A large part of the archives of the colonial period is in France, which has always put forward “false pretexts” for not delivering them, argues the director of the Algerian archives, Abdelmadjid Chikhi.
Algeria returns to the charge on the subject of the archives of the colonial period. Through the voice of the director of the Algerian archives, Abdelmadjid Chikhi, she asks France to give her “all” of the archives of the period 1830-1962 concerning her.
Chikhi was commissioned in July by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to work on the memory of colonization and the Algerian War, together with French historian Benjamin Stora. It is in this context that he “claims all of his archives, a large part of which is in France, which has always put forward false pretexts, such as for example the declassification of a number of archives that have been assembled for several decades” , as he explained on Monday, quoted by the official APS agency.
France highlights its sovereignty
“The Algerian side’s demands are clear and do not require consultation,” said the director of the national archives, adding that “the question is immutable because the past cannot be erased or forgotten”. “We are working to make it part of peaceful and balanced relations” to be built between the two countries, he added, during a press conference at the headquarters of public radio in Algiers.
Abdelmadjid Chikhi also criticized French legislation on public archives, stating that they are “inalienable and imprescriptible”, saying that this file “subject to negotiations, is not yet closed”. France returned to Algeria part of the archives it kept, but it kept the part concerning colonial history and which, according to it, falls under the sovereignty of the French state.
Access to the archives of the colonization, moved to France after the independence of Algeria in 1962, is one of the main demands of the Algerian veterans.
