The veil or a brothers life: Frenchmanipulations of Muslim womens images

during the Algerian War, 195462

Elizabeth Perego*

Department of History, Ohio State University, Columbus, OH, USA

In the middle of the Algerian War of Independence, the French military and government launchedan elaborate campaign to liberate Algerian Muslim women. The timing of its inception indicatedone of the strongest motivations behind this elaborate series of policies. Indeed, Frenchpropagandists and officials, prompted by the appearance on the international stage of modern-looking female Algerian nationalist agents, scrambled to uphold the myth that Algerian Muslimgender relations in the territory were backwards and only they could rectify this shortcomingin Algerian society. They consequently embarked upon the emancipation campaign mainly inpursuit of convincing outsiders of Frances purported ability and duty to make Algeriamodern. For this reason, the production of photographic evidence capable of visuallydemonstrating that Muslim women were becoming French and liberated under French guidancewas one of the campaigns central aims. In order to obtain such evidence, military agentsexploited and falsified representations of Muslim women, a process this article examines. Thepresent work additionally elucidates many of the hypocrisies inherent in the French armysexploitation of Muslim women and their bodies through their elaborate propagandist efforts;through their actions on the ground in Algeria, French soldiers and military leaders, includingindividuals directly implicated in the emancipation campaign, were actually confining,abusing, and torturing Muslim women rather than freeing them.

Keywords: Algerian War; French imperialism; Orientalism; decolonisation; women

Introduction

On 26 May, 1958, in the midst of the War of Independence, Monique Amziane addressed acrowd gathered in the Algerian city of Constantine. In her speech, she expressed her desire tobecome emancipated and then ripped off her veil. Amziane intended through this symbolicgesture to convince other women to discard their headscarves, a supposed sign of their will tobecome modern under French tutelage.What the crowd and international journalists gathered at the square did not see, however, was

the hand French officials had in this Muslim womans spontaneous unveiling. French officials

*Email: perego.1@osu.edu

2015 Taylor & Francis

The Journal of North African Studies, 2015Vol. 20, No. 3, 349373, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629387.2015.1013942

had tried for several days to find a Muslim woman willing to demonstrate her allegiance to FrenchAlgeria by shedding her headscarf in public, but to no avail; not a single woman they approachedagreed to help them. Frustrated, they hatched another plan. They entered the high school whereAmziane studied and proceeded to offer her an ultimatum: either she took off a veil in front of acrowd or they would kill her brother, whom they had recently arrested for harbouring nationalistagents. Amziane had never before donned a veil in her life.1

As the French archives reveal, Amziane was only one of manyMuslim women the French usedas pawns in the latter part of the war to show the world that they were emancipating these women.MacMaster (2009), Sambron (2007, 2008), and Seferdjeli (2004a, 2004b, 2004c) have traced howthe French launched a series of reforms in the middle of the war aimed at liberating these women.These scholars have likewise demonstrated how the need for French administrators to presentFrance as a benevolent modernising nation to the international community drove this campaign.Yet, nowork has fully examined how, due to this need to visually show foreign observers they weremaking Algerian Muslim women modern, the emancipation campaign revolved around manip-ulating Muslim womens images. Finally, as Amzianes case evinces, the ways in which theFrench sought to make Algerian Muslim women appear emancipated often clashed with the sup-posed goals of the campaign and French intentions behind it to free Muslim women. Indeed,coercing women to unveil or depicting them without their permission robbed these women ofthe liberty to act as they chose and to represent themselves, an aspect of the campaign whichmerits further scholarly attention.This article will respond to this need for a more thorough investigation of how the French

manipulated representations of Muslim women during the conflict. It will argue that theFrench portrayed these women as helpless victims of a patriarchal society in order to posit them-selves as their modernising saviours. In doing so, it will undercut French claims to havelaunched this campaign purely out of a desire to assist these women. Furthermore, French por-trayals of Algerian Muslim women distorted reality by obscuring the active role these womenplayed in society, another facet of this history the present work will explore.Additionally, I investigate how the French sought to liberate Algerian Muslim women in the

context of one of the worlds longest and deadliest decolonising conflicts. In doing so, it willdemonstrate that French military propagandists drew upon dated, Orientalist ideas in a chargedCold War climate to make it appear as though they were modernising Muslim women and thushad an obligation to stay in Algeria. Furthermore, the importance of international publicopinion to French officials decision to start a campaign to liberate Algerian Muslim womenhas been illustrated by MacMaster (2009, 69) but not analysed in depth, a task this article willundertake. The current work will contend that the timing of the French decision to intensifytheir efforts to liberate Muslim women and their propaganda towards them, which coincidedwith the revelation of European-looking nationalist female fighters to the international commu-nity, indicates that the true purpose of the campaign was to show the world that they and notnationalists were the best-suited to freemodern women by transforming them from backwardsMuslims to chic French women. Although MacMaster has waged that the radicalisation of thecampaign was triggered in part by the noise female nationalist fighters made in the internationalpress, I emphasise that the response of French officials was particularly centred on alteringMuslim womens appearance to make it visually seem as if these women were becomingmodern by adopting Western dress, hairstyles, etc. with their assistance rather than that of thenationalist movement. I will further highlight in ways that previous scholarship on the topichas not entirely explored how French officials skewed representations of Muslims, oftentimesportraying Muslim women in ways they knew to be distorted. The false notions French propagan-

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dists concerning Muslim women will also be explored, most notably the misguided idea thatMuslim women had been politically inactive prior to the emancipation campaign, they constituteda homogenous entity, were the prisoners of a retrograde, male-dominated society while Frenchwomen were not, and secretly yearned to become like their metropolitan and pied noir counter-parts. Finally, this work analyses images of Muslim women that the architects of French militarypropaganda diffused and their significance.

