AFP journalist Lucie Peytermann received the “General François Meyer” prize for her series of investigations and reports on the makeshift cemeteries of harki children in France, which pushed the authorities to undertake excavations with a view to offer them a dignified burial.
This prize is awarded by the Independent National Commission for Recognition and Reparation of Damage Suffered by the Harkis (CNIH), these French Muslims recruited as auxiliaries of the French army during the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), abandoned by France at the end of the conflict.
Tens of thousands of them and their families fled reprisal massacres in Algeria and were herded into France in “transit and reclassification camps” managed by the French army, with deplorable living conditions. “By carrying out this investigation, I first wanted to raise awareness of this little-known tragedy of Harki children and babies, who died in these unworthy and traumatic camps,” declared Lucie Peytermann while receiving her prize from the president of the CNIH Françoise. Dumas and academician Jean-Marie Rouart, president of the jury. In 2020, an investigation by Lucie Peytermann revealed the existence of a makeshift cemetery on the former camp of Saint-Maurice-l’Ardoise (Gard), which led in March 2023 to excavations carried out by the National Institute for Preventive Archaeological Research (Inrap).
At the end of September, a stele was inaugurated there bearing the name of around thirty Harki children buried there. “The excavations must now finally be carried out at the makeshift cemetery of Rivesaltes (Pyrénées-Orientales), where, according to the statistics that I was able to compile, 101 children died, 86 of whom were less than a year old,” said she emphasized. In the fall of 2023, the government announced the next launch of these excavations.
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