Bonjour,

J'ai vu votre annonce à http://boards.ancestry.com/localities.weurope.france.pieds-n...

Je suis descendant de pieds noirs et j'ai été contacté par une personne qui veut faire un documentaire sur les pieds noirs qui sont partis aux USA. Mr Gilles Perez (Les Pieds Noirs, Histoires d’une blessure : le film primé au Festival International du Film d’Histoire de Pessac http://www.lespiedsnoirs-lefilm.com/ ) recherche donc des pieds noirs américains.

J'ai mis plusieurs annonces sur le net et je mets une copie cette annonce en bas de ce message. J'ai aussi une page personnelle pour ma mère qui recherche des anciennes amies d'Algérie. Elle en a déjà trouvé plusieurs... http://contactez.net/francais/avis.html

Gurley Alabama:
http://gurleyalabama.contactez.net
About us:
http://www.contactez.net/portfolio.html

I am the descendant of a repatriated French family from Algeria between 1960 and 1962. My family had lived in Algeria for over 250 years (longer than many American families living in the US ). In France we were called pied-noir. The pieds-noirs was a sub culture well adapted into the Arabic and Jewish people of Algeria , Tunesia, and Maroco. The Jewish people of Algeria were given the French nationality in 1870 (décret Crémieux).

Upon Algeria 's independence from France in 1962, 900,000 people “returned” to France . Returned is the wrong word to use because most of them had never been to France before. This has been a cultural choc for these “repatriated” families. They loved to live in Algeria and did not care much to be in France . The grand majority of them were farmers, bleu collars, working-class people. It has nothing to do with colonialist as we imagine them, or as described by historians that have spent their life on school benches. Most historians put too much politics in their views and they bend the reality to fit their personal opinions.

Many of us settled in the south of France and many in Carnoux-en-Provence near Marseille. Even though I am not a true pied noir because I was born in France just after my family “returned” to France I lived the times when Pied noirs were not accepted by the French. I am a witness of this because during my youth I was treated badly as a pied noir in France . As a matter a fact I never cared much about France anyway which facilitated my migration to the USA . I am the descendant of people that wanted to build new things not to sit and wait. The peids noirs arrived in Algeria when nothing was there but marshes and deserts and left behind cities, manufactures, huge vineyard, farms, schools, railroads and so on…

I have been approached by the father of a French documentary maker Mr Gilles Perez (Les Pieds Noirs, Histoires d’une blessure : le film primé au Festival International du Film d’Histoire de Pessac http://www.lespiedsnoirs-lefilm.com/ ) who is looking for to get testimonies of pieds noirs or descendant living in the USA . Many left for the USA during the 60’s. See http://www.contactez.net/francais/avis.html
I believe this would be a great documentary to broadcast on NPR. The goal would be to find pieds noirs and the descendant of pied noirs by passing ads on NPR and PTV. Then testimonials could be gathered about their life, differences between Algeria , France and USA and so on... Testimonials said by the people that lived it is the most important to archive. Please note that the pied noirs demography is getting smaller as time goes. Our parents are getting really old.
I am not a professional of the audio-visual but any support for this project would be appreciated. I would also enjoy to give my testimonies for a documentary if someone asks. http://www.contactez.net/portfolio.html

Contact the CDHA d'Aix-en Provence. CDHA stands for Centre de Documentation Historique de l'Algérie. They have pictures, movies, documentaries, books, illustrated books, news-papers, historic items, and memorabilia. They have a web site but they are working on putting all the data online. Until then, their email address is cdhalgerie@9online.fr .