Motivations behind the French policy of emancipating Algerian women

A number of factors influenced the French government and militarys choice to attempt to mod-ernise Algerian women in the middle of the War of Independence. None of these proved greater,however, than French administrators and military leaders desire to show the international com-munity they were leading Algeria into the modern era in the context of a decolonisation warbrimming with moral ambiguity and marked by terrible violence. The Algerian War was oneof the most brutal wars of the twentieth century and arguably the deadliest decolonisationstruggle, pitting a nationalist movement eventually monopolised by the National LiberationFront (FLN) against local agents of French authority and then the French military, includinglocal Muslim soldiers called h.arks. It was also a war that international observers, in both colonis-ing and colonised nations, watched intently; Algeria was an integral part of France and home toone million settlers and stood as Frances longest-held colony on the African continent. Partici-pants and observers alike knew that its destiny could easily set the pace for the future of coloni-alism or its demise around the world.By the time of the War of Independence and well into the conflict several realities coalesced to

incite French agents to reform statutes influencing Muslim womens rights as a heavy politicalweapon in their arsenal of propaganda. Up until the post-Second World War era, both metropo-litan French officials and representatives of Algerias pied noir settler community did little toimprove the condition of Algerian Muslim women. At this time, Muslim women were the onlyadult residents of the empire who could not vote, most were illiterate, and very few had receivedformal education (Seferdjeli 2004b, 2124). Even the few Algerian Muslim girls who attendedschools were subjected to the everyday forms of racism and humiliation that were rampant inthe French territory well into the post-Second World War era.Already before the war, the French controllers of Algeria had confronted potential international

criticism for their failure to grant Muslim women rights and educational opportunities comparableto those of French women. In 1947, the United Nations (UN) established the Commission on theStatus of Women. The body was charged with ensuring that all member states of the UN wereallocating better rights and privileges to women residing in their countries. After failing togrant Algerian women the right to vote following the Second World War, French administratorsfretted over potential international condemnation, particularly from American diplomats andrepresentatives and the Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), over their inaction onMuslim womens rights.2 That same year, however, the pied noir lobby in Algerias parliamentblocked a motion to enfranchise Muslim women, to the chagrin of many male Muslim represen-tatives; the settlers had no desire to see the number of individuals in the Algerian Muslim electo-rate double, even if such a move would not have loosened their monopoly on power in theAlgerian legislature and would have made them appear more progressive in the eyes of the inter-national community. Regardless of pressure from the CSW, French administrators allowed thequestion of whether Muslim women should receive the right to vote to die in the Algerian Assem-bly in the late 1940s.

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The French only appeared even more ill-apt to ensure the betterment of Algerian Muslimwomen and their condition when Sultan Mohammed V of Moroccos daughter and nationalistsupporter Lalla Acha began speaking publicly about womens rights in the Muslim world inthe 1940s. Through her actions, this female Muslim intellectual demonstrated that the advance-ment of womens condition in the then-French colony was not dependent upon the actions ofthe European colonisers but could instead be put into motion through the efforts of local actorssuch as herself. For instance, during a speech in front of the camera in 1947, the princess unveiled.Up until this point, a relatively small minority of women in the Middle East and North Africaregion outside of Turkey had chosen to unveil and never before had a highly mediatised publicunveiling occurred in French-controlled North Africa (MacMaster 2009, 126127).Lalla Achas choice to shed her head scarf in front of the lenses of the foreign press raises an

important question: what kinds of reforms or cultural changes regarding Muslim women, theirrights, and their lifestyles were international actors such as the members of the CSW lookingfor states to make in the 1940s and 1950s? How did foreign observers gauge the success withwhich nations were improving the lives of women in this post-Second World War context andwhat kinds of symbols did they consider progressive or, conversely, oppressive? To beginwith, foremost among the goals and in the eyes of most of international commentators and theFrench, governments around the globe had to strive to make women, their status in society,and their lives more modern and modernity meant adopting European or American values,customs, and lifestyles, including the consumption of European and American goods. One ofthe few efforts French administrators undertook to try to assist Muslim women and girls involvedforming a Muslim girls scouting group in the early 1950s. A report on one of the Association ofMuslim Girl Scouts, arranged trips lamented certain gaps in the training and upbringing that madethese girls in need of such intervention from the state to become modern. The writers of thisreport placed the veil in direct contradiction with modern activities such as making a phonecall. They also suggested that Muslim society imposed restrictions more on those women whoveiled than those who did not veil. Above all, the authors stressed that exposure to Frenchculture modernised Muslim women.3 What is more, during the decades leading up to the AlgerianWar of Independence, international womens organisations identified a number of traditions theyassociated with Islam that they considered harmful to womens rights.4 Of course, due to theregional and personal diversity of interpretations of Islamic religious tenants, not all Muslimsaccepted these customs as a part of their religious duties. Yet, Orientalist interpretations ofIslam obscured the religions diversity as well as that of different Muslims ideas of appropriategender roles. Indeed, widespread representations of Muslim women appearing in European cul-tural productions for centuries such as lusty postcards from nineteenth-century French-controlledAlgeria shaped international actors beliefs about Algerian and Muslim women and society. Forinstance, French artists sexualised the veil and used it as a marker of Algerian societys Other-ness. International actors who were overwhelmingly European or the elites of non-Europeannations exposed to Western ideas perceived the veil as an instrument of Islamic patriarchaloppression. The abandonment of this practice thus marked for these observers a sign ofwomens advancement (See Alloula 1986).Despite the negative attention the example of Lalla Acha drew to the situation of Algerian

