Signs of Divergence in the Algerian-French Memory Commission
Some disagreement signs have begun to emerge between the members of the Algerian-French commission responsible for discussing the memory file, and these indicators relate to one of the most sensitive and complex files, which is the looted Algerian archives, which are located in basements in southern France, specifically in both Marseille and Aix-en-Provence.
This fact was the most prominent matter after the fourth meeting of the mixed commission, which was hosted by the French capital, Paris, last January 25.
French International Radio, France Inter, alluded to this point in an interview with Benjamin Stora, chairman of the commission of historians from the French side, on Thursday, February 8, 2024.
France Inter asked Benjamin Stora about the committee’s recent meeting in Paris and the areas of disagreement, saying: “Algerian historians are demanding the restitution of the archives, particularly those of Aix-en-Provence, while it seems that you prefer to talk about free access to these archives. Is there no point of divergence?
Although Benjamin Stora denied the existence of differences: “No, there are no differences”. However, he left the door open to questions: “Because, you know, now there is a new element concerning the old problem of restitution, which is completely legitimate and very old on the part of the Algerians. The new element is digitisation, the digital revolution, that is, requests for recovery today are much less important than requests for digitisation of archives, transfer and sharing of archives. This does not preclude the possibility of recovering original documents having symbolic value.”
It is clear from Benjamin Stora’s response that he prefers to grant Algeria copies of the looted Algerian archives using digitization technology while keeping the originals in France, even as a first stage, which is a given that amounts to an element of disagreement between the two parties in an issue that involves a lot of sensitivity. This approach is reinforced by what Benjamin Stora later said regarding the belongings of Emir Abdelkader and the leader of the resistance in eastern Algeria, Ahmed Bey.
The matter became clearer when Benjamin Stora spoke about the difficulty of bringing the French parties together in a single position, producing a law that allowed the restitution of the looted Algerian archives. However, the issuance of such a law would fuel the demands of the former French colonies in Africa and other continents of the world to recover their archives, which would open the gates of hell on Paris.
“While waiting for this law to be passed, all the French political parties must agree, which is far from being the case, on the restitution of property – not just for Algeria, you know, behind Algeria, there is the problem of restitution for the whole of Africa, that is very important – so while waiting for an agreement from all political groups, we can still agree and make proposals to the heads of state for restitution, as indicated in the agreement that I signed personally and which concerns, for example, the baton of command of the Emir Abdelkader and his Koran, etc. So we can still agree on that”, Benjamin Stora added.
Until now, the mixed commission has not managed to study the most heated and sensitive files, which are those that occurred in the twentieth century, such as the crimes of May 8, 1945, in which the French occupation army killed at least 45.000 unarmed Algerians (civilians), while they were demonstrating peacefully to demand independence, as Europe celebrated the end of World War II with Germany surrendering on that day.
Algerians were protesting against the scorched earth policy during the liberation revolution, and the nuclear tests in the south of the country, which poisoned the fauna and flora and are still killing Algerians to this day. The French authorities also did not compensate even a single victim, despite their enactment of the “Morin” law in 2010, which was allocated to compensate victims of these nuclear tests.
