The European Court of Human Rights condemns France for its reception of harkis “not compatible with respect for human dignity”

The State was also ordered to pay more than 19,500 euros to the four applicants, from the same family, in proportion to their time spent in the Bias camp in Lot-et-Garonne.

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned France, Thursday April 4, for the living conditions “not compatible with respect for human dignity” harkis in the reception camps where they spent years after their arrival from Algeria in the 1960s and 1970s. The harkis are auxiliaries of Algerian origin who fought alongside the French army during the French war Algeria (1954-1962).

The five applicants are French nationals born between 1957 and 1969, children of harkis. Four of them arrived in France at the time of Algerian independence in 1962 or were born in France in the following years. They lived in reception camps for harkis, mainly that of Bias, in Lot-et-Garonne, until 1975.

They filed various appeals concerning their living conditions, notably pointing out their confinement, the opening of their mail by the camp administration, the reallocation of social benefits due to their family to camp expenses and their education in an internal school. to the structure, outside the common law education system.

Compensation deemed insufficient

The European Court of Human Rights considers that France violated the ban on subjecting its nationals to inhuman or degrading treatment of the applicants, and their right to respect for private life and correspondence. In this respect, it considers that the amounts of compensation awarded by the French domestic courts were insufficient.

The French administrative courts have already considered that the State is liable for fault and France has already paid them 15,000 euros in compensation for the material and moral damage suffered. But the ECHR, although “aware of the difficulty of quantifying the damages suffered by the applicants”, “considers that the amounts awarded (…) do not constitute adequate and sufficient compensation”.

This therefore orders France to pay more than 19,500 euros to the four applicants, from the same family, in proportion to their time spent in the Bias camp. The fifth applicant, whose father was executed in 1957 by the Algerian National Liberation Front, and who joined France in 1980, did not, however, win his case.