"We want to be recognized": what the Harkis expect from Emmanuel Macron

Joanna Chabas with Jacques Serais, edited by Solène Delinger 6:50 a.m., September 20, 2021, edited at 6:52 a.m., September 20, 2021

TESTIMONY

"Take a new step" in "recognition of the breach that has been made to the Harkis".

This is the promise made by Emmanuel Macron, who will receive, this Monday, September 20, 300 members of Harkis associations.

The goal?

Open the "repair yard" long awaited by the children of these Algerians who fought for the French army during the war of independence.

In addition to financial compensation, they hope that the suffering experienced by their families will finally be recognized. 

"My father was tortured"

Yamina is one of those children traumatized by the Algerian war. She was born in 1958, four years before independence. Today, at 63, she is still marked by years of suffering. Being a daughter of Harkis is a burden she has had to carry all her life. "My father was tortured by the Algerians", she confides to the microphone of Europe 1. "Me, I saw the marks on his body. They took off his skin with pliers. You think I am. Will I forget that? Never. "

Yamina and her family then settled in France.

“We were in a camp,” she recalls.

"We weren't allowed to go out, we had to stay at home all the time. That was the rotten before. After that, we had the other twists and turns."

Insults, racism ... The Algerian war may have ended nearly sixty years ago, Yamina, she has never tasted the appeasement she sought in France.

"We are a permanent target. French people who see us as Arabs and on the other side Algerians who call us 'dirty Harkis'. It has become an insult ... We have become an insult." 

Towards a recognition of the "failure" of the State?

Five years ago, François Hollande had recognized "the responsibilities of the French governments in the abandonment of the Harkis". Today, President Emmanuel Macron wants to go further and should in particular speak of "failure" on the part of the state. The revaluation of the pensions of these veterans, in particular, is on the table.

Yamina would like her family to be compensated for all the property they have lost, but above all she needs recognition from the French state.

She expects a lot from Emmanuel Macron.

"I want us to talk about everything my parents went through," she explains.

"We want to be recognized. Talk to us, we who have suffered, we who have lived badly… all I expect is that we are not forgotten!"

A recognition that Yamina wants especially for her children, so that they do not undergo, like her, the weight of this heritage.

800,000 people ... who are all potential voters 

As a reminder, the French army recruited up to 150,000 Algerians as auxiliaries during the Algerian war.

At the end of the war, 90,000 people were admitted to France in precarious conditions, with no real prospects of integration for themselves or their children.

The others were abandoned in Algeria and victims of bloody reprisals from the nationalists, who considered them traitors. 

Today, the Harkis and their descendants constitute a community of about 800,000 people.

So many voters, traditionally very right-wing, that Emmanuel Macron would like to convince while, on March 18, three weeks before the first round, the 60th anniversary of the Evian Accords, which ended the war of 'Algeria.