Algerian War: the painful memory of the descendants

60 years later, the scars of the Algerian war are struggling to heal. Descendants of Algerian fighters, pied-noirs or sons of harkis, this story is etched in their memory. Marie Pierre Dimekborn in Algiers (Algeria)was 17 when she had to leave the country. All he has left of this life is a photo, taken the day he left. She thought she would come back quickly, and took “really the bare minimum”. “Arrived in France, we understood that we would not go back there again”, she says.

Like her, after the war about a million French people were repatriated from Algeria. Hundreds of thousands of Algerians engaged in the French army, considered traitors at the time of independence, massively executed. Only 80,000 managed to reach France, where they were housed in makeshift barracks. “The government of the day abandoned the harkis. Already by disarming them, then by (…) parking them in transit camps”comments Ali Amranson of harki.

In Kamel’s family Chelghafmany took up arms for the independence of their country. Several of his relatives were killed by the French army, including his uncle, found in a mass grave.