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Algerian War: France Further Eases Access to Its Archives

The new decree, published on Sunday and dated August 25, 2023, removes the exclusion of consultation for files involving a minor

France will further ease access to its archives on the Algerian war, by authorizing the consultation of files involving minors, indicates a decree published on Sunday in the Official Journal, a gesture demanded by historians and families.

In December 2021, after announcements by Emmanuel Macron in March 2021, France had opened, fifteen years ahead of the legal deadline, its judicial archives related to the war for the period between November 1, 1954, and November 31 December 1966.ย 

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In theory, archives in general are subject to the heritage code law of 2008, which stipulates that โ€œpublic archive documents are in principle freely accessible to anyone who requests itโ€. This regulation also specifies that documents marked โ€œsecretโ€ may be consulted after a certain period. It is generally 50 years for military archives.

But since 2011, freedom of access to archives (of the Algerian war more particularly) has been called into question by an interministerial circular (IGI 1300) issued by the General Secretariat for Defense and National Security (SGDSN, dependent of the Prime Ministry) which subordinates the communication of documents prior to 1970 bearing a secret stamp to the very scrupulous declassification procedure.

In practice, archivists had to, before communicating archives, in certain cases request authorization from the issuing entity and affix regulatory marking to each document, sometimes by hand.

โ€œBureaucratic managementโ€

On Macron’s instructions, declassification is now done in cardboard but in practice, access to these documents remains “still as difficult” for families and researchers, had regretted in a column in Le Monde the historian Marc Andrรฉ in November 2022.

One of the main obstacles was the exclusion of cases involving minors โ€“ those under 21, due to the legislation at the time โ€“ still subject to the 100-year classification period. Because of this limitation, coupled with several others, โ€œthe majority of files are closedโ€, noted the historian. 

This bureaucratic management ignores the reality of a war waged by young people. This is true both in Algerian immigration to France and in the maquis, the urban networks and the prisons where the separatists, their supporters, the refractory, and the conscripts were for many of them around 20 years old when they joined.ย 

โ€œSufficiently major at the time to have his head cut off, he is now sufficiently minor to see his file subtracted from the general exemptionโ€, was indignant Marc Andrรฉ, whose criticisms were taken up by the Algerian media.

The new decree, published on Sunday and dated August 25, 2023, removes the exclusion of consultation for files involving a minor. 

On the other hand, those whose communication “infringes the privacy of people’s sexual life” or “the security of named or easily identifiable persons involved in intelligence activities” remain classified. 

Which, underlined by Marc Andrรฉ, also closes many files.

This new relaxation is part of the policy of appeasement decided by Emmanuel Macron during his first five-year term, after the recommendations of the report by Benjamin Stora on the memorial conflict between Algeria and France over the colonial past.

The report notably recommended activating a joint working group on the archives, set up in 2013 following President Hollande’s visit in 2012, to take stock of the inventory of the archives taken by France and left by France in Algeria.

โ€œBased on this inventory work, some [original] archives would be recovered by Algeria. Those left in Algeria can be consulted by French and Algerian researchers,โ€ the report advocated, suggesting that the โ€œsteering committeeโ€ could propose the creation of an initial archive common to both countries, freely accessible.

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