Childhood Narrative of a Defector: Rue des Pâquerettes (2018) by Mehdi Charef – Social Exclusion and (De)coloniality of Algerian Migration in 1960s France

The article analyzes the récit d’enfance Rue des Pâquerettes by Algerian-born author Mehdi Charef, who recounts his arrival in France in the 1960s, shortly after Algerian independence, with flashbacks to the time before his migration. The exclusion of Algerian migrants in French society is materialized in the slum they inhabit on the outskirts of Paris, while the school serves as a factor both of integration and of exclusion for the children of migrants. Alongside class-based exclusion, the text engages with the concept of ‘coloniality’ from decolonial theory, which refers to the persistence of colonial structures beyond formal political independence. The narrative, positioned between individual and collective memory, evokes a tension captured by the term ‘transfuge’, contributing not only to a critique of social exclusion but also to the ‘delinking’ from colonial structures.