Confidential

Aix-en-Provence, March 2023.

A letter of protest and mobilisation was sent from French Algeria to mainland France at war. The letters are still in circulation, but with new procedures: they are opened, read, censored or, on the contrary, put back into their original envelopes as carefully as possible after being copied.
The typewritten copy on flimsy paper now follows its own path, with a further addition: an area reserved for the police authorities responsible for monitoring the mail. The processes are so routinised that stamps have been made to remind readers of the obligations and prohibitions according to the type of document.
In the case of this copy, contemporary readers are reminded not to refer “directly” to this “interception”, even though they may use the contents or mention the existence of a mysterious source. Of course, this instruction only applies to ‘third parties’, such as today’s readers, who discover traces of this surveillance work in the archives. The original letter has long since disappeared, but copied, stamped and filed, it is now fully accessible.