Muslim womens rights under French rule, in the early 1950s French administrators still didnot move to change the legal, social, and political status of Muslim women. Even the onset ofthe conflict did not induce a shift in French administrators attitudes on the subject. What thenprompted them to start modernising Algerian Muslim women in the middle of the war?

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The first signs of change regarding French administrators attitudes towards Muslim womensrights came in 1956 and 1957 when nationalist movements in neighbouring Morocco and Tunisiasuccessfully negotiated for independence from France. Mere months after becoming independentTunisia adopted a new legal code that did away with customs international womens groups likethe CSW considered deleterious for women, including polygamy and permitting women to bemarried without their consent. The new government under Habib Bourguiba ensured equal citi-zenship for men and women as well.5 French-controlled Algeria, where such practices remainedlicit and Muslim women still did not enjoy full political rights, now drew a poor contrast withTunisia when it came to the international communitys conceptions of womens rights.6

In light of reforms in Tunisia, then Algerian governor general Robert Lacoste asked experts inhis administration as well as academics to start designing a new law code for Muslims in Algeriathat would purportedly lessen patriarchal constraints upon Muslim womens lives. These bureau-crats and scholars looked at the changes Bourguiba and the nationalist government in Tunisia hadmade to pre-existing tenants of family law (MacMaster 2009, 83). At this time, though, Frenchadministrators did nothing to publicise these initial efforts at reform and it would take almosttwo years for the French to implement the changes.7 As mentioned above, Algerian Muslimwomen were still unable to vote at this time, a problem the French did not address during thefirst few years of the war. In 1956, deputy director of political affairs Villeneuve wrote to thedirector general of political affairs about including Muslim women in the electorate, explainingthat their exclusion is completely temporary. Yet, this missive contained not a single iota ofthe sense of urgency to extend the right to vote to Algerian Muslim women French officialsexpressed as few as 18 months later.8

If Bourguibas progressive measures towards Tunisian women prompted fears on the part ofFrench government agents, the rise to global fame of modern-looking Algerian nationalistfemale fighters persuaded them that they had to act on the womens issue or face not only inter-national scrutiny but potentially the loss of Algeria. As Matthew Connelly has explained, both theFrench and nationalists fought the Algerian War of Independence on the international stage; theconflicts two belligerents recognised that the support or condemnation of foreign nations andleaders would prove the tipping point in determining who won and who lost the war (Connelly2002). Although international scrutiny of Frances actions in Algeria certainly existed prior tothe war, with the latters outbreak it skyrocketed and greatly constrained both sides actions.Members of the international press reported from Algeria throughout the conflict. The French con-trolled the movement of foreign correspondents stationed in Algeria but restricting their access tocertain areas only raised further criticism (Connelly 2002, 132). During the war, various Asian andAfrican countries gained their independence and began forming their own anti-colonial block in theUN, a union that repeatedly supported FLN delegates efforts to get the General Assembly to con-sider Algerian independence as an issue. America also had not hesitated to bare its teeth during theSuez Crisis late 1956 to buck European imperial interests in North Africa. As a result, French del-egates, diplomats, and leaders were highly aware that the UN, with the backing of Americans andformer colonies across the globe, could impose sanctions. Furthermore, in 1958 FLN representa-tives at UN headquarters in New York began pushing to be recognised as delegates of an indepen-dent Algerian people. As a result, France stood to lose much clout as well as real economic anddiplomatic interests if it failed to persuade the international community that French officialswere doing all they could to improve the lives of Algerian Muslim women.The increased international focus on French conduct in Algeria meant that, when journalists

caught wind of the French armys use of torture during interrogations of FLN militants,France found itself facing a crisis that its officials could only dig their way out of by resorting

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to intense propaganda measures, in which, as will be seen below, the emancipation campaign fea-tured centrally. In the middle of the war, members of the French community and AlgerianMuslims began recounting harrowing stories of suffering at the hands of French soldiers. Forinstance, French soldiers during so-called interrogations forced Algerians they suspected of col-lusion with the nationalist movement to drink water until the point of vomiting and shocked themwith a small electrical instrument called the ggne at various points on their bodies. Throughoutthis procedure, suspects, male and female, were typically naked. These methods were so severe,moreover, that French soldiers killed an unknown number of the Muslim community (Branche2001). Bouhired depicted her treatment during 17 days of her interrogation, the appellationFrench military agents designated virtually all such torture session, in an account that went onto be printed in Time magazine (March 17, 1958):

They stripped me naked and tied me on a bench, taking care to put damp cloths under the cords thatbound me. They then fixed electric contacts to my sexual organs, my ears, my mouth, the palms of myhands, my nipples, and my forehead. At 3 in the morning I fainted. Later, I became delirious. Everytime, while one of the paratroopers worked the machine, the others took notes.

