The daughters and sons of North African immigrants – those who arrived during France’s trente glorieuses [the three decades of postwar economic boom] – have now reached maturity, or at least the age when people look back on their lives. Many have begun to write about their childhoods, their parents, their experiences of France, their pain and often, their successes. Filmmaker Mehdi Charef paved the way with a moving trilogy of novels, completed and capped by La Cité de mon père (“My Father’s Neighborhood,” 2021) and followed by (“My Mother’s Light,” 2023).
Islamic studies scholar and writer Rachid Benzine set out in search of answers with Silences des pères (“The Silences of Fathers,” 2023), as did journalist Abdelkrim Saifi with Si j’avais un franc, (“If I Had a Franc,” 2023) and actress Rachida Brakni with Kaddour (2024). What unites all of them is the tribute they pay to parents whose history as former colonized people who settled in the land of their colonizer was nearly impossible to pass down, but whose courage and moral values shaped their children’s destinies.
The latest contributions come from Smaïn Laacher and Marwan Mohammed – significantly, both sociologists – who each approach the subject in a very different way. Even though they rarely use the loaded term “integration,” their books have notably enriched our understanding of this process, which most political leaders have neglected by claiming that it is tainted by colonial overtones or has simply failed.
In L’Algérie, ma mère et moi (“Algeria, my mother and me,” 2025), Laacher subtly describes the dual process of separation – painful but emancipating – from his mother and from his country of origin, a “moral pain caused by an incompatibility of practices and values.” The academic writes a tribute to the teachers who enabled him to navigate this difficult distance and to “escape a number of determining factors such as religion, community of origin, social background, family, etc.”
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