ALGIERS- After intense debates, the French Senate voted, Tuesday evening, in first reading, after the National Assembly, a bill to ask “forgiveness” and try to “repair” the damage suffered by the harkis and their families. The text was adopted unanimously by the votes cast (331 votes for, 13 abstentions).
Nearly sixty years after the Algerian War (1954-1962), the bill is intended to be the legislative translation of a speech by Emmanuel Macron, who, on September 20, had asked “forgiveness “to those Algerians who fought alongside the French army, but who were “abandoned” by France.
The text recognizes “the conditions unworthy of reception” reserved for the 90,000 harkis and their families, who fled Algeria after independence. Nearly half of them have been relegated to camps and “foresting hamlets”. “These places were places of banishment, which bruised, traumatized and sometimes killed,” said the minister.
For these, the bill provides for “reparation” of the damage, accompanied with a lump sum taking into account the duration of the stay in these structures. The number of potential beneficiaries is estimated by the government at 50,000, for an overall cost of 302 million euros over approximately six years.
