The harkis demand “reparation” from the SNCF and Sonacotra for “unworthy conditions of reception”

2023-09-25 12:01:03
The Secretary of State for Veterans and Memory, Patricia Miralles, visits the Rivesaltes camp (Pyrénées-Orientales), September 30, 2022. JC MILHET / JC MILHET

It’s a request he never imagined he’d write. Wednesday September 20, Mohamed Djafour, president of the Générations harkis association – these fighters engaged in the French army, abandoned by the State, with their families, following the end of the Algerian war (1954-1962) – sent two registered letters: one addressed to Jean-Pierre Farandou, CEO of SNCF, and the other to Eric Lombard, general director of Caisse des Dépôts.

In these missives that The world was able to consult, this son of Harkis suggests to these two big bosses to “establish a national fund for compensation of victims [de cette tragédie] (…) in order to prevent mass litigation ». Why ? How did he come to formulate this astonishing proposition? And why target only these two public institutions? To understand the journey, we have to go back.

It all begins on May 15: that day, the independent national commission for the recognition and reparation of harm suffered by the harkis (CNIH) submits its activity report to the Prime Minister, Elisabeth Borne. This long document takes stock of a first year of action since the promulgation of the law of February 23, 2022, translation into law of the speech given at the Elysée by Emmanuel Macron, on September 20, 2021, in which he had requested « pardon » to harkis and admitted “an abandonment of the French Republic”.

A census with historians

This law which recognizes “unworthy conditions of reception” reserved for the 90,000 harkis and their families who fled Algeria, plans to compensate only those who passed through 89 identified structures (forestry camps or hamlets) from 1962 to 1975 and managed by the administration. The commission validates, or not, the files. To date, she has approved 9,200 out of the 10,000 examined (31,200 applications filed), with the average compensation amounting to 8,000 euros. This repair is judged, moreover, « ridicule » by representatives of the harkis : 2 000 euros for three months living in a camp, 3,000 for a year, then 1,000 euros for each additional year.

Also read the summary: Article reserved for our subscribers For the harkis, a commission which still does not repair

In his activity report, a passage of several dozen pages revealed an unsuspected aspect in the drama reserved for these soldiers upon their arrival in France. “We were amazed”, confides Mohamed Djafour. In chapter IV, the CNIH proposes to the government – ​​which has accepted – to expand the list of sites that can give rise to compensation by including 45 new places. This solution is a way of satisfying the harkis and their descendants who felt excluded from the compensation system and thus settling the “main source of dissatisfaction”, as the committee recognizes. “Whether for repairs or for determining sites, we have a benevolent approach but which still wants to be rigorous to be credible, not open to attack”, assured Jean-Marie Bockel, president of the CNIH during a hearing at the National Assembly on June 21. Up to 14,000 additional people could be affected by this enlargement. “It’s not marginal”added M. Bockel.

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