One more recognition for the harkis. Thousands of them or their descendants will be eligible for new compensation for having stayed in French reception facilities in deplorable conditions between 1962 and 1975, announced Monday in a statement the French government, which decided to expand the list of these sites. "Up to 14,000 (additional) people could be compensated following their passage in one of these structures," says the government.
The government took this decision on the basis of the recommendations of the first annual report of the Independent National Commission for the Recognition and Reparation of Damages Suffered by Harkis (CNIH), delivered Monday evening to Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne, in the presence of Patricia Mirallès, Secretary of State for Veterans Affairs and Memory. The CNIH was set up as part of the law of recognition and reparation towards harkis, promulgated on February 23, 2022 after being announced by President Emmanuel Macron in September 2021.
To the Harkis, to their families.
Following the proposals of the CNIH report, we will add 45 new sites giving entitlement to compensation.
The work of recognition and reparation towards the Harkis is a strong commitment of the Government.
We are implementing it. pic.twitter.com/C8pkTIjN3v
— Elisabeth BORNE (@Elisabeth_Borne) May 15, 2023
French Muslims mainly recruited as auxiliaries of the French army during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), the harkis were abandoned by the France at the end of the conflict. Tens of thousands of them and their families fled reprisal massacres in Algeria, and were herded into France, often in undignified conditions. The harkis and their descendants would today form in France a community of several hundred thousand people.
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The law recognizes "the responsibility" of the Nation "because of the indignity of the reception and living conditions on its territory" of former auxiliaries "housed in structures of all kinds" where they have been subjected to conditions such that they "have been a source of exclusion, suffering and lasting trauma".
"It should be noted, however, that the device resulting from the law of February 23 is not unanimous. And in a sense, this is understandable: (...) Nothing can completely repair what the harkis have experienced," said Jean-Marie Bockel, president of the CNIH, in the introduction to the report. "Many sites that hosted harkis between 1962 and 1975 and that are not in the list of structures eligible for compensation have been reported to the CNIH by various interlocutors," the report says.
The government has therefore decided to expand the list of structures eligible for compensation (currently 89) by adding 45 new sites proposed by the commission, including military camps, slums, urban cities, barracks, "transit cities in light prefabricated buildings".
"With this decision (...), it is a new injustice that we are repairing, especially for regions where until now, the damages suffered by the Harkis who lived there had been little recognized," such as Hauts-de-France or Normandy, Patricia Mirallès told AFP.
