French Authorities To Publish Unprecedented Documents On Revolution

The National (French) Institute of Audiovisual (INA) launches the release of historical documents, live and unprecedented testimonies related to the liberation revolution and the war against the French occupation, an endeavour that comes in line with the recommendations of the report prepared by historian Benjamin Stora, at the request of French President Emmanuel Macron.

The prestigious French institution said that starting from the first March 2022 it will publish 180 hours of interviews with civilians and fighters from both sides who witnessed the events of the war in Algeria, through its official website on the Internet, according to a statement issued by the French Audiovisual Institute.

The German-French channel “ARTE” will accompany this endeavour by producing a documentary film based on this new historical source consisting of sixty-six witnesses to the war from the Algerian and French sides, in the period between 1954 and 1962.

Benjamin Stora’s report included a proposal to “make progress in issues related to archives, to transfer some of them from France to Algeria, allowing researchers from both countries to access French and Algerian archives, and accelerating the process of declassifying documents”.

The witnesses whose testimony will be released are Algerian civilians, French-born in Algeria (pieds-noirs or colons), French conscripts and regular soldiers, pro-independence fighters from the National Liberation Front and the Algerian National Movement (MNA) affiliated with Messali Hadj, and members of the secret army terrorist organization (OAS), intellectuals and students.

It is known that the French occupation army in Algeria had within its ranks specialists in photography and video recording during the liberation war, but that media material was prohibited from publishing without the approval of the French military authorities.

The deputy general manager of the French INA, Agnès Chauveau, said in a statement to the French press agency (France Press), the testimonies of the witnesses to the “Algerian war” according to French historical literature and the “liberation war” according to the Algerian naming, have not been heard in this way before.

These testimonies were collected by historian Raphaëlle Branche, who specializes in the French-Algerian war, and with the assistance of director Rafael Lewandowski, and they also form the common source for the Franco-German channel ARTE’s documentary series titled “At War for Algeria”. Noting that six 52-minute episodes will be broadcast during the first part of the evening on March 1 and 2 before being published online on the public educational platform Lumni as of March 10th.

This step comes on the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the signing of the Evian Accords on March 18, 1962, which marked the end of the “Algerian war.” The French authorities, through the Audiovisual Institute, and this initiative, are trying to “reach a variety of audiences and generations”, according to the institute’s official, Agnès Chauveau.

According to the same source, a radio series by director Raphael Lewandowski on French culture has been programmed from February 28 to March 3 in the “Documentary Series” program, and a book on “A War for Algeria”, written by Raphaëlle Branche, will be published on February 28, with a set of three DVDs as well.

Those in charge of this step were keen to emphasize that “what appears from the diversity of these testimonies, is that there was no bilateral war, but wars that everyone fought for a vision about Algeria”, meaning that each party was trying to justify its position on the war in Algeria, which differed to the degree of contradiction because the Algerians were fighting for independence, while the French, whether they were soldiers, civilians and colons, were fighting for the survival of French Algeria.