Prisoners in exile: Cannes inaugurated on Saturday an exhibition in memory of the 3,000 to 4,000 Algerians deported to Fort-Royal on Île Sainte-Marguerite, not far from the city, during the conquest of Algeria by the France in the 19th century. “It’s the rediscovery of a history that had been lost for two generations,” explains Christophe Roustan Delatour, the curator of the exhibition.
It was only recently, in the 1970s, that Harki workers from the National Forestry Office (ONF) in charge of a clearing operation had recognized, under the vegetation, Muslim graves, all in the shape of circle bounded by stones on the ground. Succeeding French political prisoners like the famous man in the iron mask or even Protestant pastors, the Algerians detained here between 1841 and 1884 often constituted bargaining chips taken hostage to force opponents of French colonization to surrender. This was the case of the “smala” of Abd-el-Kader, the emir who had united in the 1840s all opponents to colonization. Nearly 500 of his relatives were interned in Cannes until his surrender in 1848.
In the following years followed many opponents to the designs of the colonizers or their families, sometimes accompanied by their servants, all deported to the island arbitrarily, without trial and without knowing the duration of their imprisonment. After 1884, deportation to Cannes was halted in favor of destinations deemed safer to deport them, such as New Caledonia. Among these men, women and children who were detained on the island, sometimes for several years, 274 died on the spot, as evidenced by the presence near the fort of a Muslim cemetery, one of the oldest in France with that of ‘Amboise.
The exhibition of the Musée du Masque de Fer et du Fort-Royal, until October 29, traces, from numerous archival documents, paintings from the time and the first photographs, the daily life of these prisoners on this island a few hundred meters long. During the opening on Saturday were also present members of the collective of associations of harkis of the Alpes-Maritimes. “It’s a case of microhistory which makes it possible to approach, from one place, all of History itself”, notes the historian Anissa Bouayed who, for a year, looked at some fifteen voluminous boxes of archives to establish, in particular, the list of names of the 274 Algerians who died and were buried on the island.
“Through these documents from the French army, with letters from prisoners, reports from doctors or others recounting the escapes, we can understand which social groups we brought here and under what circumstances,” she said. noting the importance, “beyond the historical work”, of being able, for a “question of humanity”, to cite the names of the 274 deceased, via a recording broadcast during the visit.
“It is a project that we initiated five years ago and that we have kept secret until now for obvious reasons of memorial sensitivity”, underlined during the opening David Lisnard, the mayor of Cannes, who projects after this tribute exhibition to highlight the Muslim cemetery of the island, once the agreement of the State services has been obtained. “We have at the same time obtained an agreement in principle from the Algerian authorities to rehabilitate a Christian cemetery in Algeria”, also indicated the elected representative for whom “saying things” remains “the best way to appease them” in the current context of tensions. between France and Algeria.
