“Ce n’était pas une guerre, c’était une folie.”

French veteran from the Algerian War of Independence 1954 - 1962

“It was not a war, it was madness.”

“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)

Algérie: La Déchirure

Algeriain a Mediterranean context

Ottoman Caliphate and Empire“A Mediterranean pearl”

Charles X - 1830

France arriving in Algeria 1830-1856

Myths of Liberation

Abd-El-Kader,leader of theresistance againstthe French1832-1857

Three administrative regions: Algiers (Alger), Oran and Constantine

Berbers

Kabyles

AlgeriaEthnic structure.

Ahmed Ben Bella, Kabyle,Future President of Algeria

Arabs

Europeans

AlgeriaEthnic structure. Metaphors and insults

beures

figuiers

Pieds-noirs

ratonnade

Sephardic Jews

Decrees from Crémieux (1870) - automatic French citizenship

The Great Synagogue,Oran 1956

Algeria: Status of a country, No status for a nation

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

- Status and statehood- Oppression

- French education and revolutions- War veteran treatment (1914-18);

(1940-45)- Torture

- Economy (Farming; Oil)

War in Algeria 1954 – 1962

Issues

“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

Oppression

French presenceIn Algeria – photo from1870

“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

French education in the colonies:blessing or curse?

Humiliated war heroesLost in translation….

FLN (National Liberation Front)

againstFrench Army

Now a popular board game (2009)

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

War in Algeria 1954-1962

Events

Algerians against EuropeansEuropeans against AlgeriansAlgerians against AlgeriansEuropeans against Europeans

In AlgeriaIn mainland France

The Massacre

Education

Medical help

Patrols for “self-defence” Harkis

Protection or concentration camps?

Project abandoned after Philippeville ( August 1955)

Efforts to “win the hearts and minds of the natives” – Jacques Soustelle; les SAS

Le toubib1957

2 million Algerians encamped for “protection” – 1955-1959

Torture

How institutionalised was it?

“Une Sale Guerre” – A Dirty Waratrocities from both sides

Peace in AlgeriaJanuary – July 1962

Exodus and more massacre • Flight of the pieds noirs - 1959-1962• Massacre of pieds noirs and harkis (April-July 1962)

17 October1995RERSt MichelParis

MNL – Messali Hadj FLN – The 6

War in Algeria1954-1962

Protagonists

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.

Ferhad Abbasor the man who won the Algerian soul back

Tomorrow The Day Will Dawn 1985

Ahmed Ben Bella – the first president of Independent Algeria

+ Algerians in France

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

Albert Camus1913, Oran – 1960, near Paris

General Charles de Gaulle – L’Eternel Sauveur

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

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

Two GovernorsJacques Soustelle

Maurice Papon

A

The Paris Massacre 17 October 1961

A peaceful demonstration of Algerians brutally crushed by the police (CRS)

“Here we drown Algerians”

A massacre: more that 200 deadThe police uses violence against a peaceful de

monstration 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

What happened on 17 October 1961?

18 October 1961 – à la une“Violent demonstrationsof Algerian Muslimslast night in Paris”

2 dead, 44 injured seriously

François Mitterrand, French President 1981-1997(Interior Minister during the Battle of Algiers)

Meeting the Algerian PresidentLiamine Zeroual, 1995

OAS – Organisation de l’Armée SecrèteGeneral Salan General Massu

Against the pacifist position of de GaulleAttempt at de Gaulle’s lifeRacist and illegal

French against the French

Jean-Paul SartreDemo against the bombings of OAS

October 1961

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

First nationalist and racist activities in 1950-1960

Spent time in prison in 1960 for violent attacks on “Maghrebins”

Jean-Marie Le Pen and AlgeriaFN

Algeria in French politics todayHow far can (family) heritage go?

Marine Le Pen

The power of modern (albeit illiterate) media…

Facebook circular

Unveiling the truth about the war in Algeria

“La misère serait moins pénible au soleil”