REPATRIATED ARCHIVES

When countries became independent, the archives of administrations that had exercised sovereignty functions were repatriated (collections of governors, residents, prefectures, police, consular posts, files of French personnel, etc.) while the management archives (health, public works, education, finances, economic services, court registers, etc.) were left in place.

Archives concerning the following were repatriated:

Indochina in 1951-1954
India in 1954
Madagascar and French Equatorial Africa in 1960
Algeria in 1962
Comores in 1974
Afars and Les Issas in 1977
New Hebrides in 1980

There are enormous differences in the classification of these archive collections because some territories had a real archiving organisation such as Indochina and Algeria and others had none.

The circumstances of decolonisation were also determining factors in what happened to the archives, which on arrival were stored almost anywhere in France, until they reached the building in Aix-en-Provence specially constructed to house them in 1966. Since then a significant classification effort and one of redacting search tools has been accomplished.