on a les éléments qui permettent avec le recul de voir ce qui s’est passé vraiment – la réponse est non. Il y a eu beaucoup d’embarquements clandestins, mais il n’y a pas eu de retours. JM: Pendant que vous étiez Premier ministre, je sais qu’il y avait des grandes manifestations qui ont commencé à partir de novembre 1974, mais c’était après votre démission. Mais en fait il y avait de petites manifestations avant cela à partir de 72. Est-ce que votre gouvernement a intervenu dans ces manifestations? Etiez-vous au courant de ce qui s’était passé … PM: Vous pensez à quelles manifestations? JM: En fait il n’y a pas … j’ai lu seulement qu’à partir de 72 il y avait de petites manifestations, pas les grèves de faim. PM: De harkis? JM: Oui. PM: Les petites manifestations de harkis, oui. 404 JM: Et votre gouvernement s’occupait de … PM: Oui. Il y a eu, mais des manifestations, qui étaient pas des manifestations très importantes, qui étaient… ces manifestations sont provoquées par le fait que je vous avais dit, les harkis n’arrivaient pas à s’intégrer. Et alors, ça crée de plus en plus de tensions dans leur propre famille et avec leurs enfants qui eux en souffrent beaucoup plus que leurs parents. C’est qu’aussi que des tensions avec le voisinage. Il y a des camps qui se trouvent à proximité de petites villes ou gros villages, et les relations sont pas bonnes. Et alors, tout ça crée en effet un mauvais climat et c’est ce qui s’explique ces manifestations. Jusqu’en 1973-74, le gouvernement de 74 on veut pas dire que c’étaient des grosses manifestations. C’étaient des manifestations de mauvaise humeur, souvent d’ailleurs justifiées, souvent justifiées parce que par exemple nous n’avions pas fait tous que nous aurions dû faire pour le logement. Disons après leur retour beaucoup était encore très mal logés dans des baraques. A partir de ce moment-là un effort était fait, mais ces manifestations étaient très limitées en le nombre de gens qui participait. Mais traduisait en état d’esprit, certainement. JM: Mais ces manifestations, est-ce qu’elles ont provoqué une politique par votre gouvernement, ou c’est après les grandes manifestations de 74? PM: Moi, je crois beaucoup de ces manifestations était provoqué par l’action des associations rapatriées. L’Association rapatriée d’Indochine, qui était uniquement une association française d’ailleurs, était hostile au gouvernement, naturellement très hostile à de Gaulle, mais aussi très hostile avec les hommes comme moi, bien entendu. Et elles ont trouvé que c’était qui ne s’occupait des harkis, mais elles ont trouvé que c’était un terrain sur lequel on pouvait émouvoir l’opinion publique, ce qui est vrai. Et alors, à partir de ce moment-là, les associations rapatriées ont commencé à faire beaucoup de bruit autour des harkis. Je dis pas qu’ils avaient tort, mais pour elles c’était surtout l’occasion de manifester leur opposition au gouvernement. JM: Donc il n’y a pas un changement de politique … PM: Mais, ils ont certainement suscité beaucoup de manifestations. JM: Oui. Et ça n’a pas eu un effet sur votre politique envers les rapatriés? PM: Non, non. JM: C’était après les grandes manifestations? PM: Non, sur ce point-là, moi j’ai jamais changé de politique. L’évolution commence après moi quand M. Giscard d’Estaing est élu président de la République. Pour des raisons électorales, dans sa campagne électorale, il avait recherché les suffrages des rapatriés. Alors ce qui lui était facile puisqu’il se présentait comme un homme qui était relativement éloigné du général de Gaulle, même si ça n’était pas tout à fait vrai. Dans sa campagne électorale c’est ce qu’il a voulu faire. Et, par conséquent, il a été amené à prendre des engagements vis-à-vis d’associations de rapatriés. Et ensuite pendant qu’il était Président de la République, il leur a accordé des indemnités. 405 JM: En 91 qui étaient la prochaine fois qu’il y a eu de grande manifestations, qu’est-ce que vous avez pensé a provoqué le changement parce qu’après cela il y avait une commission qui a été créée pour traiter cette question, c’était pour les raisons politiques ou… PM: Oui, vous avez raison. Ce sont ces manifestations qui ont amené le gouvernement d’époque à créer cette commission et à, disons, accorder un certain nombre de montants supplémentaires. C’est la manifestation qui a causé cela, cette évolution, c’est vrai. JM: Et donc, sans des manifestations il n’y a pas vraiment un changement politique depuis les 40 ans… PM: Non. JM: Et à votre avis, pourquoi est-ce que le gouvernement français a décidé en 2001 de reconnaître officiellement les harkis et leur service à la France pendant la guerre? La reconnaissance de 2001. PM: Ah, oui. Oui, cette reconnaissance qui est, à mon avis, très justifiée. Cette reconnaissance correspond surtout à une manifestation je dirais morale beaucoup plus qu’à une réalité parce que cette reconnaissance ne correspond pas aux faits qui se sont passés. Mais, je