There European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) condemned, Thursday April 4, France for the living conditions “not compatible with respect for human dignity” harkis in the reception camps where they spent years after their return from Algeria in the 1960s and 1970s.
The five applicants are French nationals born between 1957 and 1969, children of harkis, auxiliaries of Algerian origin who fought alongside the French army during the Algerian war (1954-1962). 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 in this camp, pointing in particular to 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 schooling. in a school internal to the structure, outside the ordinary education system.
More than 19,500 euros to the four applicants
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. However, the ECHR, although “aware of the difficulty of quantifying the damages suffered by the applicants”, “considers that the amounts awarded by the domestic courts in this case do not constitute adequate and sufficient compensation to redress the violations noted”.
Regarding inhuman and degrading treatment, “the sums awarded to the applicants are modest compared to what the court generally awards in cases relating to unworthy conditions of detention”. “It concludes that these sums did not cover the damages linked to the other violations of the Convention [européenne des droits de l’homme] »considers the European Court.
This thus 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.