Decolonization & the French

1998 World Cup Champion French National Soccer Team

In recent years, the College Board has made an effort to expand its coverage of European history to include groups that don't fall into the historical mainstream. This includes more coverage of Jews in Europe, women, and, more recently, the millions of immigrants that arrived in Europe as a result of break up of European colonial empires and the labor shortages of the post-World-War-II era. These immigrants, in spite of their struggles within their new countries, have made an indellible impression upon the history and culture of Europe. The process of decolonization that took place after the Second World War seems to appear with increasing frequency in multiple-choice and essay questions, however, our textbooks don't really do great service to this important chapter of recent European history. I thought it might be a good idea to put the Cold War on the back burner for a little while and focus this blog post on a brief case study of one of the most destructive examples of decolonization; France and Algeria.

The Algerian War of 1954 to 1962 was so destructive and chaotic because of the special place that Algeria had within the French colonial empire. The French colonization of Algeria began with the occupation of the city of Algiers in 1830 (during the last days of the reign of Charles X). By 1834 the whole of Algeria became a French possession, and was rapidly settled French farmers. By 1848, the beginning of the 2nd Republic, there were well over 100,000 French settlers living in Algeria and the country was declared an integral part of France and politically integrated within the rest of the Republic. The late nineteenth century in Algeria saw increasing favoritism shown toward Algerians of European descent, known as pied-noirs, over the native Arab population of the territory. French citizenship was offered to pied-noirs and Jews, but not to Berbers or Arabs. French law allowed European settlers to purchase land that had been occupied by Arab farmers for centuries. By the end of the 19th century Europeans, who constituted aproximately 2 percent of the Algerian population, controled almost one third of the farmland in Algeria. This discrimination continued into the 20th century. Despite the contribution of almost 200,000 Algerian workers to the French war effort from 1914 to 1918, the French National Assembly rejected an Algerian Charter granting citizenship to Muslim Algerians who fought in the Great War.

After the Second World War, the cause of independence and self-determination took on a new importance in the colonial world. This war had been fought in the name of self-determination for the nations that had been conquered by the Axis powers from 1939 to 1945. The colonies of the European powers expected the same in return for their service and support during the war. The world after World War II was very different from the world in 1939. In place of the great European powers that dominated the world before the war were the two super powers of the United States and the Soviet Union. In this two-power world, the French saw themselves as a third great power. After all, they were the country of great monarchs, the Enlightenment, beautiful works of art. This attitude was reflected in their continued indifference to the demands of Algerian Muslims, who continued to demand equal treatment under the law after 1945. Downsizing their colonial empire to match the financial and political realities of the post-war world would come at a high price for the French. It would eventually lead to the downfall of the 4th Republic and a reorganization of the government.

The political failings of the 4th Republic were only exacerbated by the difficulties of maintaining a colonial empire in the 1950s. The unwillingness of the French government to make any concessions to the colonies only served to increase resistance to French imperialism around the world. In May of 1954, following the bloody Battle of Dien Bien Phu, the French began the withdrawal from Vietnam (French Indochina). In November of the same year, the FLN (Front de Liberation Nationale), the Algerian revolutionary group, launched attacks across Algeria and presented their demands and grievances to the the National Assembly, beginning a war that would last for 8 years and leave deep scars in the French political and economic landscape. The FLN launched a campaign of terror against Pied-noirs and Colons (French-Algerian farmers) throughout the 1950s, giving them the choice of "the suitcase or the coffin" (What a choice!). By 1958, a stalemate developed in the Algerian War that lead the French government to take desperate measures. French soldiers conducted house-to-house raids in Algeria that lead to the arrest and torture of many prisoners (water torture, electric shock, and mock drownings). Despite these drastic measures, the stalemate continued and the French government, without a strong executive, was hopelessly mired in debate without any solutions being offered. In 1958 they called for a return of Charles De Gaulle and gave him the power to restructure the French government in the hopes of ending the Algerian War.

In spite of his desires to see France retain her status as a world power, De Gaulle understood that the War in Algeria could not result in the continued political domination of France. Using the new powers granted to the President of the 5th Republic, De Gaulle announce plans to turn the task of governing Algeria over to the Algerians, essentially ending almost 130 years of direct rule from France. This plan for Algerian independence had to overcome the resistance of Pied-noirs and an attempted coup and campaign of terror by the OAS (Organisation de l'Armee Secrete), a counter-revolutionary group led by four French generals. A referrendum in April of 1962 secured the approval of the French people for De Gaulle's Evian Accords granting independence with French cooperation for Algeria. France very quickly became the destination for thousands of Pied-noirs and pro-French Algerians fleeing reprisals in Algeria. France was unprepared for this surge of immigration (almost one million people).

The echos of the Algerian War and decolonization can be heard in France today. In 2005, following the deaths of two North African teenagers in an incident with police, the northeastern suburbs of Paris erupted in violence. The riots in these mostly North African neighborhoods were fueled by the continuing problems of unemployment of young North Africans and the persistent poverty in their communities, and by claims of unacknowledged discrimination in the job market in France. The French government considers all French citizens to be French, and therefore equal under the law, and does not officially distinguish Algerian-French, or any other minority from the general population. Many minority groups in France claim that this allows discrimination in the job market to go unnoticed by the French government. This is an issue that France and many other European countries that invited the immigration of millions of "Guest Workers" will have to face as their populations continue to diversify.

 

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