# Differential legacies of the violence of war and exile among siblings. The case of the harkis in France after the Algerian war.

Raphaëlle Branche

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Raphaëlle Branche. Differential legacies of the violence of war and exile among siblings. The case of the harkis in France after the Algerian war.. Legacies of violence, Society for the History of War, Nov 2024, Nicosia- Cyprus, Cyprus. halshs-05296328

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Submitted on 3 Oct 2025

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# Talking about difficult pasts: family and identity after violence in Argentina, Britain and France

## Differential legacies of the violence of war and exile among siblings. The case of the harkis in France after the Algerian war.

### Mohand Saïd : expulsion as a legacy

During its last war of decolonization in Algeria, France used over 100,000 native auxiliaries to fight. At the end of the war, some of them, feeling in mortal danger, chose to come to France - despite France's reluctance to receive them. This exile was often a family exile. It involved approximatively 80,000 people. Half of them had to live in places of relegation such as camps or remote hamlets where the men were hired as farm laborers for logging activities under the supervision of a postcolonial administration.

The difficult past I will consider in this paper is not so much the violence committed by a member of the family (here the father who was a harki and who did committed violence when he was a commando) but war in itself and the consequences it had for the family.

I will focus on these families who migrated to France after the war. They became French citizens yet were submitted to discriminatory policies for years or even decades.

My purpose in this still ongoing research is to focus on an often-blind spot in family history research: siblings' relationships and their role in the construction of identities. Combining questions of gender and age, as well as place of birth or the number of years spent in areas of relegation, and questioning the role of differentiated assignments within siblings, I would like to shed light on the ways in which the violence experienced by parents, and then possibly by the children, has durably shaped the social identities of individuals and the way they have formed families over time.

Working with siblings enables me, on the one hand, to document the role of siblings relationship in the construction of identity (Individual identity as family identity) and, on the other hand, to document the differences within the same family. In so doing, my intention is to share a more complex view on the issue of legacies of violence.

The issue of relegation and the mistreatments these families suffered remains a very sensitive issue in France. It is particularly complicated to carry out oral history in these environments when you are not part of the group. But the difficulty becomes almost impossibility when you want to work on families and not individuals. That was my first intention and still is!

For the panel, I'd just like to add that I conducted a large research, also based on oral history with families, on former French conscripts. I'd be happy to add this research to the discussion.

To go back to the former harkis : to find a group of siblings willing to talk to me was like looking for a needle in a haystack. The families often had more than five or six children. This characteristic makes the issue of legacies particularly interesting to analyze through the sibling's filter. But, as a flipside, it makes it all the more difficult to have all the children agreeing to be part of the project.
For today, my paper will focus on an in-depth analysis of one group of siblings. With them, I was able to work on the differentiated effects of the father's definitive exile on his children.

I met the siblings a year ago. I met them several times, most of the time in their homes. I did interview them either individually or collectively. They knew of my research. They knew I was looking for elements to document their childhood as siblings.

What struck me when I decided to dig deeper into the Bouzidi siblings' history is how much the place within the siblings had a huge impact on their destiny, from childhood until today.

This issue of place has also to deal with the issue of legacies of war and exile. My proposal today will only focus on one child, related to his siblings and his elders. By narrowing the scope, I intend to question issues as gender, place of birth, personal experience of the war violence but also identity between self-performance and collective construction – the family being one of the “social frameworks of memory” (Halbwachs) as well as a basic frame of experience.

Here is the Bouzidi family today : seven children alive. All born between 1959 and 1970. Their father was a harki in the French army for three years between 1958 and 1961. He then settled as a farmer with his wife and boy, living near his parents in Kabylia – a mountainous region in the Northern part of the country. After the independence of Algeria, former harkis were threatened or even killed in the region. Mohamed decided to flee in France as many others did before. He was arrested and detained in Algerian prisons for months before his release thanks to the ICRC. One month later, he managed to find protection in France with his wife and now two kids. I will share with you today the story of the little boy, Mohand Saïd.

I will show how the boy had many legacies to deal with : legacies of war, legacies of violence but also legacies of hopes for a better life when his parents decided to flee Algeria for France after the war. The focus of too many, he had to fight to express his own aspirations, without really succeeding: he stays, until today, as an heir without heritage or, more accurately, his heritage is one of expulsion.