crois que c’est une façon de leur rendre, de leur rendre… je dirais de leur rendre leur honneur. Et c’est d’autant plus utile que le gouvernement algérien qui est vis-à-vis de ces hommes par des hommes du FLN le gouvernement algérien continue de les traiter comme je vous ai dit. Et pour répondre à ce comportement le gouvernement algérien c’était très bien que la France manifeste publiquement que les harkis avaient été des hommes qui avaient rendu en Algérie de bon service à l’armée française et à la France. Et c’est surtout important de point de vue moral parce que pour les hommes et je dirais pour ces harkis, ce qui survivent encore, pour leurs enfants aussi, l’honneur ça signifie quelque chose. Ce que l’on peut dire simplement c’est que la guerre d’Algérie et ses suites créent encore des débats passionnés en France. Ce n’est pas un évènement historique que l’on regarde avec une certaine distance comme par exemple la guerre d’Indochine. Maintenant la guerre d’Indochine est considérée avec je dirais un grand intérêt, mais sans véritable passion. On l’a vu à l’occasion de la célébration du cinquantième anniversaire de Diên Biên Phu qui était très largement commémoré en France avec beaucoup de dignité d’ailleurs, mais sans passion. Au contraire, je dirais avec une ouverture vers le Vietnam, une ouverture naturelle pas artificielle de tout. La guerre d’Algérie, on n’est pas là. JM: Mais surtout la politique officielle du gouvernement parce que Chirac a pris la décision de la reconnaître… PM: Je dirais que dans la politique des gouvernements français il y a une volonté de dépasser la guerre d’Algérie. Mais, moi, je vous parlais de l’opinion publique. L’opinion publique française est encore sensible à la guerre d’Algérie, même si elle ne l’est plus à la guerre d’Indochine. JM: Benjamin Stora a rédigé un livre en mars qui s’appelle La guerre d’Algérie: Fin de l’amnésie. Est-ce que vous croyez qu’il y ait une fin de l’amnésie à l’égard de la guerre d’Algérie. PM: Je crois pas encore. Pas encore. Je vous ai dit oui pour la guerre d’Indochine, mais je dis non pour la guerre d’Algérie. 406 APPENDIX B “Annexes relatant les principales exactions connues” SHAT 1K 744 (Dossier: Situation des harkis en Algérie) Michel de Brébisson, Général de Corps d’Armée, Commandant Supérieur des FAFA A M. le Ministre des Armées (Cabinet) Le 17 août 1962 Objet: Situation des ex-harkis en Algérie depuis le cessez-le-feu ANNEXE 1 22˚ CA Philippeville Date 16 juillet Lieu Guelma 21 juillet 22 juillet 23 juillet Mondovi Medjez-SFA (commune de Duvivier) Morsott 23 juillet Mondovi 27 juillet Sedrata 27 juillet Mansourah 28 juillet Cherka Nature de l’exaction -Manifestation de la population musulmane contre les ex-supplétifs. -8 ex-harkis blessés – hospitalisés. -Massacre de 4 ex-harkis par la population encadrée par l’ALN. -Les membres de l’ALN se saisissent de ex-harkis et leur font subir diverses tortures sur la place publique. -Des ex-harkis sont arrêtés par l’ALN. -Des sévices sont exerces a leur encontre. Enchaines et exposés au soleil, ils sont astreints a des travaux pénibles (creusement de tranchées). -4 ex-harkis et deux femmes sont lynchés a mort lors d’une manifestation populaire. -Les locaux de l’ancienne brigade de Gendarmerie sont transformés en prison. Les musulmans ayant servi la Fr y sont incarcérés. Trois fois par jour ils sont soumis à des sévices. Attachés aux arbres de la cour de la caserne ils sont livrés à la foule qui les tourmente à son gré. Une femme musulmane également a été soumise à ce traitement. Elle a été libérée méconnaissable, le visage ensanglanté et tuméfié par les coups. -Un ancien militaire de la police de Sedrata, connu sous le nom de xxx, est attelé avec le harnais d’un âne à un tonneau de 200 litres monté sur roues, il assure ainsi une corvée d’eau sous les quolibets et les coups de la population. -Dans les locaux de l’ancienne SAS occupée par l’ALN sont internés 25 musulmans ayant travaillé avec la France. Ils sont soumis à des interrogatoires et à des sévices. Certains auraient été exécutés après un jugement sommaire. -Cinq ex-supplétifs sont enlevés. Les corps de deux sont retrouvés. -Dans la nuit du 22 au 28 cinq autres ex-supplétifs se sont refugies auprès de l’autorité militaire de OUEL EL AMEL. Molestés par la population, ils portent sur le visage de nombreuses ecchymoses. 