In the spring of 1957, the foreign press picked up on horrendous stories such as Bouhireds ofsoldiers brutal treatment of Algerian Muslims in French custody (Le Sueur 2001, 155162).The torture scandal shocked the world as France was signatory to a number of international con-ventions banning its use.9 With the revelation that French soldiers were torturing Algerian nation-alists and civilians they accused of assisting the latter, to try to keep Algeria French, more thanever the French needed to prove that they constituted a modernising and not fascist-like force.Such discoveries also threatened to bring the full weight of the UN down on the French fortheir conduct in Algeria. 1957 also marked the earliest revelation of the French armys use ofrape as a weapon of warfare during the conflict. An organisation affiliated with the UN reportedlate that year on the tales of torture and rape they had received from female Algerian refugees inTunisia. French officials carefully detailed these allegations in their records.10

The publicisation of the French armys use of torture coincided with the emergence in themedia of European-looking Algerian female nationalist fighters. In late 1956, young womenincluding Zohra Drif, Djamila Bouhired, and Samia Lakhdari dressed as French settler womento pose bombs in restaurants and cafes in Algiers European neighbourhoods. The French militarydid not arrest Drif, Bouhired, and Lakhdari, though, until late spring 1957. The capture of thesewomen and their subsequent trials signalled to the French and the international community thateducated Algerian Muslim women who had adopted European dress and habits, supposedmarkers of modernity, were supporting the nationalist mission. One of these women, Bouhired,went on to become a cause clbre among European intellectual circles and internationalfigures such as Lalla Acha (Le Sueur 2001, 228230; New York Times, December 31, 1957).From a middle-class Algerian family, Bouhired was one of the educated, urban-dwellingwomen who joined the FLN and was later asked by the nationalist movement to place bombsin the European sector of Algiers to respond to ones that unknown European agents hadplaced in the Muslim neighbourhood, the Casbah. She was arrested for her participation in theinsurgency on 7 April 1957. During her trial, her lawyer decried the torture army soldiers had sub-jected his client to and used the trial as a forum for denouncing Frances use of excessive violencein the conflict. Global media outlets followed the cases development and included details ofBouhireds torture as outlined above in their articles (Le Sueur 2001, 228; MacMaster 2009,318). Her modern appearance garnered her sympathy and attention with international journal-ists, moreover, and a survey of their writings on her demonstrates the extent to which the press

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narrowed in on Muslim female combatants appearance in their descriptions of the latter. Forexample, the Time piece on Bouhired referred to the young revolutionary as pretty and doe-eyed.11 Like the majority of urban female combatants during the Battle of Algiers, Bouhireddid not veil and wore European-style clothes.Revealed years after the war but illustrating the kind of prowess on the part of Algerian nation-

alist women to exploit European stereotypes of Oriental and Occidental women, the accountof nationalist female combatant Malika Ighalihriz demonstrates the extent to which some femaleFLN fighters embodied contemporary international observers notion of modern women. In theprocess, they challenged earlier Orientalist ideas regarding the static nature of Muslim culturesand the inability of Orientals to adapt to modernity. In an interview with historian Amrane(1994, 148149), Ighalihriz described how she altered her appearance to smuggle lettersbetween the Casbah and Europeans neighbourhoods according to her location:

I had my hair to the wind To return to the Casbah, I would park on Victory BoulevardOne couldsee me getting out the car in French style, I would enter my apartment where I put on my veil andhandkerchief, I would come out veiled and head to the Casbah. I would deliver what I was supposedto drop off and pick up what was supposed to go out of the Casbah, messages, weapons. And I wouldgo through the same whirlwind of motions. In the hallway of an apartment, I took off the veil, put mylipstick and my sunglasses back on, went out and climbed back into my beautiful car.

The image of unveiled mujhidt such as Ighalihriz and Bouhired threatened to unravel Francesjustification for continued presence in Algeria.12 Their engagement on the side of the FLN, whenviewed through the eyes of French officials, shattered the latters rationale for conducting the war.French authorities posited the war for foreign observers as a clash between civilisation and reli-gious fanaticism (Connelly 2002, 33, 8788, 128, and 137140). The FLN female combatantslevel of education and European-style appearance challenged the myth of Muslim backwardness,as Western agents had historically constructed it by pointing to the purportedly retrograde char-acter of Muslim gender relations, and, hence, the justification for Frances continued presence inAlgeria. With modern-looking Muslim womens rebel activity a reality, Frances reputation asboth a colonial and international power was at stake; if nationalists succeeded where theFrench had failed, then why should the international community allow France to retain Algeriaand the rest of its colonial possessions?What is more, by this time and perhaps as a response to the mediatisation of Algerian female