## The eldest boy inherits the surname ... and first name

As well as family names, first names clearly reflect issues of parentage and identity. Mohand Said is named after his father's older brother. He had joined the maquis and was a convinced nationalist, but was dead when the boy was born. Mohamed, his younger brother, married Fatima and enlisted as a harki in 1958. In the spring of 1961, he left the army and became a farmer again. After the ceasefire, Fatima and Mohamed had another child, but when Louiza was born, her father was imprisoned. Mohamed was arrested by the Algerian authorities like so many other former harkis. He went from camp to prison. On his release, he applied for asylum at the Zeralda refugee centre (French Armed Forces in Algeria). He then showed on his chest the marks of whippings received during torture sessions in Algerian prisons.

Then his older sister, Kamir, whose husband had died in the maquis, intervened. She arranged for Fatima and her two children to leave on the sly. She took them to the boat by taxi at the end of August 1963. Fatima's account of that moment to her children is marked by crying and fear on the boat, which took her away from her family, who were opposed to the departure and to this prolonged alliance with the man who was now an outcast.
In October, the couple applied for French nationality, leaving Algeria behind them. The two children and their parents were relegated to a life of neglect: first at the Rivesaltes camp, then in a forest hamlet where a little girl dies at birth. Another daughter was given the name of the dead girl. Four more children were born between 1966 and 1970 when the family lived in a small council block built for people repatriated from Algeria.

Detention and forced migration deprived Mohamed from witnessing the last moments of his mother's life. She died a very young age, 45, in 1963. The son passed on to his children the idea that she had « died of grief ». Later, exile also prevented him from attending his father's funeral : a former harki, he could not return to Algeria.

Mohamed helped to pass on his two eldest children a special bond with Algeria. This was particularly embodied by Mohamed's paternal lineage and, for Mohand Saïd in particular, his grand-father, Arezki. Mohamed always told the boy that he had been circumcised raw by this grand-father. The special relationship differentiated him from all the other sons: he was the only one who knew Arezki and Arezki made him symbolically enter the realm of masculinity. Mohamed was happy to mention to Louiza that his father kept a picture of her and MS under his beret. In the family album today, there is a picture of Arezki and his Algerian grand-children: this is the picture that Mohamed never had of his own children with his father.

Mohand Saïd and Louiza are the only ones to have known Algeria, and the only ones to have lived in the places of relegation recognised by the state in its reparation policies. MS's first memory is associated with a photo taken in front of the forest hamlet: the little boy is standing on his father's moped, which is holding him. He is standing with other former Harkis with the means of transport that enabled them to go to work. It's a happy memory, but largely provoked by photography.

While the two eldest children are thus linked by the conditions of exile until the last law of 2022, when they are the only ones to seek reparation, parental expectations, and in particular paternal expectations, are quite distinct. They relate to gender differences, but also to forms of endorsement by the eldest of the father's plans.

## The eldest boy, at the centre of paternal projections and staged violence

Mohamed was 24 when he arrived in France. Algeria was his past ; France was his future. He tells his children: "even if Algeria was across the street, I wouldn't go there". This means strong incentives for all children to succeed at school. But it also means behavioural choices: speaking only French to your children, eating pork and drinking alcohol. The children are encouraged by their parents, and in particular their father, to be French. Explicitly, he also passes on two imperatives: "at 18, you give your blood and you vote". That said, the inculcations are also made in a differentiated manner according to gender.

All the boys were encouraged to take up judo and then join the army, and they all signed up at the age of 18. Mohand Saïd was then a national-level sportsman, runner-up in the junior judo team. But in his teens, he also became a drug addict, violent and recalcitrant at school. As his father had enrolled him in judo, he took him to an army recruitment office at the age of 18. Mohand Saïd chose the parachutists. As soon as he joined up, he was spotted for his feisty nature. He went out on the town with other red berets who practiced racist beatings; he observed this anti-Maghrebin racism in the accounts of his elders as well as in their practices. He ended
up having to leave the army after 30 days of prison. When he got out, his violence landed him again in prison. Once again, his father tried to get him to do what he had done: he got him into the factory where he worked. But after a fight in a bar, MS was arrested - the police came to fetch him as he left the factory. This arrest in plain sight was a terrible humiliation for the father who liked to tell his children "you have to leave your place clean". MS's violence also extended to his brothers and sisters and their mother, whom he threatened in order to get money. His father reacted radically when he caught him: he strangled him and almost killed him.

The father's relationship with his elder son is marked by intensity from the start. MS is very clearly set apart: brought up by his father, close to his father.

