Since 2018, the Government has been working to facilitate access to the archives of the Algerian war. This ambition has been fulfilled by a major amendment to the Heritage Code, which now provides that archives covered by national defence secrecy are automatically declassified when they become freely available, by decisions to open up entire holdings which cannot be freely communicated, but also by putting on-line guides designed to facilitate searches in the archives. After a first guide on the disappeared of the Algerian war and a second on the Harkis, a new research instrument has just been published: it concerns the repatriated from Algeria.
As there are many sources on the subject, the guide is divided into three parts:
- A general introduction, after the definitions of usage, presents the complex history of the administration in charge of repatriations from 1961 to the present day, then discusses the conditions of repatriation of people and goods.
- A section on public policy presents the funds containing individual files, and deals with compensation and assistance policies and the various types of tributes paid to returnees.
- A section on social policies deals with the housing and living conditions of returnees, then with work, and in particular with retraining, education, and finally with the supervision of which they were the subject and the demands they made, especially through their associations.
Led by the Service interministériel des Archives de France, this extensive work is the result of close interdepartmental collaboration between the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Armed Forces and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs. It describes the sources that are kept in the French public archives, both at central and territorial level; it is a broad panorama not aimed at completeness, but opening up many avenues of research.
The guide, designed to be accessible to the unfamiliar public of the functioning of the archives, is aimed at all those who, connoisseurs or beginners, academics or amateurs, wish to start a research on the subject.
This work is part of the policy of recognition of memories desired by the President of the Republic and pursued by the French Government, to which the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs intend to contribute fully, by allowing researchers, journalists and all interested citizens to access entire sections of the shared history between France and Algeria.
The guide is accessible on this link.