nationalist combatants, Lalla Acha solidified her role as symbol of a free, modern Muslimwoman in a newly liberated Morocco. Indeed, the princess of the newly independent neighbourof Algeria garnered so much international attention as the epitome of a modernMuslim womanthat Timemagazine featured her on their cover in November 1957 under the title, The Emancipa-tion of Moslem Women (Time, November 1957). Other publications around the world dedicatedarticles to her at an earlier period as well (New York Times, November 9, 1947 and September 6,1955). Lalla Achas actions proved to the international community that Muslims were capable ofadvancing womens rights without the intervention of European powers such as France.Fretful French administrators responded quickly to the emergence into public view of

European-looking nationalist women. From April to June 1957, Lacoste issued calls to hiscabinet members to complete the plans to reform womens personal status at the shortestdelay.13 From mid to late 1957, French military film propagandists shot a documentary aboutincluding French women helping locals, including Muslim women.14 Furthermore, in laterinternal reports on Frances propaganda, the FLN pointed to April 1957 as the moment theFrench began their campaign to win Algerian women over to their side.15 It should be mentioned,

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though, that as early as 1955 and throughout 1956, French soldiers uncovered evidence thatAlgerian Muslim women were not only taking part in nationalist movement but fulfilling essentialtasks in the uprising (MacMaster 2009, 9899; CAOM 7G 1143A). MacMaster even points to therevelation of nurses in July 1956 as an impetus for the French to intensify the emancipation cam-paign. What is more, a number of young colonels highly interested in propagandist methods cameto the fore of French military power around this time (MacMaster 2009, 69). Despite these dis-coveries, however, only after modern-looking nationalist women became the object of inter-national attention in April 1957 did French military leaders and propagandists set aboutattempting to convince Algerian Muslim women and the international community that theFrench could best help these women to become modern by encouraging them to unveil. Thismoment marked a tactical shift in the emancipation campaign.

Once the French began their campaign to incite Muslim women to appear as though they werebecoming modern with the assistance of metropolitan culture, further revelations convinced theFrench to continue with these efforts. In April 1958, a woman sent a letter to the military expres-sing her delight that the local radio station, Radio Casbah, was decrying veiling. BrigadierGeneral Jacques Massu, the infamous leader of the French paratroopers during the Battle ofAlgiers, wrote in a letter to the Prefect of Algiers and Inspector General of the Administrationin Extraordinary Mission:

I have already had the opportunity to express my fear to see us surpassed on this issue (Muslimwomens unveiling) by the FLN who could advocate for a similar evolution of customs with greatsuccess, betting on assured impunity and a general desire for emancipation It appears indispensableto me that the order of unveiling be given now with clarity and with force.16

This letter evinces that not only that some of the highest French military leaders of the conflictconcerned themselves with the supposed need to liberate Algerian Muslim, but that they specifi-cally feared that the FLN would beat them in this task. Massu uses the term see here most likelyout of concern that the FLN would visibly win over Muslim women to their side. His word choiceillustrates his recognition that Muslim women unveiling for the nationalist movement could provefatal to the French side because of the visual impact it produced.Admittedly, some military concerns drove the French campaign. The French feared any space

into which they could not penetrate, including the veil, and this most likely pushed them to encou-rage Muslim women to discard this garment.17 What is more, as Ighalihrizs account aboveevinces, nationalist men and women modified veiling patterns to fulfil their aims, occasionallyusing headcoverings or the absence of a veil to stealthily sneak weapons, packages, or lettersthrough areas or to infiltrate European districts. Furthermore, when French paratroopers arrestedZohra Drif, they discovered plans she had for the creation of a womens corps within the FLN(SHAT 1H 2582). This finding may have shocked French officials into realising that, if theydid not move quickly, the nationalist group would succeed at persuading Algerian Muslimwomen to support their cause. Involvement of women in the nationalist camp thus not onlydamaged French officials credibility in the international arena, but also hindered their effortsto keep Algeria French through a military victory. Muslim women made up half the population;without their support, the French had no way of successfully thwarting a rebellion that relied onsubterfuge and popular support for its survival.Yet, as the timing of the French decision to launch the campaign to emancipate Muslim women

shows, the emergence of modern-looking Algerian Muslim women militating for the nationalistcause incited the French to launch their emancipation campaign vis--vis Muslim women; theysought through this operation to make it appear to the international community as if they and not

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the nationalists were liberating these women. The French did not serve then as the unquestion-able beacons of modernity they fashioned themselves as in propaganda. Rather, they embroiledthemselves in a close competition with nationalists over who could prove to outsiders that theywere best able to care for Algeria and its people. Thus, in the midst of the war and heightenedinternational scrutiny, the French had to prove to the world that France had a legitimate reasonfor maintaining control over the territory the need to modernise and thereby save AlgerianMuslim women.