Imitation is desired. The child lifted onto his father's moped when he was 4 or 5 received an electric Solex as a Christmas present when he was about ten (the Solex was normally driven from the age of 14). He knew that he had been spoilt and that his gift had set him apart not only from his siblings but also from the other children in the neighbourhood.

Their father invests a lot in school. Only the eldest seems to like school: Mohand Saïd is ranked third in the primary school-leaving examination, behind two teachers' sons. His father is very proud. But the pre-adolescent failed at high school and turned to drugs and delinquency, all the while taking to the sports field. The father's disappointment resulted in repeated punishments. Above all, MS is regularly subjected to violence by their father. This violence is public and shared: it involves humiliation and separates him from his siblings. What are the gestures of violence? His father ties him up for hours on end in the basement of the building, his arms hanging from a pipe. "All the kids in the neighbourhood came to see me. I used to cry. He was very strict with me, Dad, very strict".

This public humiliation is made even worse within the family. While violence from the father is commonplace, with belts being beaten, for example, in the event of a bad mark, MS receives special treatment. In a scene that seems to have been traumatic for those who told me about it, the father forced the siblings to hit the offending son with a belt. All of them, right up to the present day, are uncomfortable with this memory, which may also reflect ambivalent feelings towards their brother. They all identify this period as the turning point for the whole family, and for each of them in particular.

The eldest's special place made him the protector of his younger brothers and sisters. Mohand Saïd took on this role in part. But he describes being the eldest as a "burden" because "you had to set an example". He was also a boy and had many privileges that the other children had to accept. His life was linked to theirs in a particularly strong way, as Louiza puts it: "Everything was going very well until he reached adolescence, when his life changed and so did ours". At that point, she took on the responsibility of the eldest child in two ways: as the eldest sister and as a substitute for the failed son.

The violence inflicted on MS, the special treatment he has received, is commensurate with the transgression of his disobedience, his deviation from the rules set by his father.

But here again he is the heir. We remember that Mohamed arrived at the refugee camp with a shirt bearing the marks of the torture he had endured. The shirt is mentioned in the archive and MS told us about it. Here is what he recounts: "My father kept his military shirt for more than ten or fifteen years, which was engraved with traces of the lashes he received in prison during his arrest in the war. So from
time to time, he'd take out his shirt and say, 'Look, look how I've been whipped, how I've been...' That's it, he made me see evil ... "

**The eldest is the one who inherits... the loss**

Mohamed was the only son of the family. He was to be the first to inherit the land. But he left Algeria, never to return. When his father died, he sent his two eldest children, who had been born in Algeria, to represent him in the village. The question of inheritance had undoubtedly arised, as Mohamed and the son of his dead older brother, MS, were the heirs to this land. In the summer of 1976, Mohand Saïd was 16 and Louiza 13.5. Their stories follow the lines of the gender but also embrace their shared identity as children of Harkis in the eyes of the Algerians. At the airport, they had to endure some hassles, but the arrival in the village was much more memorable. There, most of the inhabitants were linked by common ancestors. Their family name itself refers to the name of the village. Upon their arrival, the children would form a circle around them, singing and throwing stones: "Children of traitors, children of traitors".

Mohamed and his kids never had the opportunity to really inherit the land. Until today, the lost land is an issue for MS. The other siblings showed no interest. But MS as Louiza did explore the relationship to Algeria more than the others.

It is striking to note that only the two eldest went so far as to marry an Algerian at a later date. In both cases, the unions ended quickly and badly (Louiza in 2004 and MS in 2018, less than 2 years in both cases), leaving them with the bitter taste of having been used for the visa and the possibility to live in France.

For MS, lost land is an issue that links the two generations together. In his interview, the theme of declassification often comes up. His parents came from well-off families who had land: they lost it. Now he and his siblings should have land and they cannot access it. Yet, MS is dreaming of moving to Algeria for his retirement. During our interview, a call from a cousin on vacation in Kabylia enabled him to show me the village - "his village"- in facetime, the house but also the fountain, which was a recurring feature of his parents' stories about the village.

His father's concern not to be downgraded and to keep on being different from the others, was deeply rooted. He stood out from the other former Harkis in their town: he had been to school. Unlike the other former harkis, he didn't leave the social housing for a nearby detached house. He wanted to leave the neighborhood and was given a home in another social housing much closer to the town centre. MS is proud to say that "there were no foreigners" there. The other children were also aware of the social advancement that this signified: leaving the neighbourhood and moving away from people of North African origin.

