A French Proposal To Further Glorify The “Harkis” And Traitors Of The Liberation Revolution!

A new proposal has emerged in the French Senate, the upper house of parliament, aiming to further glorify the “Harkis” and traitors of the Liberation Revolution, and to grant them and their families more privileges, by proposing what it described as “corrections to factual errors” in the law glorifying the French nation’s recognition of the “Harkis” issued on February 23, 2022.

This proposal came at the initiative of Senator Michel Masset, from the “Democratic and Social European Rally” bloc, addressed to the Minister of the Armed Forces and Veterans, dated April 30, 2026, which “Echorouk” reviewed.

It is based on French Law No. 2022-229 of February 23, 2022, which enshrines the French nation’s recognition of the Harkis and members of auxiliary units who served the French army in Algeria, in addition to the categories that were deported and their families, with the resulting compensation and social support measures.

The text confirms that this law established official recognition of what France considers its responsibility for the undignified reception and living conditions, within various reception centers and camps, following the end of the Algerian War, and the accompanying large-scale transfers to French territory.

The core of the new proposal revolves around pushing for an expansion of this recognition, not only in terms of its symbolic dimension, but also by readjusting the temporal data on which it is based, thereby allowing for an expansion of the scope of French responsibility and opening the way for new arrangements that may include additional privileges for the categories concerned.

The document clarifies that the current law sets the end of undignified accommodation conditions at December 31, 1975. However, the initiator believes that this data does not reflect the full reality, proposing to extend the timeframe until 1984, the date when the last families left the “Bias” camp for social housing, which, according to his proposal, opens the door for a complete re-evaluation of the compensation and recognition process.

The text details the conditions of reception for these groups within France, by referring to centers and camps, most notably the Rivesaltes camp as an initial sorting station, then the “Bias” camp in the Lot-et-Garonne region, which housed families described as un-reintegrable, in harsh living conditions and restrictions on individual freedoms.

The proposal also talks about the continued closed nature of these structures for long periods, in addition to what it considers the diversion of part of social assistance towards funding these centers, before they were gradually dismantled during the 1980s.

The text also relies on judicial precedents, including the ruling of the French Council of State issued on October 3, 2018, in addition to the ruling of the European Court of Human Rights in the case of “Tamazount and others v. France” issued on April 4, 2024, which addressed aspects of the accommodation and treatment conditions within those centers.

The text of the proposal concluded by demanding that the French government clarify the schedule for submitting a new draft law aimed at reviewing what it called “factual errors” in the current text, thereby allowing for a reformulation of the legal framework for the “Harkis” file, in a direction that enhances recognition and establishes a new phase of compensation and privileges.