French fabrication of images of Algerian Muslim women

The French employed two tactics through their emancipation campaign to reconfigure the wayMuslim women, and by extension the French, appeared to the international community. Theywanted to convince outsiders that French culture was liberating Muslim women, therebyproving Frances success in its modernizing mission (Connelly 2002, 89). For the first tactic,French officials concocted imaginary representations of Muslim women through staging eventsor creating images and texts supposedly reflecting reality but in actuality skewing it. They thensent these contrived representations to the international and French media distributors. Thesecond consisted of trying to transform Muslim womens actual appearance by cajoling theminto abandoning local forms of dress, particularly the veil. Military photographers could thensnap photos of these women who had unveiled or whom French agents had convinced toappear as though they were becoming twentieth-century French women, images the French con-trived in a different sense, through subtle coercion rather than outright fabrication.None of the French attempts to change how Muslim women appeared in the eyes of the inter-

national community would have come to fruition without the aid of a well-oiled propagandamachine. Luckily for French leaders, they controlled information flowing out of Algeria duringthe war. In addition to restricting foreign journalists movement within the territory, the Frenchbegan fabricating its own propaganda. The international communitys criticism of Francesconduct in the conflict, especially after the scandal surrounding the armys use of torture on sus-pected FLN combatants, meant that international observers and audiences were loathe to believestories and photos hailing from the French army. For this reason, French officials made sure todissimulate their hand in the work they produced.In January 1957, in the middle of the Battle of Algiers, the military created the Fifth Bureau to

take charge of propaganda aimed at both the Muslim population and international audiences.18

The French devoted two-thirds of the organisations mission to studying local populations anddesigning works capable of winning the latters allegiance to the colonialist cause. The otherthird created propaganda for both metropolitan French and international consumption. Thissection of the organisation proved capable of turning out enough materials to dominate the inter-national press; between 50% and 75% of global media images of the war hailed from the armyscameras (MacMaster 2009, 153154, 162).Who were these individuals in the Fifth Bureau who carved out images of Algerian Muslim

women in the midst of the war? All were French Algerian-born settlers or metropolitan Frenchand male. Very few had extensive experience in Algeria prior to the outbreak of the warexcept those of settler background (MacMaster 2009, 152154). They thus had very littlecontact with local Muslim culture and did not possess the knowledge necessary to represent itaccurately. Some propaganda was based, however, on studies that ethnographers more familiarwith the territory, but still French or settlers, produced. And it appeared none could escape along heritage of Orientalist thought.19 Indeed, the propaganda they produced recycled older Euro-

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pean notions of Arab and Muslim populations.20 Like international observers, moreover, Frenchofficials equated modern women with housewives and they demonstrated this equation thoughtheir propaganda.Before examining the depiction of Muslim women and society the Fifth Bureau contrived for

the international media, it is necessary to note the audiences that consumed Fifth Bureaupropaganda. The propaganda agency sent their work directly to metropolitan France, someLatin American countries, the USA, and certainly a number of other countries. It also distributedimages to international media agencies (CAOM 81 F 1450; CAOM 81 F 454; Connelly 2002,216; MacMaster 2009, 160 and 174, note 26).One myth these propagandists forwarded was the notion that Muslim women had never been

involved in politics and public life until France intervened and granted them political rights in1958. Following De Gaulles return to the presidency that year, French officials accordedMuslim women the right to vote, a right they first exercised in the September 1958 referendumon De Gaulles proposed new constitution.21 The bestowal of political rights on these women fea-tured centrally in the Fifth Bureaus international propaganda. For example, a Fifth Bureau bro-chure declared,

But the referendum (in which women voted for the first time) had even more significance for Algeria.For the first time in the history of that country, the Moslem [sic] women took part in a demonstrationof the popular will.22

Finally, a pamphlet entitled The Revolution of May Has Emancipated the Algerian MuslimWomen explained how the new Algeria would permit both men and women to engage in poli-tics together, an insinuation that Muslim men and women had never before collaborated in thecivic sphere.23

Despite these assertions, Algerian women had participated, albeit in small numbers, in politicalgroups such as Algerian Communist Party and the PPA-MTLD (Parti du people algrien Mou-vement pour le triomphe des liberts dmocratiques, Algerian Peoples Party Movement for theTriumph of Democratic Liberties) prior to the start of the war (Sai 2002). French police at leastrecorded the activities of these groups and noted womens presence at Messali Hadjs MTLD-PPAmeetings, evincing that these women had already prompted a bit of concern on part of the colonialpower.24

Continuing in the trajectory of French propagandists logic vis--vis Muslim women, FifthBureau officials similarly divulged that, perhaps due to their exclusion from public life, Alger-ian Muslim women were apathetic and inactive prior to the emancipation campaign. In a film,The Falling Veil, that the Fifth Bureau created for American audiences the narrator describesthe effect De Gaulles visit to Algeria in June 1958 had on Algerian Muslim. He declares,His confidence in the women acted almost as electric shock which jolted them out of theirold attitude of apathy into a new awareness of themselves.25 The movie thus painted thelatter as disinterested creatures that only jump to life because of De Gaulles presence andwords. For this reason, according to Fifth Bureau pamphlets, the best remedy for Muslimwomens listlessness was their continued exposure to French culture and people. Worse still,the allusion here to shocking women appeared ironic in light of French torture methods, anissue which will be elaborated upon further below.26