407 Fin juillet Biskra 2 aout 4 aout Biskra Lambèse 6 aout Bordj’r’dir -Au cours d’une déclaration à la population le Colonel CHABANI Chef de la Willaya VI déclare que tous les anciens harkis, GMS et autres supplétifs de l’Armée Française, traitres à l’ALN, étaient condamnés a mort. -Cinq ex-harkis sont enlevés entre le 1er juillet et le 2 aout. -Environ 70 prisonniers ex-harkis, moghaznis et civils musulmans ayant coopéré avec la France sont actuellement internés à la Centrale de Lambèse et gardés par des militaires de l’ALN. Ils sont maltraités et astreints à des travaux de force. Leur état de santé parait déficient et ils semblent sous-alimentés. Certains portent des traces de sévices. -l’ALN assassine un sergent en retraite répondant au nom de xxx. Le corps mutilé est exposé à quelques centaines de mètres du village. ANNEXE 2 23˚ CA Alger Date Lieu 11 juillet Aumale 11 juillet 13 juillet 17 juillet 18 juillet 21 juillet 22 juillet 23 juillet 23 juillet 23 juillet 23 juillet Nature de l’exaction -Enlèvement d’un Moghazni, son épouse et ses deux enfants. Relâché le 12, l’épouse a déclaré que son mari avait été exécuté. Trolard-Taza -Un ex-harki échappé à une exécution en simulant la mort. Il rapporte que 6 de ces camarades ont été tués lors de cette exécution. Tablat -Un tirailleur emprisonné par l’ALN à Tablat s’évade le 13 juillet après avoir subi des sévices. Il déclare avoir vu 3 ex-harkis abattus et 2 tirailleurs du 5˚ RT torturés. Kerba -Un ancien harki enlevé par l’ALN s’enfuit et se réfugie auprès de l’Armée Française. Il rend compte de l’assassinat par l’ALN de plusieurs ex-harkis. Lodi -Deux anciens harkis demandent protection à la CCS du 6˚ RI. L’un deux est hospitalisé à la suite de sévices dont il a été l’objet de la part de l’ALN. Loverdo -Arrestations par l’ALN de 15 anciens harkis. Michelet -Le 22 juillet 62, jour de marché dans les Illilten les combattants de l’ALN auraient exécuté plusieurs personnes. -Les nommés xxx, originaires de Zoubga, commune de Illilten, excaporal Chef GMS 78 et xxx ex-Moghazni à la SAS de Iferounene auraient été sauvagement torturés et tués a coups de hache devant toute la population contrainte d’assister à ces exécutions. -D’autres exécutions aussi sauvages auraient eu lieu dans la région de Tamazirt. Oued Aissi -2 anciens Moghaznis demandent protection aux Forces Armées Françaises. Le premier s’est évadé de Moukda où il devait être égorgé. Le second s’est évadé de l’ancienne SAS de Grand Remblais où se trouveraient une vingtaine d’autres anciens supplétifs. El Esnam - Enlèvement de cinq musulmans, ex-harkis. Bouira - Enlèvement de quatre ex-harkis. Zurich -Défilé de la population pour narguer et insulter 10 ex-harkis ou membres des groupes d’auto-défense condamnés aux travaux forcés. 408 24 juillet Nord Dra el Mizan Nuit du 24 au 25 juillet 25 juillet 25 juillet Desaix 25 juillet 26 juillet 26 juillet 27 juillet 28 juillet 30 juillet 31 juillet Fin juillet -Dans la région de Bou Marni (Nord de Dra el Mizan) l’ALN arrête tous les anciens harkis, moghaznis et musulmans des auto-défenses. (Ce groupe est estimé à 200 ou 250 personnes). Ils seraient astreints à des travaux de terrassement et maltraités par leurs gardiens. Après le travail, ils seraient présentés à la population qui se livre alors à toutes sortes de sévices à leur égard. -Trois ex-moghaznis de l’ancienne SAS sont égorgés. Meurad -Arrestation de 30 ex-moghaznis. Dra el Mizan -L’ajutant Si Mohamed, responsable de l’ALN des zones autonomes de Dra el Mizan, Tizi Reniff et Bogni confirme les enlèvements de tous les ex-harkis de Bou-Mahni (une trentaine environ). (Renseignement obtenu par le Commandant de la Brigade de Gendarmerie de Dra el Mizan au cours d’une liaison de Si Mohamed.) Palestro -25 ex-harkis sur 40 détenus depuis vingt jours au poste de Sidi Abdelkader sont égorgés et enterrés dans le lit de l’Oued Borja, après avoir été torturés. Palestro -Un ex-harki est enlevé par l’ALN et interné dans un camp (ancienne SAS de Khal Kal) où se trouvent déjà une trentaine d’anciens harkis. Après s’être évadé et réfugié auprès de l’Armée Française il rapporte que les détenus de ce camp sont soumis à des sévices et que certains d’entre eux sont exécutés d’une manière atroce. Khalkal -Le Sergent Amrane, de l’ancienne commande de chasse de Palestro est (Palestro) égorgé, puis son corps est découpé en morceaux. -30 anciens harkis, après avoir été torturés, sont abattus au pistoletmitrailleur. Rivet -Un ancien sous-officier du 1/117˚ RI enlevé par l’ALN réussit à s’évader et rejoint son ancien corps. Il rapporte l’existence d’un camp. d’internement dans le douar Zaiane où les anciens harkis sont soumis à des travaux pénibles, subissent des mauvais traitements et où ont lieu des exécutions. Lodi -3 ex-harkis sont arrêtés, conduits sur un piton (ancien poste de Dragons) et exécutés sommairement au pistolet-mitrailleur. -10 autres supplétifs ont été fusillés au même endroit et les corps laissés sur place. Borely-la-10 anciens harkis arrosés d’essence sont brûlés vifs. Sapie Beni-19 ex-harkis appartenant pour la plupart au 2/10˚ R.A.M. sont égorgés Boudouane et donnés en pâture aux chacals dans la région de Béni-Boudouane et Betaya Betaya. Teniet el -Exécution de 20 ex-harkis. Hadd 409 ANNEXE 3 24˚ CA Oran Date Lieu 16 juillet Bouguirat 16 juillet Lamorcière 16 juillet Abdellys 18 juillet Région AinTemouchent 18 juillet Lamorcière 22 juillet Sebdou 24 juillet Lamorcière 2 aout 4 aout Deriec Raghou (10 km sudouest de Beni Saf) Nature de l’exaction -Un