From putting down roots to exodus, from birth to disappearance: the history of the French of Algeria
This book is neither a defense nor a wholesale denunciation of French colonization in Algeria (1830–1962). It seeks simply to recount how a small people, the French of Algeria, came into being and then disappeared entirely. Numbering one million in 1962 out of a total population of ten million, they developed alongside colonization and vanished with it.
Their history unfolded in several stages: the establishment of roots (1830–1870), flourishing under the Third Republic (1870–1940), a period of crises (1940–1954), and finally the war (1954–1962), which ended in a complete exodus.
The French population of Algeria took shape through varied immigration, chiefly from the Mediterranean, and through the incomplete yet enduring assimilation of the Jewish community. It became strongly attached to French culture and to the republican and patriotic values instilled by the Third Republic.
For a long time, this population was an essential element of French rule in Algeria. It initially concentrated in towns that served as centers for the administration, the economy, and the spread of culture. It also helped establish a network of villages and farms that formed the basis of modern export agriculture, particularly viticulture.
Relations between the French of Algeria and the majority indigenous population developed within the inequality imposed by the colonial system established after the conquest, a system that seemed impossible to challenge. The administration of Algeria, and thus the reforms it needed, depended largely on metropolitan France, whose governments and people remained indifferent to Algeria’s fate. Compounding this inequality was the difficulty of forging close ties with a society determined to preserve its Muslim values.
The war exposed every weakness of this fragile arrangement. It demonstrated the nationalists’ capacity to mobilize and forced France into a costly military and economic effort. It drove the French of Algeria, shaken by terrorism, to demand the harshest repression, as well as ever closer union between Algeria and metropolitan France. A break with General de Gaulle, who sought to extricate France from an endless conflict, was inevitable. Most of the French of Algeria rallied to the radicals fighting for French Algeria, whom they saw as their last defenders. This left them facing repression by their own army, followed by flight to escape the Arab and Muslim republic taking shape.
Sic transit gloria mundi...
