This is a Press card and access to the Evian Accords, March 18, 1962, issued by the Ministry of State for Algerian Affairs in favor of the mother of a member of collaborative platform notreHistoire.ch, Michael Flaks. Michael Flaks' mother Ingrid Flaks, correspondent for the African Press Union and At-Tahrir, it was Mehdi Ben Barka's newspaper.

Ben Barka, an opponent of every imperialism

Mehdi Ben Barka (1920-1965) was a Moroccan politician, leader of the left-wing National Union of Popular Forces (UNPF) and secretary of the Tricontinental Conference. An opponent of French imperialism and King Hassan II, he was reported missing in Paris in 1965.

Many theories attempting to explain what happened to him have been put forward over the years; but it was not until 2018 that the details of his disappearance were established by Israeli journalist and author Ronen Bergman in his book Rise And Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations.

Based on research and interviews with Israeli intelligence officials involved in planning Barka's kidnapping, Bergman concluded that he was murdered by Moroccan agents and French police, who eventually disposed of his body.

Ministry of State for Algerian Affairs

The department of administrative and social affairs of the Ministry of State for Algerian Affairs originated in the administrative office or 2nd office of the subdirectorate for Algeria created in 1944 and directed at that time by Maurice Michel.

This office was responsible for legislation specific to Algeria, administrative reorganization, administrative personnel, education and social legislation. Its role increased after the Second World War due to the important activity of the Government in the application and extension of metropolitan legislation in Algeria.

Questions of interpretation of the statute and the approval of decisions of the Algerian Assembly, created by the organic statute of Algeria of September 27, 1947, or of decisions of the Governor General, which were the responsibility of the Ministry of the Interior, contributed to increasing the activity of this office.

In 1949, this office, headed by the civil administrator Edouard Léautier, became the administrative and legal office. According to the head of the "Organization and Methods" office of the Ministry of the Interior, this office was the least important and least influential of the sub-directorate for Algeria. It was even proposed to merge it again with the office of Political Affairs.

During a reorganization of the subdirectorate in June 1952, this office was given more extensive responsibilities, such as the legislative regime of Algeria, which had previously been the responsibility of the first office. Its head of department was Paul Ferrandi, a civil servant seconded from the general government of Algeria.

When the Directorate of Algerian Affairs was created in 1955, it was integrated, under the name of Office of Administrative Affairs, into the Sub-Directorate of Political and Administrative Affairs. Between 1958 and 1959, a new office, that of the Civil Service, appeared within this subdirectorate. It took over the responsibilities of the office of Administrative Affairs in terms of personnel of the Algerian civil service. The former 2nd office was then called the Office of Legal and Social Affairs.

The decree of March 31, 1961, on the organization of the services of the Ministry of State in charge of Algerian Affairs, created a service of Administrative and Social Affairs which was subdivided into three offices: the office of Administrative Affairs and the office of Social Affairs, which shared the responsibilities of the former office of Legal and Social Affairs, and the office of the Civil Service. This new office took over from the political office the questions of the organization of powers, the institutional and electoral system of Algeria and, in general, all the regulatory affairs over which the political office had until then had jurisdiction. It disappeared from the organization chart of the Secretary of State to the Prime Minister in charge of Algerian Affairs in 1963. However, the collection of the Secretary of State for Algerian Affairs, kept by the Archives Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, contains a few files on twinning between French and Algerian localities, on the one hand, and between French communities abroad and assembly centers in Algeria, on the other hand (1955-1961), which come from the collection of this service.