ex-harki est égorgé. -Disparition d’une centaine d’anciens harkis. -Cinquante huit anciens harkis sont arrêtés par l’ALN -Environ 200 anciens militaires musulmans ayant servi dans l’Armée Fr sont enlevés par l’ALN -Une centaine d’ex-harkis sont enlevés par l’ALN -Cinquante musulmans ex-supplétifs disparaissent. -Cinq musulmans ex-harkis ont été exécutés par l’ALN au cours des dernières 48 heures. -Trente ex-harkis sont arrêtés et incarcérés par l’ALN. -Une vingtaine de prisonniers, en majorité ex-harkis, sont détenus par l’ALN. 410 APPENDIX C Audition du nommé AA SHAT, 1H 1793/1 CSFA Française en Algérie 23e Corps d’Armée Etat-Major 2º Bureau Cap Matifou le 22 aout 1962 Nº 2246/23ºCA/B2 Transmis à M. le Général de Corps d’Armée, Commandant Supérieure des Forces Armée Française en Algérie – EMI-2º Bureau A titre de compte-rendu Par Le Général de Brigade LEVE Commandant Pvt le 23º Corps d’Armée **** A S.P. 87.193 le 16.8.62 20º Division d’Infanterie Groupement E Nº 1230/GE/2/S Audition du nommé AA,1 venu se refugier le 13 aout 1962 auprès des Forces d’Armée à Lodi 1. Renseignements d’identité : AA Né en 1931 aux Ouled Messaoud Demeurant à Lodi Ex-harki à la harka du 2/6º RI durant trois ans 2. Déclarations de l’intéressé Le 12 aout, vers 21 heures, veille du Mouloud, j’ai été accoste dans une rue de Lodi, à proximité de la Mairie, par trois membres de l’ALN armés qui m’ont intimé l’ordre de les suivre jusqu’au bureau FLN de la localité. J’ai été conduit dans une maison à plusieurs pièces que les militaires français utilisaient auparavant comme magasin à vivre et à habillement. Là, j’ai été enfermé dans les W.C. Apres être resté une demi-heure à cet endroit, mon neveu, MH, ex-harki de la 5º Cie du 2/6º RI, y a été également amené. Pour ma part, j’ai tenté de m’évader de cette cellule improvisée mais la lucarne était trop étroite pour réaliser mon projet. Le lendemain, vers 7 h, nous avons été amenés tous deux dans un garage contigu à la dite maison, ou se traouvaient (sic) déjà deux autres anciens harkis de Lodi : BB et un individu dont je ne connais pas le nom avec exactitude. Tous quatre, nous avons subi à tour de rôle un interrogatoire et des supplices qui n’ont cessé que vers 11 heures 30. Ce genre d’enquête a été mené par un responsable F.L.N. des renseignements, ME, par 1 All names of harkis and FLN members are replaced with their initials. 411 un chef militaire se faisant appeler B et par 6 ou 7 djounouds ou policiers. Nous avons été copieusement battus a coups de bâton et de manche de pioche et ns avons endure le “supplice d’eau” qui consistait à nous tenir la bouche ouverte à l’aide d’un bâton et à nous gonfler d’eau au moyen d’un tuyau d’arrosage jusqu’à perdre la haleine. L’interrogatoire se résumait à des questions se rapportant à notre situation de famille et à nos activités passées en tant que harkis: Pourquoi n’as-tu pas répondu à notre appel lorsque nous t’avons demandé de nous fournir des armes et des munitions et pourquoi n’as-tu pas déserté? -Avoue-nous combien tu as tué de moudjahidines et de civils! -Tu as participé à la démolition de mechtas; à combien ? -Combien de femmes as-tu violées ? A la question: “Combien d’enfants as-tu?” il nous était répliqué dès la réponse donnée: “Eh bien, ce soir ce seront des orphelins, mais avant, il faut que vous mourriez a ‘petit feu.’” Le harki dont je ne connais pas le nom a reconnu, sous la torture, avoir tué 6 hommes et une femme lors des manifestations du 1º Novembre a MEDEA. Il a été emmené vers 11 heures peut-être, je suppose exécuté. Nous ne sommes donc restés que trois prisonniers dans le garage. Vers 11 heures 30, après le départ des deux chefs ALN charges de l’enquête, les policiers nous ont à nouveau battus puis nous ont lié les poignets et les pieds avec du fil électrique. Un bon moment passé, nos gardiens se sont endormis, pendant que nous ne pouvions leur échapper dans l’état ou nous nous trouvions. Surmontant mon accablement, j’ai alors remarqué la présence d’un couteau sur une petite table de bois se trouvant près de moi. En me soulevant, j’ai réussi à saisir le couteau avec les dents et à le faire glisser doucement à terre. Puis, tournant légèrement sur moi-même j’ai pu le prendre dans une main et trancher les liens qui emprisonnaient mes poignets et mes pieds. La porte du garage étant restée entrebâillée, j’ai fui rapidement à travers les rues, désertés a cette heure de l’après-midi, et je me suis refugié auprès des militaires français. J’ai hésité à délivrer mes compagnons d’infortune car je craignais, d’une part, qu’ils ne soient pas, par peur, disposés à me suivre et, d’autre part, que l’un des gardiens se réveille. Note B 2 GROUPEMENT : L’action dite « d’épuration » entreprise par l’A.L.N. à l’encontre des anciens serviteurs des FO s’est généralisée depuis le 1º Juillet et de poursuit. Le seul reproche « impardonnable » qui leur est adressé tient dans le fait qu’ils ont servi la France et ont