Propaganda also depicted Muslim women as so stifled by their society that they possessed noindividuality. In the pamphlet The Revolution of May Has Emancipated the Algerian MuslimWomen, propagandists penned the following about statement about Muslim womens partici-pation in the September 1958 referendum:

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There is a sign (in women exercising their right to vote) of the very clear evolution of their state infavor of their emancipation. For an Algerian Muslim woman, to vote is to affirm her personalityas well as her citizenship. It is often to accomplish an act of faith, it is to believe in the newAlgeria, which will see equality between men and women, in the familial as well as the civiccontext.27

Through the material they published surrounding the May Days and subsequent referendum, theFrench described women as secretly yearning for emancipation and to become more like theirsisters in the metropole. Although, as has been seen, propagandists claimed that AlgerianMuslim women did not possess fully developed personalities, they stated in propaganda thatthese women were aware enough of their situation and status to want to be like Frenchwomen. The expression Kif, Kif les franaises! or Lets be like French women filled the cap-tions of army photographs officers had taken of women. This cry supposedly encapsulatedMuslim womens longing to metamorphose into modern French women.28

The three Algerian women who became representatives at the French National Assembly epit-omised the image of Muslim women French officials wanted to show the world.29 While thesewomen ran for the position of delegate and were elected, most likely the European-controlledwomens groups such as theMouvement de Solidarit Fminin (the Movement of Feminine Soli-darity or MSF) in which these women were involved prompted them to enter politics.30 Indeed,French officials had a great hand in these Algerian Muslim womens rise to prominence and inter-national fame.31

The way French politicians and observers depicted the female Algerian delegates to the FrenchNational Assembly following the extension of the right to vote to Algerian Women in 1958 putinto relief how essential their image and not their words was to the French cause of remaining inAlgeria. The deputy Rebiha Kebtani was one of the women who unveiled in the Algiers Forum, aclear sign of the connection between Frances desire to show the international community thatAlgerian Muslim women were becoming modern and the ascension of these Algerian femaledelegates to the higher echelons of political power. Little is known about her life before shebecame a French representative. She was married at the age of 15, had 3 children, and hailedfrom the Northern Algerian town of Bjaa. Kebtani joined a local womens group MadamesSalan and Massu organised and probably through these connections decided to run for represen-tative in the French National Assembly. She won a seat. Despite her political victory, the Frenchpress did not say much about what she planned to do while in office. Instead, they limited theiranalysis on Kebtani to her family and physical appearance. The metropolitan daily Le Figarodescribed her as an attractive housewife and mother of three children while the newspaperAurore reported that other representatives in the National Assembly referred to her as the pin-up. It is entirely possible that officials asked her to run as they had Sid Cara; her ascent fromanonymity to the halls of French power would perfectly illustrate how France modernisingforce could transform an ordinary, backwards Muslim woman into a modern French one. Herimage as a beautiful Muslim woman loyal to French Algeria could rival pictures of FLNfemale combatants, moreover (Seferdjeli 2004b, 4849).The most famous of the three Muslim female representatives, though, was Nafissa Sid Cara,

whom the French did not hesitate to show off to diplomats and the foreign press as theepitome of an assimilated Muslim woman. As Seferdjeli (2004b, 50) writes,

In 1959, Nafissa Sid Cara became a curiosity, to repeat the phrase of her chief of cabinet Roger Ben-mebarek, who pointed out how journalists from as far as Japan came to see the first Muslim womanappointed a Secrtaire dEtat (secretary of state) in a French government,

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a treatment her male counterparts were spared. Yet, administrators did not always greet her sug-gestions or welcome her engagement in the male-dominated sphere of French politics.32 At onepoint during a state trip to Algeria with Debr, she had to ask to participate in major meetings andevents; up until that point in the voyage, French officials had only assigned her the task of visitinga kindergarten. When French officials acquiesced and allowed her to speak in front of a crowd atAlgiers, she read the speech they had prepared for her. Indeed, in an interview with historianSeferdjeli (2004b, 52), Sid Caras niece admitted that, at times during the war, her aunt feltused. Her niece stated that:

She (SidCara) had the feeling that she had been chosen because ofwhat she represented and that shewasbeing used.Her speecheswerewritten for her, but shewould re-write them. Sheknew shewasbeing usedsince she was well accepted by the population in Algeria. French officials treated this educated, Franco-phone elite Muslim woman as the poster child of their campaign to modernizeMuslim women ratherthan a politician and colleague. It is telling that the French gaze signaled in on Sid Caras appearancemuch more so than her words and actions, a further sign that the French military and governmentwere then engaged in a campaign to contort Muslim womens images to fit their interests.

