Abduction in the Archives: Elise Franklin Reveals a Forgotten History of the Algerian War

Associate Professor of History Elise Franklin was featured in the Autumn 2025 edition of American Philosophical News for her groundbreaking research on the little-known Perrou affair, a disturbing episode during the Algerian War for Independence. 

With support from a Franklin Research Grant, Franklin traveled to France to investigate how, in 1958, French settler Armand Perrou illegally removed 25 Algerian children from their families and placed them for “adoption” with host families in France. Her project, Abduction in the Archives, reconstructs the lives of the stolen children, examines the role of the French imperial state in enabling their abductions, and interrogates how historians use—and are shaped by—archival sources. 

“This study, born from a chance encounter in the archives in the wake of revelations about the United States's own child separation policies, will consider the relationship between colonialism, conceptions of the stable family, and the politics of historical methods,” Franklin said. 

In addition to extensive archival research, Franklin conducted an oral history with one of the abducted children, now an adult, whose testimony challenged and complicated the official records. The project not only recovered erased histories but also prompted Franklin to reflect on the ethical responsibilities of historians and the limits of storytelling as a way of reckoning with past injustice.