But the downgrading was there and, for MS, for example, the imposed use of the formal form "vous" he always impose upon his children was a mimicry of the upper classes. MS also bears the mark of this downgrading: he insists on the fact that their village bears their name, on the land they own or on the excellent careers of some of his cousins or uncles in Algeria. He punctuates our conversation with names and references to family ties that he feels are important.

The only time during the interview that he told me that he inherited something from his father was to describe his "addiction" to gambling, which was an issue his siblings had warned me of. His father used to make him play "when I was very small, he used to give me games at PMU, with so much money". Until today, MS has debts. And the interview ended on another money story. Talking about the cousin he had married and divorced, he insisted on mentioning that he paid for her plan ticket back
to Kabylia. Then, he explained to me who she was: she was Kamir's granddaughter. And he added :

"Kamir, she had paid for Dad's taxi so that he could leave, so her granddaughter, Dad's grandniece, so somewhere along the line I say to myself, 'if I marry her I'll be paying Dad's debt, Dad doesn't owe anyone anything anymore'".

Until today, the issue of land in Algeria is still pending. Indeed, Mohamed's nephew is dead with no children leading Mohamed's children to imagine that something might come back to them.

On the contrary, in France, the family is grounded. Fatima and Mohamed are buried in France. Their grave mentions "Family Bouzidi". A 300 m2 house and a garden was the main material legacy. In 1981, Mohamed ended up buying it on the outskirts of the town where the factory where he worked was located. Today, all the children call it "the family home". After the death of his wife, Mohamed announced his wish to sell it.

There comes the youngest son of the family: Hocine.

His sister Aldja describes him as "a man who never let his parents down". He decided to buy the house although he had limited means. He had been a career soldier, as their father had wished, in the same troops where his father had served. He enjoyed travelling far and wide. Yet he decided to return to the village and take over the house.

Then, very suddenly, their father died and Hocine takes on everything: the house and his father's place. In the village, Aldja notes that he knows everyone, just like their father did. Over the years, he worked on this huge house, set up a tourist lodge and eventually moved in for good. He regularly receives his brothers and sisters here, as well as anyone who happens to drop by. The eldest, on the other hand, is kept at a distance by all the others, who are angry with him. He's the only one who lives much further away: hundreds of kilometres.

Hocine and Louiza have taken on the role of bearers of the family memory and taken on the identity of children of harki. In fact, it was Hocine who pushed his siblings to reply to me and who welcomed me to the family home for a shared couscous prepared by Louiza. When he agreed to the idea of a group interview, he said "I'm talking to all my brothers and sisters". Marginalised MS welcomed me into his home with a couscous he had bought. When asked about talking to his brothers and sisters, he only said "with pleasure".

So when, after several decades, all the children finally gather around the family home in France, where their parents are also buried, MS remains apart. For the others, he embodies failure, the father's failed project. He was ejected from the family and, above all, from siblings. After the death of the parents, it was important that the family could continue to be called a model family in the village. As a gendarme (sort of rural military police) who spent his entire career there told me: in the bourg, there are two types of Harki family: those who have gone wrong and those like the Bouzidi family. But when the gendarme arrived in the village, MS had already settled elsewhere. He was hardly part of the family anymore. Indeed, Mohamed had omitted him from his story.

On the contrary, the former harki had formed a very close relationship with the gendarme, who was born the same year as Mohand Saïd. He always welcomed him with a military salute. It was he who, despite being forbidden by his superiors, came in uniform to Mohamed's funeral.
Siblings relationships are complex and evolve all lifelong. By this example of
the Bouzidi family, centred on the eldest boy, I had shown how individual identity and
family identity are linked for each kid in the family and for the parents. The rank in the
siblings as the gender are huge issues for the parents; they connected them with the
children but although with their own childhood. When war and exile are combined
with these family issues, they made them even clearer.

Here the only boy was supposed to embody everything the father had left in
Algeria and particularly school and social status. On social scene, as on stage, the
father and the son played roles history has largely written for them. As the eldest, MS
was the privileged son. But once he deceived his father, he had to pay for the
deception and the decline. By mistreating his son, the traumatized father expressed
his own PTSD. At the end, his legacy is full of violent history: the first name of the
dead eldest brother, the debts and violence itself, committed or suffered. The other
kids have just to admit it without really knowing the whereabouts.