Danièle Djamila Amrane-Minne

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Danièle Minne (born 13 August 1939 at Neuilly-sur-Seine) was one of the few European girls convicted for assisting the FLN during the Algerian War. Her mother Jacqueline Netter-Minne-Guerroudj and her step-father Abdelkader Guerroudj, were both condemned to death^[1] as accomplices of Fernand Yveton, the only European who was guillotined for his part in the Algerian revolt. Her mother was never executed, partly due to a campaign on her behalf conducted by Simone de Beauvoir; her step-father was also freed^[2].

Danièle Minne joined the struggle when she was 17, going underground under the nom de guerre of Djamila ^[3].

Arrested and jailed in December 1956, she was sentenced, on 4 December 1957, to 7 years in prison by a juvenile tribunal.

Freed after independence in 1962, she wrote a PhD dissertation on the participation of Algerian women in the war, based on interviews with eighty-eight women between 1978 and 1986; the dissertation was later published as a book, Des femmes dans la guerre d’Algérie (Karthala, Paris). The book was the basis for the film Algeria: women at war by Parminder Vir^[4].

Danièle Minne became Djamila Amrane by marriage in 1964. She later worked at the University of Algiers but, by 1999, was a professor of history and feminist studies at the University of Toulouse.