combattu « leurs frères musulmans. » Les photographies et les photocopies du certificat médical, jointes en annexe, se passent de commentaires. L’intervention tentée par les Forces Armées pour récupérer les deux autres prisonniers s’est révélée négative. Les ravisseurs ont dû se rendre compte rapidement de l’évasion [de le harki] et ont fait disparaître immédiatement les intéressés. Signé: Le Colonel DE NADAILLAC Commandant le Groupement E Destinatires : -M. Le Gal Cdt la 20º DI (EM 2B) -Cdt 1/6º R.I. 412 APPENDIX D List of Forest Hamlets in France Department Name of Forest Hamlet Number of Number worksites of houses Type of houses Date Opened Date Closed Allier Noyant-St-Hilaire 1 30 11/6/63 1973 AlpesMaritimes AlpesMaritimes AlpesMaritimes AlpesMaritimes AlpesMaritimes Ariège Breil-sur-Roya (L’Oliveraie)** L’Escarène** 1 28 Existing houses formerly used for Indochinese Repatriates Prefabricated 1 28 Prefabricated 3/9/64 1/79 MouansSartoux** Roquesteron** 1.5 40 Prefabricated 2/22/64 1980 1.5 38 Prefabricated 2/1/64 1971 Valbonne** 2 28 Prefabricated Montoulieu 1 33 5/20/64 Aude Aude Narbonne La Pradelle* 1 1 31 Aude St-Martin des Puits* VilleneuveMinervois (Pujol-de-Bosc)* St-Rome de Cernon* Brusque* Jausiers* 1 28 28 Prefabricated 5 Restored SONACOTRA 12 Prefabricated 19 Restored Prefabricated 2 52 2 Prefabricated 50 Restored 1 25 Prefabricated 1 1 25 32 Prefabricated Prefabricated Ongles (St-Etienne des Orgues)* St-André des Alpes* Sisteron* Fuveau (La Cité Brogilum)** Jouques (Le Logis d’Anne)** La Ciotat 1 32 Prefabricated 1/17/63 and 2/27/63 12/17/19 62 1/4/1963 10/6/196 2 9/7/62 1 32 Prefabricated 10/11/62 1973 1 2 28 52 Prefabricated Prefabricated 11/1/63 4/15/64 1973 Still open 1 28 SONACOTRA 10/1/63 Prefabricated 1/67 Aude Aveyron Aveyron Basses-Alpes Basses-Alpes Basses-Alpes Basses-Alpes Bouches-duRhône Bouches-duRhône Bouches-duRhône 2 413 12/7/63 9/8/62 12/10/63 6/30/66 6/30/65 9/65 2/15/65 (1980) Bouches-duRhône La Roque d’Anthéron (La Baume)** Chalvignac (Aynes)* La Tremblade* 2 52 Prefabricated 5/30/64 2/1/76 1 25 Prefabricated 7/1/63 1973 1 25 2/6/63 12/31/6 4 Casamozza Zonza 1 2 28 50 23 Prefabricated 2 Restored Prefabricated Prefabricated 1/16/64 8/15/71 1981 1 28 Prefabricated 12/63 1971 1 28 Prefabricated 1 25 Prefabricated 2/27/63 1 1 1 1 3 25 30 Prefabricated Prefabricated Prefabricated Restored Restored 3/9/63 9/20/62 10/1/65 10/1/64 Gers Baigneux-lesJuifs** Is-sur-Tille (Vernot-Saussy)** Vanvey-surOurce* Lanmary* Beaurières* Die La Grand’Combe St. Sauveur du Pourcil (Villemagne)* Mirande* 1 27 1973 11/15/62 and 3/30/63 9/9/62 1971 Hautes-Alpes Montmorin* 1 27 5/8/63 7/8/65 Hautes-Alpes HauteGaronne Haute-Savoie Hérault Hérault Rosans** Juzet-d’Izaut* 1 1 28 25 2/27/64 2/15/63 2/24/65 Magland* Avènes-Truscas* Lodève* 1 1 2 24 27 60 Hérault Saint-Pons (Plo de Maillac)* 3 53 + Prefabricated Prefabricated Prefabricated (SONACOTRA ) Prefabricated Isère Roybon* 2 53 Prefabricated Lozère Lozère Cassagnas* Chadenet (La Loubière)* Chanac-Cultures* Mende Meyrueis* St-Etienne de Valdonez* Villefort* 1 1 28 27 1 1 1 1 2 Cantal CharenteMaritime Corse (Haute) Corse (du Sud) Côte d’Or Côte d’Or Côte d’Or Dordogne Drôme Drôme Gard Gard Lozère Lozère Lozère Lozère Lozère 25 78 23 Prefabricated 4 Restored 25 Prefabricated 2 Restored Prefabricated Restored 1971 8/11/63 5/14/63 8/4/64 1970 at least 72 Prefabricated Prefabricated 5/4/63 and 6/10/63 12/15/62 and 12/11/63 9/26/63 3/23/63 29 40 28 28 Prefabricated Prefabricated Prefabricated Prefabricated 4/23/63 1967 3/19/63 3/2/63 1967 56 Prefabricated 7/6/63 414 1972 1967 3/1/65 11/65 10/1/65 PyrénéesOrientales Saône-etLoire Rivesaltes* 1 25 Prefabricated 12/13/62 1 28 Prefabricated 7/12/63 1 1 28 28 Prefabricated Prefabricated 7/29/64 1/8/64 1971 1971 1 28 Prefabricated 5/1/63 1971 1 1 28 29 Prefabricated Prefabricated 10/14/64 2/26/63 9/1/79 Prefabricated 1970 Var Roussillon-enMorvan (Glennes)* Anglès** Arfons (Les Escudiers)** Puycelci (Grésigne)* Vaour Bormes (Les Mimosas)* Collobrières (La Capelle) Collobrières (Le Capelude)* Gonfaron** Var Var Var Var Var Var Var Tarn Tarn Tarn Tarn Var Var Var Var Var Vaucluse Vaucluse Vaucluse Vaucluse Total: 26 1 1976 1 29 Prefabricated 2/14/63 1970 2 52 Prefabricated 12/17/63 10/15/7 9 La Londe** Montmeyan** Le Muy** 2 1 2 Prefabricated Prefabricated Prefabricated 12/21/63 8/5/64 8/22/64 Néoules** Pignans* Rians** St-Maximin (La Sainte Baume)** St-Paul-enForêt** St-Raphaël (Aigue-Bonne)* Apt** Cucuron** Pertuis** Sault** Total: 72 1 1 1 1 56 28 28 / 2nd opened in 66 or 67 28 29 28 28 Prefabricated Prefabricated Prefabricated Prefabricated 7/4/64 3/21/63 11/25/63 9/25/63 1 28 Prefabricated 9/7/64 1 29 Prefabricated 3/2/63 1 1 1 1 Total: 89 28 28 28 28 Prefabricated Prefabricated Prefabricated Prefabricated 11/28/63 11/28/63 11/23/63 11/25/63 9/1/79 (FIN 79) late 1973 8/1/79 6/30/79 late 1973 12/1/66 *First phase forestry worksites. **Second phase forestry worksites If the name of the forest hamlet differs from the name of a town, this is given in parentheses. The information in this table was compiled from documents located in: ACNMF, 3/2; ADV 746 W 68; CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1963); CAC 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1965); CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1966); CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1968); CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1971); CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1972); CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1974); CAC, 19910097/48; CAC 19920149/1/4; CAC 19920149/1/16; CAC, 19920149/2/8; and CAC, 19920149/3/1. 