Legal Setting and Political Mobilization
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For a few years, a clear evolution can be observed in the way the former «harkis» – meaning members of the indigenous population (Muslim by religion and either Arabic- or Berber-speaking) who joined the French army as auxiliary soldiers at the time of the Algerian War of Independence and found safety only at the price of exile in France afterwards – and their children mobilize themselves in the «public sphere», evolution marked by the ’judiciarization’ of their claims. Indeed, mainly since the summer 2001, associative actors multiplied legal actions. These actions (action for defamation, «apologie de crime de guerre» or «crime against humanity and complicity»), with the difference of the traditional contentious procedures launched to settle disagreements between private individuals, have a clearly claiming optics, which breaks with the normal course of justice: the idea is not only to make justice but also, and perhaps especially, to foster memory. The court is used here as a political and media forum, and what is expressed there does not have vocation to remain confined, quite to the contrary. These actions occur in a context where, beyond this specific example, it is the whole of memory conflicts relating to the Algerian war of Independence which seek in this «legal forum» a new outlet. This concomitance clearly testifies that the recourse to the legal third party seems from now on a strong method of political management and uses of the memory of the Algerian war of Independence. But what does this sudden and overall request for legal institution intermediation mean more than forty years after the conclusion of the ceasefire agreements? Is it possible to speak of an «abuse» of justice in this respect?
Réseaux sociaux