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 Le Monde was able to consult, this son of harkis suggests to these two big bosses to “set up a national fund to compensate the victims [of this tragedy] (…) in order to prevent mass litigation”. Why ? How did he come up with this astonishing proposition? And why target only these two public institutions? To understand the journey, we have to go back.
It all starts 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 asked “ pardon” to the harkis and admitted “an abandonment of the French Republic”.
A census with historians
This law, which recognizes “the 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) 1962 to 1975 and managed by the administration. The commission validates, or not, the files. To date, it has approved 9,200 out of the 10,000 examined (31,200 applications filed), with the average compensation amounting to 8,000 euros. This compensation is considered, moreover, “ridiculous” by the representatives of the harkis: 2,000 euros for three months lived in a camp, 3,000 for one year, then 1,000 euros for each additional year.
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 resolving the “main source of dissatisfaction”, as the commission recognizes. “Whether it is for repairs or for determining sites, we have a benevolent outlook 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 expansion. “It’s not marginal,” Bockel added.
This census was carried out with the historians of the commission who “provided in-depth historical expertise work for each of the places on this list based on national, departmental and municipal archives”, we can read in the report. Among these new sites, some were “managed” by two public companies which had then signed an agreement with the State to house harkis with their families. Thus, three places were administered by SNCF and Sonacotra (Algerian workers’ hostels), which today became Adoma, a subsidiary of the Caisse des Dépôts; twelve others only by Sonacotra. “We discovered this story that we didn’t know,” assures Mr. Djafour.
“It’s not in dispute.”
The commission describes, without pinching, in detail, sometimes accompanied by photos and plans, atrocious living conditions in these places run by these two institutions. For example, she mentions the 24 “Sonacotra-SNCF housing units” built in 1963 in Gevrey-Chambertin (Côte-d’Or) which were precarious. She mentions the departmental returnee service which had sent, on November 17, 1964, to the prefect directing the reception and reclassification service for French people from Indochina and French Muslims a report “to denounce the “inopportune if not unfair” situation imposed on harkis residing in this city.” Or again, she recounts the case of auxiliary workers who in Dreux (Eure-et-Loir), had lived “in 15 construction huts which the director [of Sonacotra] agreed (…) that they “do not constitute not real accommodation.” The list of 45 locations, mentioning SNCF and Sonacotra, was published on September 23, 2023 in the Official Journal.
For Mohamed Djafour, “the State admitted that it was not the only one responsible for our tragedy and named two public companies which had been at fault”. He adds, still surprised: “The facts are proven by the State which provides us with all the evidence. This is not debatable. We therefore decided to take action for compensation. Since the SNCF and the Caisse des Dépôts have not contested their accusations, we are seizing the opportunity that the State has offered us. » An “action” carried out on the occasion of September 25, the day of the national tribute to the harkis, with letters sent to the bosses of the two companies.
For the commission, “we do not establish any responsibility. The expertise is historical, not legal, they are two distinct subjects,” assures its secretary general Marc Del Grande. During his hearing at the National Assembly, Jean-Marie Bockel nevertheless recognized that “through the 45 sites already added and those that we are going to add, we are still seriously extending the scope of the law”.
Requested by Le Monde, the SNCF and the Caisse des Dépôts were not aware of “this indictment” published by the CNIH in its report. “The SNCF will carefully study this letter and will make its reaction known to the association which received it,” comments the railway company. The Caisse des Dépôts, for its part, has not yet commented. However, if their answers do not satisfy the representatives of the harkis, Mr. Djafour announces that he will take the matter to court.