415 APPENDIX E Population of Forest Hamlets Date Dec. 19621 Mar. 19632 May 19633 Oct. 19634 Nov. 19635 Feb. 19646 Jan. 19657 Jan. 19668 Jan. 19679 Jan. 196810 Jan. 196911 Jan. 197012 Jan. 197113 Jan. 197214 Jan. 197315 July 197316 Jan. 197417 Jan. 197518 Dec. 1975 Number of forest hamlets 10 20 24 40 ----60 52 ----------40 --36 31 31 29 Number of forestry worksites 11 22 28 --48 60 72 65 ------45 --49 ----------- Number of families 282 ------------1,375 1,161 1,236 1,128 1,134 1,011 905 817 784 714 680 584 Number of workers --------1,392 ----1,438 ------1,230 --1,026 --846 766 823 --- Number of dwellings Number of inhabitants 307 --733 1,054 ----1,982 ------------------------- 1,425 2,420 3,345 5,082 6,081 7,912 9,720 --7,546 7,519 7,344 7,463 6,795 6,343 5,997 5,877 5,391 5,275 4,645 CAC, 19920149/3/1, “Hameaux de forestage où l’installation des familles est effective à la date du 15 décembre 1962.” SHAT, 1K 744 (dossier: Point de la Situation des Harkis, janvier et juin 1963), Minister of Armies Messmer, “Perspectives de décongestionnement des Camps de Rivesaltes et de St-Maurice l’Ardoise,” Mar. 22, 1963. 3 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1963), Ministry of Agriculture, “Situation des chantiers ouverts au 15 mai 1963.” 4 CAC, 19920149/1/13, J. Besson (Ministry of Repatriates), “Note pour Monsieur Perony,” 3 and 5, Oct. 9, 1963. 5 AN, F1a 5142, SFIM, “Ex-supplétifs musulmans passés par les camps et reclassés par secteurs d’activité à la date du 15 novembre 1963.” 6 CNMF, 3/2, “Situation des Rapatriés musulmans au 1er février 1964,” 1, Feb. 10, 1964. 7 For the number of forest hamlets and forestry worksites, see CAC, 19910149/1/4, “Programme de construction pour les ‘Harkis: II. Chantiers de forestage,’” Jan. 1, 1965. For the number of inhabitants, see CAC 19920149/1/5, “Logement des ex-supplétifs musulmans rapatriés.” 8 CAC, 19910097/40 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1965), “Liste des hameaux de forestage ouverts le 1er janvier 1966.” 9 CAC 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1974), Sous-Direction des Programmes Sociaux en faveur des Migrants, “Hameaux forestiers: Situation au 1er janvier 1974,” 2. 10 Ibid. 11 Ibid. 12 Ibid for the number of families and number of inhabitants. CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1971), M. Bergogne (L’Ingénieur Général du Génie Rural, des Eaux et des Forêts de Nice) à Monsieur le Chef du Service des Forêts, “Objet: Repliement des harkis vers la région méditerranéenne,” 3, June 29, 1971 for the number of worksites and workers. 13 CAC 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1974), Sous-Direction des Programmes Sociaux en faveur des Migrants, “Hameaux forestiers: Situation au 1er janvier 1974,” 2. 14 Ibid for the number of families and number of inhabitants. CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1972), “Chantiers de travailleurs ex-harkis. Effectifs au 31.1.72” for the number of forest hamlets, worksites, and workers. 15 CAC 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1974), Sous-Direction des Programmes Sociaux en faveur des Migrants, “Hameaux forestiers: Situation au 1er janvier 1974,” 2. 16 CAC, 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1973), Sous-Direction des Programmes Sociaux en faveur des Migrants, “Note concernant les Français Musulmans Rapatriés,” 4-5, Oct. 1, 1973. 17 CAC 19910097/42 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1974), Sous-Direction des Programmes Sociaux en faveur des Migrants, “Hameaux forestiers: Situation au 1er janvier 1974,” 1. 18 CAC, 19870444/15, “Situation des hameaux forestiers,” May 1, 1979. 1 2 416 APPENDIX F “Règlement intérieur concernant l’hébergement dans les hameaux forestiers” Source: CAC, 19910097/41 (dossier: Harkis – Correspondance 1969). 417 BIBLIOGRAPHY ARCHIVAL SOURCES Archives Communales de Fuveau (ACF) Documents relating to the harki population, not classified in any order, were consulted with the special permission of Mayor Jean Bonfillon. Since there are no carton numbers, I just list the bibliographic information for each document that I cite. Régistres des délibérations du Conseil Municipal, janvier 1963-décembre 2007. Archives Communales de la Roque d’Anthéron (ACRA) Documents were consulted with the special permission of Mayor Jean-Louis Turcan. Régistres des délibérations du Conseil Municipal, janvier 1963-décembre 2007. Archives de la Société Nouvelle d’HLM de Marseille (ASANHLMM) Cartons were consulted with the special permission of the Director General of the SANHLMM, Frédéric Bultel. 