France Approves Reparation Bill for Algeria’s Harkis

Lawmakers at French parliament on Tuesday. (AFP)
Lawmakers at French parliament on Tuesday. (AFP)
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France Approves Reparation Bill for Algeria’s Harkis

Lawmakers at French parliament on Tuesday. (AFP)
Lawmakers at French parliament on Tuesday. (AFP)

Sixty years after the end of the Algerian War, the French parliament adopted on Tuesday a bill to ask reparation to the Harkis, allowing their descendants to receive compensation for the way they were treated at the end of the war in 1962.

The Harkis were the Algerian Muslims who fought on the side of the French during the war of independence, but afterwards were left to fend for themselves.

The new French bill fulfills a commitment by President Emmanuel Macron last September, when he asked reparation to Algerians who were abandoned by France after the signing of the Evian Accords on March 18, 1962.

The Algerian War left nearly 500,000 dead, and its wounds are still open.

Tuesday’s move by the French deputies and senators comes to finalize the approval of the bill, which was adopted last week by the National Assembly.

"The bill is a recognition from the nation of the deep scar and the French tragedy of this dark page in our history," Geneviève Darrieussecq, French Minister Delegate to the Minister of the Armed Forces, in charge of Remembrance and Veterans.

The text also recognizes France’s "inadequate" hosting of the 90,000 Harkis and their families who fled Algeria after independence.

Half of them were placed in camps in France, often with their families, in degrading and traumatizing conditions.

The bill proposes compensations for these families, ranging from 2,000 to 15,000 euros.

The government estimates that 50,000 Harkis families will benefit from the bill, with an estimated cost of 310 million euros, paid over approximately six years.

Up to 200,000 Harkis – the name comes the Arabic word for "movement" given to the mobile units in which they served – fought for the French colonial power during the 1954-62 war with Algeria’s National Liberation Front.

Since 2003, France holds a national day to honor the Harkis, a day which is observed each year on the 25th of September.



Suspected US Strikes Overnight in Yemen Kill at Least 3 People

A Houthi security officer stands over the debris of a destroyed building reportedly hit by US airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo)
A Houthi security officer stands over the debris of a destroyed building reportedly hit by US airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo)
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Suspected US Strikes Overnight in Yemen Kill at Least 3 People

A Houthi security officer stands over the debris of a destroyed building reportedly hit by US airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo)
A Houthi security officer stands over the debris of a destroyed building reportedly hit by US airstrikes in Sanaa, Yemen, Monday, April 7, 2025. (AP Photo)

Suspected US airstrikes in Yemen overnight into Thursday killed at least three people, while the death toll in an earlier attack rose to 13 dead, the Iran-backed Houthi group said. The group meanwhile aired footage they said showed the debris left after shooting down yet another American MQ-9 Reaper drone.
The 13 killed in strikes Tuesday night around Hodeida's al-Hawak district made it one of the deadliest single incidents in the ongoing American campaign, the Houthis said. Another 15 people were wounded. The group described the majority of those killed as women and children, without providing a breakdown.
The area is home to the city's airport, which the Houthis have used in the past to target shipping in the Red Sea.
Since its start, the intense campaign of US airstrikes targeting the group over the attacks on shipping in Mideast waters — related to the Israel-Hamas war — has killed over 100 people, according to casualty figures released Wednesday by the Houthis.
Footage aired by the group’s al-Masirah satellite news channel showed chaotic scenes of people carrying wounded to waiting ambulances and rescuers searching by the light of their mobile phones. The target appeared in the footage to be a home in a residential neighborhood, likely part of a wider decapitation campaign launched by the Trump administration to kill Houthi leaders.
Early Thursday morning, the Houthis said airstrikes targeting the al-Sabeen District in the south of the Houthi-held capital, Sanaa, killed at least three people. The area is home to al-Sabeen Square and a major mosque that has been a gathering point for months for Houthi demonstrations against the war in the Gaza Strip. Other strikes hit the capital as well.
More airstrikes hit Kamaran Island in the Red Sea, the Houthis said.
The US military's Central Command, which oversees American military operations, did not acknowledge the strikes. That follows a pattern for the command, which now has authorization from the White House to conduct strikes at will in the campaign that began March 15.
The American military also hasn't been providing any information on targets hit. The White House has said over 200 strikes have been conducted so far.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, speaking in the Oval Office on Monday during a visit by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warned that America was “not going to relent” in its campaign targeting the Houthis.
Oil shipments targeted as US drone reportedly shot down

On Wednesday, the State Department said the US “will not tolerate any country or commercial entity providing support to foreign terrorist organizations, such as the Houthis, including offloading ships and provisioning oil at Houthi-controlled ports.” That likely will further squeeze the group, who already have had problems in their territory with bad gasoline destroying vehicle engines.
The Houthis also aired footage of the burning wreckage of what they described as an MQ-9 Reaper drone shot down in Yemen's al-Jawaf governorate. One man poked at the debris with a stick as those gathered chanted the Houthis' slogan: “God is the greatest; death to America; death to Israel; curse the Jews; victory to Islam.”
Central Command said it was aware of the report of the shoot down, but declined to answer further.
The Houthis say they shoot down the drones with locally made missiles. The Houthis have surface-to-air missiles — such as the Iranian missile known as the 358 — capable of downing aircraft.
Iran denies arming the Houthis, though Tehran-manufactured weaponry has been found on the battlefield and in sea shipments heading to Yemen for the Shiite Houthi group despite a United Nations arms embargo.