Mémoires d'immigrés, l'héritage maghrébin

In simple words, sometimes with a strong accent, sometimes in perfect French, North-African people describe their daily life at the time France had not enough workers for the industry and took on hands in North-African countries. Firstly the men, who arrived first and alone. Then the women, who were allowed to follow their men a few years later. Finally the children, most of them born in France.

As a French woman, I was really ashamed of what the French government and companies were able do at that time, treating human beings like cattle. Each French citizen should see this documentary as it belongs in the French history of the last decades, but is unfortunately "forgotten" in our history books at school.

I was so used with the junk history of the anti-Semites that I was not expecting the concentration camp atmosphere. Sure, the cases are hand picked. But the picked cases have went more than the people I know in three generations.

The shock was from another part. The officials. The serenity which they radiate when they they express facts that would seem monstrous even to them if white skinned people were involved. One can argue those were the morals back in the 1960s. But the interviews are late 1990s.

Funny thing, once I have seen all the three parts I realized the bottomless stupidity of the right wing. On one hand they are proud to have second rate cars like the ones made by Renault and Citroen, and on the other the fault rests entirely with the poor humans herded by the recruiters to keep those brands alive and the cars cheap.

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