54/1, 54/2 Archives de l’Office National des Forêts, Service Départemental des Bouches-du-Rhône, Aix-enProvence (AONFBR) Cartons and dossiers were consulted with the special permission of the departmental director of the ONF. Harkis salaires 1964-1976 Principaux textes concernant les ouvriers FSIRAN Personnel files for 15 harkis who worked on the Fuveau forestry worksites Archives Départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône, Aix-en-Provence (ADBR-Aix) Préfecture/Sous-préfecture d’Aix-en-Provence 98 W 325 Archives Départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône, Marseille (ADBR) Cartons marked with an asterisk were consulted with the special permission of the director of the Archives de France. Conseil général/Documentation 1488 W 30 Fonds Albert Payan (chef de sécurité du port de Marseille) 22 J 9 418 Inspection académique *131 W 377 Préfecture 12 O 2357 Préfecture/Affaires musulmanes *138 W 3, *138 W 4, *138 W 5, *138 W 6, *138 W 7, *138 W 8, *138 W 9 Préfecture/Cabinet 135 W 51*, 135 W 398*, *137 W 3, *137 W 4, *137 W 426, *137 W 427, *137 W 460, *137 W 543, 137 W 661, *1476 W 10, *1513 W 18, *1693 W 96, *1693 W 232 Préfecture/Droits des femmes *1451 W 115 Préfecture/Protection civile 125 W 173 Préfecture/Suivi des collectivités et des organismes locaux *1692 W 1-2 Archives Départementales des Pyrénées-Orientales, Perpignan (ADPO) Cartons marked with an asterisk were consulted with the special permission of the director of the Archives de France. Périodiques 1111 Per 73 (L’Indépendant) Préfecture Cabinet *104 W 6, *104 W 24, *1419 W 109 Préfecture Cabinet, Service des Rapatriés *1789 W 7, 1789 W 8, 1789 W 9 Archives Départementales du Var, Draguignan (ADV) Direction Départementale de l’Agriculture Draguignan 746 W 62, 746 W 63, 746 W 64, 746 W 67, 746 W 68, 937 W 75 Direction de la Réglementation Préfecture du Var 1160 W 51 419 Archives du Comité National pour les Musulmans Français, Paris (ACNMF) All cartons were consulted in May-June 2008 at the Association Génériques (34 rue des Citeaux, 75012 Paris) with the special permission of Mr. Marcel Wormser. The carton numbers below correspond to the cataloguing completed by the Association Génériques archivist. 3/2, 3/7, 3/11, 4/3, 4/4, 5/7, 6, 11/8, 15/13, 16, 19, 20, 25/15, 25/17, 28, 32/1, 32/2, 32/3 Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris (MAE) Secrétariat d’Etat aux Affaires Algériennes 97, 119, 125, 126, 137, 152, 155, 162 Archives du Service Départemental de l’Office national des Anciens Combattants et Victimes de Guerre des Bouches-du-Rhône, Marseille (AONACBR) Dossiers consulted with the special permission of the director general of ONAC. Individual dossiers for thirty-eight harkis residing in Fuveau and Marseille Archives du Service des Rapatriés des Bouches-du-Rhône, Marseille (ASRBR) Cartons and dossiers consulted at the Marseille Prefecture with the special permission of the Subprefect of the Bouches-du-Rhône department. Actions en faveur des RONA, Commission Département 89-90 Rapatriés d’Origine Nord Africaine: Cité les Tilleuls Marseille Social welfare files for fifty-two harkis residing in Fuveau and Marseille Archives Nationales, Paris (AN) All cartons were consulted with the special permission of the director of the Archives de France. 5 AG 1 Series: Papiers des Chefs d’Etat, Charles de Gaulle 5 AG 1/22 5 AG 2 Series: Papiers des Chefs d’Etat, Georges Pompidou 5 AG 2/102, 5 AG 2/1157 F1a Series: Le Service des Affaires musulmanes et de l’Action Sociale (SAMAS) devenu le Service de Liaison et Promotion des Migrants (SLPM) F1a 5017, F1a 5053, F1a 5059, F1a 5125, F1a 5129, F1a 5137, F1a 5138, F1a 5139, F1a 5140, F1a 5141, F1a 5142 Centre des Archives Contemporaines, Fontainebleau (CAC) Cartons marked with an asterisk were consulted with the special permission of the director of the Archives de France. Cartons itemized in the CAC archival inventories under two ministries are listed here under the first alphabetical appearance. Ministère des Affaires Sociales 19870256/7, *19920149/1, *19920149/2, 19920149/3, 19920149/4, 19920149/5 420 Ministère de l’Agriculture *19889376/7, 19910097/40, 19910097/41, 19910097/42, 19910097/43, 19910097/47, 19910097/48 Ministère des Anciens Combattants 19980331/1, 19980331/2, 19980331/4, 19980331/6, 19980331/11, 19980331/12 Ministère de l’Education Nationale 19770641/11 Ministère de l’Intérieur 19770097/35, 19880077/20, *19910467/1, *19910467/2 Premier Ministre *19910281/3, *19960121/30, *19980027/1, *19980027/2, *19980027/3, *19980027/4 Ministère de la Santé *19870444/15 Services Communs à la Santé et au Travail *19970146/1, *19970146/2, *19970146/3, *19970146/4, *19970146/5, *19970146/6 Ministère du Travail 19770391/3, 19770391/8, 19770391/9, 19770391/10 Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre, Vincennes (SHAT) Cartons marked with an asterisk were consulted with the special permission of the Service Historique de la Défense (formerly SHAT). The dossiers in Series 1K 744 were consulted with the special permission of former Minister of Armies and Prime Minister Pierre Messmer. 