France Shamelessly Rewards Traitors: Over 10,000 Harkis Demand New Payouts under Expanded Compensation Law

✍️ BY: Dr. Hana Saada

As Paris expands its scandalous policy of rewarding colonial collaborators, Macron’s government ignores even internal objections—fueling Algerian outrage over the glorification of betrayal

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Algiers, Algeria | June 9th, 2025 — In an alarming display of historical revisionism and political cowardice, the French government has confirmed that over 10,000 Harkis—individuals who actively betrayed their nation by siding with the French colonial army during Algeria’s War of Independence—have submitted new compensation claims under the 2022 law dedicated to rewarding these collaborators and their families.

This brazen move not only whitewashes a legacy of treason and bloodshed, but deepens the insult to Algeria’s collective memory by financially glorifying those who turned against their own people in favor of a brutal colonial regime.

The revelation, made public through a June 3, 2025 official response from France’s Ministry of Armed Forces to a question by Stéphane Rambaud, a far-right deputy of the anti-Algerian National Rally, confirms that 10,321 cases were submitted in 2024 alone. Of these, a staggering 7,388 were approved by the so-called Independent National Commission for Recognition and Compensation—a body whose very existence signals the extent to which France is determined to institutionalize its betrayal of justice.

Worse still, the French government acted under pressure from a European Court of Human Rights ruling issued on April 4, 2024 in the “Tamazout” case, which condemned the country for insufficient payouts to Harkis detained in the infamous Bias camp. As a result, Macron’s administration issued Decree 2025-256, tripling annual payments from €1,000 to €4,000 per year of residence in the camp—essentially rewarding treason with taxpayer money, while ignoring the scars left behind by these individuals’ actions in Algeria.

France did not stop there. On April 29, 2025, the compensation commission recommended adding 37 new sites to the list of eligible internment centers, a suggestion enthusiastically approved by Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, signaling an unrepentant political will to expand this disgraceful project even further.

These policies amount to nothing short of official sanctification of betrayal, offering financial consolation to those who stood shoulder to shoulder with colonial soldiers, while Algerian patriots were being tortured, executed, and driven from their homes.

In an even more disturbing twist, France’s ruling Renaissance party—the party of President Emmanuel Macron—had itself proposed broadening compensation to include heirs of dead Harkis, in a bid to further expand the pool of beneficiaries. The suggestion, made in a parliamentary question by MP Jean-François Lovisolo, sought to amend the legal framework to allow children and relatives of Harkis who died before the law’s implementation to submit claims in their name.

The current law restricts compensation to those who physically lived in designated camps between March 20, 1962 and December 31, 1975, a condition that bars posthumous claims. Lovisolo branded this a form of “inequality” and “injustice.” Yet the French government has thus far deliberately ignored the proposal, possibly out of political calculation—but the silence is not enough to mask the depth of France’s historical hypocrisy.

For Algeria, this entire episode is nothing less than a moral provocation. It represents a grotesque inversion of justice, where traitors are rewarded and martyrs forgotten. The Harkis—who took up arms against their own people, informed on resistance fighters, and aided a colonial force responsible for the deaths of over 1.5 million Algerians—are now being compensated as if they were victims, while France continues to deny Algeria full recognition of its horrific colonial crimes.

The continued payouts, legal maneuvers, and deafening silence on opposing voices within France all point to a deliberate effort to rewrite history, recasting traitors as heroes in a shameful effort to ease the colonial guilt that Paris refuses to confront.

Algeria, and every descendant of its freedom fighters, will not forget. And history will not absolve.

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