An interdepartmental order published Wednesday, December 23rd at the “Official Journal” opens the French archives “in relation” with the Algerian war with fifteen years in advance on the legal calendar.
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The advance is greeted by most historians working on the subject. An interministerial order published Wednesday, December 23 in the Official Journal opens the French archives “in relation” with the Algerian war (1954-1962) with fifteen years in advance on the legal calendar. While the Heritage Code submits in principle these funds to a period of seventy-five years before their free communication – either a due date in this case to spread between 2029 and 2037 – they will now be accessible without restriction under a so-called “general derogation” procedure. Are concerned “judicial police investigations” and “cases brought before the courts”.
The Minister of Culture, Roselyne Bachelot, who holds the guardianship on the National Archives – excluding those of the Ministries of the Armies and Foreign Affairs – had already announced on 10 December such a gesture, expressly registering in the process Memorial of Emmanuel Macron. The report of the historian Benjamin Stora on the reconciliation of Franco-Algerian briefs, given to the head of state in January, particularly advocated a better access to the archives of this period in order to “go to more truths”. If the impact on the tormented relationship between Algiers and Paris should be limited – the memorial litigation is only a simple piece of a powerful strategic puzzle – the message aims to show public opinions on both sides of the Mediterranean that the French executive takes up his responsibilities.
The joint signature of the decree by the Ministries of Culture, Armies, Foreign Affairs, Interior and Justice underscores the extent of interdepartmental work that accompanied this opening measure. The involvement of the Ministry of the Armies, concerned first, in view of the central role played at the time by military justice, can only confer more weight. “This is an advance that you have to rejoice,” says the historian Sylvie Thenault, a specialist of the Algerian war.
The procedure for “general derogation”, which makes it possible to open fund categories ahead of the legal deadlines for communicability (oscillating between twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five and one hundred years depending on the case), already had already used for multiple occasions for the period of the Second World War. The Algerian war, she had not benefited from the same solicitude in the opening of the archives. “It is symbolically important to treat the Second World War and the Algeria’s independence war,” says M Thenault.
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