1H Series: Archives de l’Algérie, 1945-1967 1H 1170, 1H 1260/1, 1H 1260/2, *1H 1260/3, *1H 1260/4, 1H 1393/3, 1H 1393/4, 1H 1397/1, *1H 1397/7, 1H 1397/8, *1H 1397/9, *1H 1793/1, *1H 1793/2, 1H 1794/2, *1H 2028/5, 1H 2090/3, 1H 2090/4, 1H 2467/3bis, 1H 2467/6, *1H 2745/1, 1H 2799/5, 1H 2799/6, 1H 2801/3, *1H 2964/8, *1H 2982/1, 1H 2996/3, 1H 2996/8, 1H 3017/4, *1H 3077/2, *1H 3090/2, *1H 3155/5, *1H 3229/6, *1H 3517/3, *1H 3616/1, *1H 3616/3, *1H 4194/1, *1H 4214/1, *1H 4400/3, 1H 4769/8 1K 744 Series: Fonds privé de Pierre Messmer Dossiers: Accueil à St. Maurice l’Ardoise, Rivesaltes et Bias, Conseils interministériels, Directives concernant les harkis, Point de la situation des harkis (janvier et juin 1963), Premières mesures d’accueil en France (Larzac et Bourg-Lastic), Situation des harkis en Algérie, Suggestions en vue du “recasement” des Harkis R Series: Cabinet du Ministre de la Défense et organismes rattachés, 1945-1969 *1R 41/2, *1R 336/6, *1R 336/8, *1R 337/1, *1R 366/16, *1R 367/7, *3R 79/7, *9R 450/6, *9R 450/7, *21R 179/2, *23R 16/2 421 T Series: Etat-Major de l’Armée de Terre et organismes rattachés 7T 249/1, 7T 249/6, 7T 253/1, 7T 253/3, 7T 253/4, 7T 253/5, 7T 257/1, *10T 549/3, *10T 561/3, 13T 286, 14T 91/3, 14T 91/4, 14T 91/5, 14T 92, 19T 257/2 LIBRARY COLLECTIONS La Bibliothèque de Sciences Politiques, Paris Dossiers de Presse (SPDP) “Harkis,” 1962-2005 Aspects de la France L’Aurore Le Canard Enchaîné Carrefour Combat La Croix Les Echos L’Evènement du Jeudi L’Express Le Figaro Figaro Magazine France Observateur L’Humanité International Herald Tribune La Lettre de la Nation Libération Lutte Ouvrière Le Matin (Suisse) Le Matin de Paris Le Monde Nation National Hebdo New York Herald Tribune Le Nouveau Journal Le Nouvel Observateur Paris Presse Politique Hebdo Politis Le Populaire Quotidien de Paris Reforme Rivarol Rouge Témoignage Chrétien The Times (UK) Tribune Socialiste L’Unité 422 Journaux Officiels de la République Française (JORF) Microfilm collection, 1961-2006 Journaux Officiels de la République Française Débats Parlementaires (JORFDP) Microfilm collection, 1965-2005 La Bibliothèque Méjanes, Aix-en-Provence Le Méridional, April 1964-September 2001 Le Provençal, April 1964-September 2001 REPORTS Abi Samra, Marwan, and François-Jérôme Finas. “Regroupement et dispersion: Rélégation, reseaux et territoires des Français-Musulmans.” Paris: Caisse nationale d’allocations familiales, 1985. 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Pour l’honneur des harkis, 1 an de combats, 45 années de lutte. Marseille: Editions Sillages, 2009. 428 VITA JEANNETTE E. MILLER [email protected] EDUCATION PhD. The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, Department of French and Francophone Studies, Dissertation Defended on December 12, 2011. MA. New York University, New York, NY, Institute of French Studies, 2003. BA with Distinction. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, French/Foreign Affairs, 1998. PUBLICATIONS Accepted “Post-Imperial Citizenship and the Reciprocity of the National and the Local: Writing a History of the Harki Population.” Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales 29, no. 1 (Forthcoming Spring 2013). 15 pp. Accepted Pending Revisions “A Camp for Foreigners and ‘Aliens’: Harki Citizens’ Exile at the Rivesaltes Camp (1962-1964).” French Politics, Culture & Society (Forthcoming). 28 pp. TEACHING EXPERIENCE Goucher College, Visiting Instructor/Assistant Professor of French, Department of Modern Languages, Literatures & Cultures, 2010-present. The Pennsylvania State University, Teaching Assistant, Department of French and Francophone Studies, 2003-2010. Institute for American Universities, Visiting Instructor, Aix-en-Provence, France, Summer 2008. SELECTED AWARDS AND FELLOWSHIPS Camargo Foundation Residential Fellowship, Cassis, France, Fall 2009. Africana Research Center Dissertation Fellowship, The Pennsylvania State University, College of Liberal Arts, 2008-2009. Bourse Jeanne Marandon, Société des professeurs français et francophones d’Amérique, 2007-2008. Fulbright Fellowship to France, United States Department of State, 2006-2007. Florence Gould Foundation Pre-Dissertation Fellowship, Council for European Studies, 2004. Graduate Scholar Award, The Pennsylvania State University, College of Liberal Arts, 2003-2010. GSAS Fellowship, New York University, Institute of French Studies, 2002-2003.