1. French veteran from the Algerian War of Independence
1954 - 1962
“It was not a war, it was madness.”

2. “It is as if two insane people, crazed with wrath, had decided
to turn into a fatal embrace the forced marriage from which
they cannot free themselves. Forced to live together and
incapable of uniting, they decide at least to die together.”
Albert Camus
Letter to an Algerian Militant (1958)

6. Abd-El-Kader,
leader of the
resistance against
the French
1832-1857

10.  Berbers
 Kabyles
Ahmed Ben Bella,
Kabyle,
Future President
of Algeria

11. Arabs
 Europeans
beures
figuiers
Pieds-noirs
ratonnade

12. Decrees from Crémieux (1870) - automatic French
citizenship

14. Algeria: Part of France. Not a colony
Algerians:
complicated status
All Jews in Algeria are French citizens
All Algerians are French subjects who can/may
become French citizens if they give up their
status
 Rules of power : Le Code Indigénat 1887-1947:
 Inferior status for the natives of French colonies
All French in Algeria are French citizens and nationals

15. - Status and statehood
- Oppression
- French education and revolutions
- War veteran treatment (1914-18);
(1940-45)
- Torture
- Economy (Farming; Oil)

16.  “In this admirable country in which spring without
equal covers it with flowers and unique light, men are
suffering hunger and demanding justice”
Albert Camus, 1958
French presence
In Algeria –
photo from
1870

17.  “At their best, the French schools in Algeria provided
admirable breeding ground for revolutionary minds”.
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-62
Alistair Horne
“It’s not with you , but against you that we are learning
your language.”
young Muslim évolué

19. Now a popular board game (2009)

20.  8 May 1945 – The Massacre of Sétif: the first spark
 La Toussaint Rouge (The Red All Saints Day)
1st of November 1954, Algiers
 20 August 1955 - The Philippeville Massacre
 The Battle of Algiers – La Bataille d’Alger:
September 1956 – October 1957
 1958 – Return of General de Gaulle
 1958 – Fall of the IV Republic
 1961 – Referendums for Independence
 17 October 1961 – The Paris Massacre
 7 March – 18 April 1962 – The Evian Treaties
 5 July 1962 – Algerian Independence Day

21.  Algerians against Europeans
 Europeans against Algerians
 Algerians against Algerians
 Europeans against Europeans
 In Algeria
 In mainland France

22.  Education
 Medical help
 Patrols for “self-defence” Harkis
 Protection or concentration camps?
 Project abandoned after Philippeville ( August 1955)
Le toubib
1957

24. How institutionalised was it?

26. • Flight of the pieds noirs - 1959-1962
• Massacre of pieds noirs and harkis
(April-July 1962)
17 October
1995
RER
St Michel
Paris

27.  MNL – Messali Hadj FLN – The 6

28.  Contrairement à ce qui s’est passé en Tunisie et au Maroc, la bourgeoisie française
nous a privés de notre personnalité et de notre âme et ainsi nous neutralisa .
 Contrary to what happened in Tunisia and in Morocco, the French bourgeoisie
deprived us of our character and of our soul and thus neutralised us.
Tomorrow The Day Will Dawn
1985

29. + Algerians in France

30.  17 October 1957 – Nobel Prize for Literature
 l’Etranger (The Outsider); La Peste (The Plague),
 Analytical Essays (The Myth of Sisyphus)
 Jean-Paul Sartre urges him to refuse the prize
 Excerpt from Camus’ acceptance speech in Stockholm:
“But the silence of an unknown prisoner, abandoned to humiliations at the other end of
the world, is enough to draw the writer out of his exile, at least whenever, in the midst of
the privileges of freedom, he manages… to transmit it (freedom)… by means of his art.”
L’écrivain engagé
The end of a” beautiful friendship” with Sartre

31. Oversees the
death of the IVth
French Republic
(1958) as Interior
Minister
Author of
• Vth Republic
• 3 referenda on Algeria,
• Evian agreements
• Independent Algeria
1958 - 1962
“Pourquoi voulez-vous qu'à 67 ans, je commence une carrière
de dictateur ?”
Re-elected President 1966
Forced to leave office 1969

32. Chief Superintendant of Paris
Police in 1961; former Nazi official in Vichy

33.  A
A peaceful demonstration of Algerians brutally
crushed by the police (CRS)
“Here we drown Algerians”

34.  A massacre: more that 200 dead
 The police uses violence against a peaceful
demonstration in silence of Algerian Muslims
protesting against the curfew imposed 10 days earlier
by the Police Chief Superintendant Maurice Papon
 http://www.ina.fr/video/CAB91053423/17-octobre-
1961-video.html

35. “Violent demonstrations
of Algerian Muslims
last night in Paris”
2 dead, 44 injured seriously

36. Meeting the Algerian President
Liamine Zeroual, 1995

37. Against the pacifist position of de Gaulle
Attempt at de Gaulle’s life
Racist and illegal

39. Philosophy and politics – two minds, two attitudes towards being
engaged

40.  First nationalist and racist activities in 1950-1960
 Spent time in prison in 1960 for violent attacks on
“Maghrebins”

41. Marine Le Pen

42. Facebook circular