Representing the Harki Massacres in France, 1962–2012: A Fight for Recognition

In March of 1962, French and Algerian leaders signed the Evian Accords, ending over 130 years of French colonial presence and an 8-year war of independence.  The Evian Accords stipulated that the Harkis, the Algerians who had fought for the French, would be protected against reprisal violence.  Subsequently, the French Army relieved the Harkis of their weapons and withdrew from Algeria.  In the months that followed, between 30 and 150 thousand Harkis and their families were killed.  Another 20 to 40 thousand escaped to France. This paper examines how Harkis and their descendents in France have portrayed the massacres in their collective memory.  Drawing upon memoirs, films, monuments, and websites, the essay analyzes how the Harkis’ representations of this traumatic event have changed since 1962.  Whereas their early period in France was generally marked by silence, recent French interest in the Algerian War has sparked a resurgence of images, narratives, and commemorative practices among the Harkis, and particularly their descendents, regarding the massacres.  Over the past ten years, children of Harkis have also increasingly sought official French recognition of the massacres as a crime against humanity.  This essay analyzes their efforts and pays particular attention to the ways in which they invoke comparisons to the Holocaust and the Armenian genocide to help construct their argument. Finally, the case of the Harkis provides an opportunity to consider the particular challenges of writing the history of a collective, and traumatic, memory.  The vast discrepancies in casualty estimates attest to the paucity of sources regarding the event.  The first generation’s reluctance to speak extensively about the massacres upon their arrival in France further contributes to this dearth.  This essay engages with the question of how to analyze the second generation’s collective memory of the Harki massacres in the absence of these reference points.