Access to sensitive archives: an increase in barriers that spark controversy
The criteria for accepting or rejecting requests for access to the archives have not been listed.
© AFP / RFI editing
Text by: Laurent Correau Follow |
Amelia Tulet
11 min
While the French historian Benjamin Stora has just submitted to President Emmanuel Macron his report on the memory issues concerning colonization and the Algerian war, the community of historians and archivists denounces the growing obstacles in access to sensitive archives.
A text on the protection of national defense secrets crystallizes the controversy.
An appeal has just been filed with the Council of State.
Publicity
Read more
Access to archives is "
an essential condition for responding to the call of the President of the Republic, repeated on several occasions, for a debate on the colonial past of our country
".
In full reflection on the reconciliation of Algerian and French memories, the community of historians and archivists recalls a simple principle: the recognition of the truth, the stated axis of Macronian memory policy, requires access to sources.
It is to guarantee this access that several groups bringing together researchers, archivists and citizens have lodged an appeal with the French Council of State on Friday January 15, 2021. They denounce the illegality of IGI 1300, a text whose application is currently hampering research over the period 1934-1970.
IGI 1300 is an “Interministerial General Instruction”, a text drawn up by the Prime Minister's services which defines the rules concerning the “
protection of the secrecy of National Defense
”.
The latest version of this IGI, published in
the Official Journal
last November
,
indicates from its introduction the objective: “
Better classify to better protect
”, “
This instruction aims to strengthen the rigor with which recourse is had to the secrecy of the national defense, according to a principle of strict necessity
”, specifies the document.
This IGI does not only concern the question of archives, but it has direct implications for the work of historians.
It even creates new obstacles while the law provides for the communicability of archives relating to national defense secrecy after fifty years.
Concretely, explains historian Raphaëlle Branche, a specialist in violence in the colonial period, when a citizen wants to access a document considered to be a defense secret, “
he must first make a request for 'declassification'.
This means that the administration looks at the documents once again to check if they agree to communicate them.
"
Raphaëlle Branche, historian and specialist in violence in the colonial period
This process can take months or even longer, crippling much research.
“
Even more serious,
adds Raphaëlle Branche,
the administration services can refuse access to the requested document
”
.
The criteria for accepting or rejecting requests have not been listed.
"
This leads to absurd situations
," comments Pierre Mansat, president of the Josette and Maurice Audin association *.
Documents that have been seen by historians are no longer accessible today.
"
These restrictions on access to archives represent a very serious attack on democracy,
" continues Pierre Mansat.
“
What is at stake is something fundamental, it is the possibility of accessing archives to write history, so that citizens are informed of acts taken in their name by the State.
"
Pierre Mansat, president of the Josette and Maurice Audin association
The appeal
which has just been filed is supported by renowned historians such as Annette Wieviorka, Robert Paxton and Antoine Prost.
It also has the support of organizations such as the Secret Défense collective, a democratic stake, which tries to shed light on 16 cases (including the assassination of Ghislaine Dupont and Claude Verlon of RFI) for which access to archives is important.
“
On November 15, 2020
,” explains the collective in a press release,
a new decree concerning access to archives was published.
Far from opening this access, it has on the contrary confirmed, even amplified, the locking of classified archives established by an interministerial instruction of 2011 (called IGI 1300) in opposition to the spirit of the law of 2008 which wanted to open them.
"
Interministerial instruction above the law
?
This legal argument is at the heart of the argument against IGI 1300 in its current version: a regulatory text cannot be in contradiction with the law, since it is supposed to be inferior to it.
According to
the 2008 law
, public documents "
the communication of which undermines the secrecy of national defense, the fundamental interests of the State in the conduct of foreign policy, State security, public security
" are communicable after a period of 50 years, as long as they do not jeopardize the security of designated or identifiable persons (the periods may then extend to 75 or 100 years).
However, by imposing this “declassification” procedure, the IGI is creating new access conditions.
The other problem is political.
The tightening of access to archives contradicts the statements of several French presidents.
In particular those of the current head of state, who made the reconciliation of memories, in particular with Algeria, one of the projects of his presidency.
When France recognized the responsibility for the death of Maurice Audin, Emmanuel Macron announced, in September 2018, the opening of all state archives relating to those who died in the Algerian war.
► To read also: Emmanuel Macron recognizes the role of the State in the death of Maurice Audin
In the report on memory issues that he has just presented to Emmanuel Macron, historian Benjamin Stora puts forward a recommendation on this question.
The steering committee of the Franco-Algerian working group on archives could “
demand the strict application of the 2008 heritage law in France.
Concretely, it is a question of returning as soon as possible to the practice of declassifying "Secret" documents already archived prior to 1970.
"
The Élysée is currently seeking to justify the validity of the provisions of IGI 1300 while affirming the need for a more satisfactory solution for historians.
“
It is not the general instruction which prohibits access to archives, it is the Penal Code
, maintains a source close to the file to the Presidency of the Republic.
The document is an application text which must summarize the Heritage Code and the Penal Code.
It is this synthesis which is not satisfactory and which must be better worked on.
This work is being done today by the services of the Prime Minister.
"
“
With regard to archives,”
continues this source, “
there has been a practice so far which was not in conformity with the law on the protection of secrecy and which was not homogeneous according to the services and over time.
It is true that the SGDSN, the General Secretariat of Defense and National Security, made a fairly vigorous reminder of the law… This reminder found a translation in the administrations.
That is to say, we have returned to a strict practice of the law of secrecy protection.
And that is seen as a step backwards, which we understand very well.
"
Still, the debate on the contradiction between IGI 1300 and the law is not new.
And that the hardening of the year 2020 was therefore done despite the warnings of experts.
During a
seminar in December 2018
, the specialist in security and defense law Bertrand Warusfel already pointed to a "
drift in the interpretation of the texts
" in the implementation of the "
double lock
" system provided for by the IGI 1300. “
It seems to me
,” explained the academic at the time,
that this double lock system does not comply with the logic of the law since the Heritage Code clearly says that public archives are automatically communicable after a delay. 50, 75 or 100 years old.
For me, as of right, that means without any other conditions.
"
Opponents of IGI 1300 are concerned about the existence of strong brakes.
“
This is only a hypothesis,
notes Pierre Mansat,
but the hypothesis is that political, military and intelligence circles do not want a certain number of elements concerning our history to be known, analyzed and understood by historians
”.
* The Josette and Maurice Audin association, created in 2004, fights for the truth about the assassination of the young communist mathematician in Algeria in 1957 by French soldiers and more generally so that clarity is made on all those who disappeared from the war of Algeria and the crimes of the colonial army, including the use of torture.
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
google-play-badge_FR
France
History