Algerian War: France opens part of the archives on the missing

Text by: Magali Lagrange

A decree published last Sunday in the French Official Journal makes accessible a hundred archive files on the disappeared of the Algerian war, kept in the National Archives. For historians working on this conflict, this is good news. However, the opening of these archives will not answer all the questions still pending.

Publicity

Since the beginning of the week, around a hundred archive files concerning those missing from the Algerian war (1954-1962) have been accessible to the public, by decision of the French government. The decree, published Sunday in the Official Journal , provides for a "derogation intended to facilitate access to public archives relating to the missing persons of the war of Algeria preserved in the National Archives". These files were established by a commission created in 1957 to investigate military repression and disappearances during the Battle of Algiers (January to September 1957).

The memory of the Algerian war and the question of the missing are sensitive subjects on both sides of the Mediterranean. For years, Algerians have been asking for access to these archives.

In September 2018, Emmanuel Macron recognized the death of Maurice Audin - mathematician and activist for independence, disappeared in 1957 in Algeria - "  under torture because of the system then established in Algeria by France  ". The French head of state also undertook to guarantee the free consultation of the archives concerning the disappeared from the conflict (the number of which remains difficult to establish today), whether they are civil or military, French or Algerian.

Sensitive issues

The historian Benjamin Stora, author of the book "An Algerian memory", published by Robert Laffont editions, notes that France is gradually opening its archives on these sensitive questions. He sees something important for French and Algerian researchers.

“  We should be pleased that the State is gradually opening its doors to these questions. But we have not yet opened the archives of the Algerian war on the model of the Second World War, for example,  ”explains the historian. "  These are openings that are very often made under pressure from associations, intellectuals, historians, families,  " he said.

While the opening of archives is welcome for researchers, Benjamin Stora stresses, however, that many abuses were committed during the Algerian war without any order or written record. And that many archives just disappeared at the time of independence. "The  whole truth of history is not necessarily found in state writings, it is also necessary to collect the words of the actors, witnesses, survivors,  " he concludes.

Note that at the beginning of the month, the French National Archives also published a guide available online for research into disappearances that occurred during the Algerian war.

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