Algerian state television announced today, Tuesday, that during the first meeting in Algeria of the Algerian-French Memory Committee regarding the colonial period, an agreement was reached on the recovery of properties belonging to Prince Abdul Qadir and on the completion of a "chronology of colonial crimes" during the 19th century. The meeting took place on Wednesday and Thursday in Constantine, eastern Algeria, the birthplace of historian Benjamin Stora, who heads the committee from the French side.
In the section on "stolen properties," Algerian television confirmed that "the committee members agreed to recover all properties symbolizing the state's sovereignty belonging to Prince Abdul Qadir, resistance leaders, and the remaining skulls, and to continue identifying remains dating from the 19th century." Prince Abdul Qadir ibn Muhyi al-Din (1808-1883) is considered by Algerians to be the founder of the modern state and a hero of the resistance against French colonization.
France had previously handed over to Algeria in 2020 the remains of 24 resistance fighters who were killed at the beginning of the French colonization of Algeria, which lasted 132 years from 1830 to 1962. However, Algeria continues to demand the return of "skulls present in museums" for reburial.
Regarding archival files, the source confirmed that "an agreement was reached to deliver 2 million digitized documents specific to the colonial period," in addition to "29 rolls and 13 registers, which constitute 5 linear meters of remaining archives from the Ottoman period," that is, from the beginning of the 16th century until the French colonization.
In the academic field, committee members agreed to "continue compiling a joint bibliography of research and printed and manuscript sources on the 19th century, and to implement a program for scientific exchange and cooperation that includes Algerian and French student and research missions to examine the archives."
The formation of the committee was announced during Macron's visit and his meeting with his Algerian counterpart, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, in August 2022, with its mission being "to jointly consider that historical period" from the beginning of colonization to the end of the war of independence. The committee includes five historians from the Algerian side: Lahssen Zghidi, Mohammed Goursou, Jamal Yahiaoui, Abdelaziz Filali, and Idir Hachi. From the French side, it includes historian Benjamin Stora, along with historians Florence Odonevitz, Jacques Frémeaux, Jean-Jacques Guordy, and Tramour Kimounor. The joint committee had previously held two meetings, the first via video in April and the second in Paris in June.
