WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, Monde Libertaire - Zohra, are you there? (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The book opens with a scene of great violence. The father, a Kabyle

worker employed by the Normandy Metallurgical Society, accompanied by
his infant son, the author, is rejected by the baker, who publicly
rants: "Here, we don't sell French bread to Arabs." A whiff of the
Algerian War, of stupidity, of racism. The description of the scene,
with its harshness, will shock more than one reader. This is testimony.
This phrase, "The Bread of the French," appears as the title of Xavier
Le Clerc's recent book published by Gallimard. Xavier Le Clerc changed
his name; he was called Hamid Aït-Taleb, and you'll understand why after
reading it. He recounts the life of his emigrant family, leaving the
mountains of Kabylie to live in the suburbs of Caen in Normandy, a clash
of lives. He recalls the recruitment methods of agents of French
companies who came to Algeria to seek labor, and these men who emigrated
to France were no longer considered anything more than "wogs," to use
the baker's phrase. Life in France was difficult for these illiterate
adults. With the weight of the Algerian War, the looks, the gestures,
the words, the contempt. Xavier Le Clerc understands that school was his
lifeline. "And on my school desk, my life played out. The lines of my
notebook traced the border separating me from my illiterate parents. I
knew that writing wasn't about producing beautiful, silly rhymes, but
about entering another world."

He calls upon these authors who understood this Kabylie, including, of
course, Albert Camus with his report, "The Misfortunes of Kabylie,"
published in Alger Républicain in 1939, but also his friend Louis Guilloux.

A Past That Doesn't Pass

Le Pain des Français incorporates three approaches. The life of this
family in France, the conquest and exploitation of Algeria, and the
encounter with the skull of a seven-year-old child killed during
repression by the French army. Xavier Le Clerc understands that the
skeletons of men and women are preserved in the basements of the Musée
de l'Homme in Paris. You may remember the Hottentot Venus, Xavier Le
Clerc evokes the martyrdom of her. Bugeaud's conquest of Algeria was a
series of crimes, as the texts and testimonies demonstrate. A past that
does not pass! In 1871, a major revolt broke out in Kabylie. Some were
deported to New Caledonia, where they were reunited with Louise Michel,
one of the few who paid them any attention. Heads were cut off and the
skulls were shipped like trophies to France. They are offered like
gazelle horns, elephant tusks, wild animal skins... The human person was
only an animal, an object. And the numbered skull of this seven-year-old
child, whom Xavier Le Clerc calls Zohra, ends up in the Musée de
l'Homme. A dialogue is established between the author and this child.
The conquest of Algeria is evoked, the families who took refuge in
caves, smoked and walled up, the savagery of "pacification" as they
called it, the absurdity of colonization. Few were those who, at that
time, that of the Third Republic, denounced these facts. Let us remember
that some collected human bones, and not for museums. Let us remember
that the skeletons were exhumed from cemeteries and crushed, used to
stabilize roads, or even as a basis for fertilizer production. The
administration reallocated land, changed the names of people who thus
lost their identity. The settlers refused any opening. The Blum-Violette
project was rejected, as was dialogue with Ferhat Abbas. Violence
ensued, and the rest is history. Xavier Le Clerc confides in this child
about her life, her choices, and the resulting difficulties. A text also
imbued with beautiful poetry. To Zohra, he writes: "Who remembers you,
our hamlet with its molten gold horizon, crossed by a thousand black
birds? And you carry away forever, in your vertigo, the beauty of a
world that was supposed to disappear at dawn."

* Xavier Le Clerc
Le pain des Français
Ed. Gallimard, 2025

https://monde-libertaire.fr/?articlen=8479
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