Kebtani and Sid Cara were not the only Muslim women whose appearance the French fixated onwhile ignoring their thoughts and opinions. French propagandists focused on ordinary AlgerianMuslim womens looks rather than their voices as well. Specifically, they targeted the veil. Inthe captions to photographs of the fraternity parades that occurred in the wake of the May 8thcoup dtat, the French referred to Algerian Muslim women as unveiled (MacMaster 2009,139). This purposeful lacuna in details (many women were veiled) demonstrates the potencyof the term unveiled for them.Also, the only Muslim womens words from these protests that these captions captured was the

ubiquitous slogan supposedly shouted by these women, Kif, kif les franaises (let us be likeFrench women), a phrase which served their propagandist purposes. As was the case for represen-tations of the delegates, these photos singular focus was on the womens physical appearance.Yet, through the attribution of solely this phrase with the images, Fifth Bureau propagandistssilenced the voices of Algerian Muslim. These women must have uttered other words andslogans during the demonstrations. However, the latter have been lost to history in part as aresult of French elision.The French attention to Algerian Muslim womens outward appearance and the accompanying

lack of focus given to their words reflected the French militarys desire to obfuscate Muslimwomens heterogeneity. Women invariably called out different words and meanings, perhapsreflecting the multiplicity of their attitudes and positions on public affairs. Yet, the French hadno interest in showing the diversity of Algerian Muslim women; admitting the complex natureof Muslim society would have undermined their ability to make gross generalisations aboutthe Algerian Muslim population. Thus, the propaganda architects of the French armed servicescollapsed Algerian Muslim women, who came from different regions, played different economicand social roles, and even spoke different dialects and two distinct local languages into a singularentity the Algerian Muslim woman. But for this discursive innovation, which they had used his-torically, the French could not as easily have made blanket statements about Muslim womensattitudes, desires, habits, and characteristics. In a similar vein, the French also used the termveil to describe the multitude of head scarves Algerian Muslim women wore at this time.33

Finally, the Algerian Muslim woman French propagandists presented the world coweredbehind veils and inside prison-like homes because Algerian men brutally confined them tothese spaces. Connelly notes of The Falling Veil that, If there is a villain in the piece, it is notspecifically the FLN, which is not even mentioned, but rather Many Moslemswho insist

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on total control and total obedience, whose wives are treated little better than chattel (Connelly2002, 216). French propagandists depicted Algerian Muslim society through this film as stiflingMuslim womens existence. According to the film, traditional society overburdens Muslimwomen and refuses to advance their rights. The French depicted gender relations amongMuslims in this way to imply Muslim women needed assistance to avoid lifetime of mistreatmentat the hands of Muslim men.The title of this film also touches on another overarching theme of French propaganda regard-

ing Algeria Muslim women. It evokes how, in the French militarys view of things, patriarchalAlgerian societys has employed the veil to keep its women shrouded in darkness andsteeped in tradition as to thereby keep these women distanced from modernity. Most likely toreinforce the association of veiling with backward, cruel repression, the French propagandistsbehind the movie emphasised how the veil kept women inside of their homes and away fromthe benevolent effects of contact with French culture.34 Quite ironically, French Orientalistshad previously eroticised these areas and therefore, during this early period, had not questionedthe existence of these spaces. In the context of the armed struggle, with international attentionhoned in on Algeria, the case was different. Previous Orientalist rhetoric likewise eroticisedthe veil. Yet, as mentioned above, in the decades preceding the Algerian War, Western nationsincreasingly considered veiling a backwards custom given the fervour against Islamic head-scarves, especially in Muslim Turkey and the Soviet Union.Thus, the French narrowed in on the veil as the symbol of the repressive nature of Muslim

society vis--vis Muslim women because it served as a visual sign that international observerswould easily recognise. All the French needed in the context of the war was visible proof AlgerianMuslim women had become modern with their assistance and no change could be produced moresimply than the lifting of a garment. This persuasive mechanism would also cost a great deal lessand involve fewer administrative headaches than more substantive alterations such as beginningto educate Muslim women.35 Finally, versed as many of the Fifth Bureau agents were in theoriesabout behavioural psychology, they were confident that they could condition Muslim women toshed their headcoverings (MacMaster 2009, 152154).

Arent you pretty? Unveil!: French attempts to alter Muslim womens physicalappearance

The mass unveilings in May 1958 also represented the second means by which the French recon-figured Muslim womens images during the war. Instead of merely tailoring a particular portrayalof these women through their control and spread of discourse, the French tried to change the wayreal Algerian Muslim women looked by encouraging them to change their appearance.To begin with, French military agents staged events where they forced women to behave as

they desired and never far from the camera lens of army photographers. Arguably, AlgerianMuslim womens public unveilings in the wake of the May 13th coup constituted the greatestof these arranged events.36 In the days following the militarys overturn of the Algiers governmentin the midst of a legislative crisis in France, Psychological Action agents of the French militarysFifth Bureau organised the fraternisation events. They designed the latter, typically pro-FrenchAlgeria marches and meetings, to convince both the outside world of the righteousness of themilitary officers Gaullist coup by showing the Muslim community would rally to the cause ofFrench Algeria with De Gaulle at the helm of the French state.37

Thus, the citys police and French military forces initially orchestrated a great deal of the pro-peace demonstrations by compelling Muslim men to come out for these protests. After Muslim

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men, the turn fell to local women to be included in these purportedly impromptu shows of loyaltyto French Algeria. Given that the police and military rounded up men for these events, it is entirelypossible that they did the same for women. On 17 May 1958, a group of 12 Algerian womenappeared in the Forum. The Algerian Muslim men who participated the fraternisation activitiesthat had been taking place on the Forum since the coup on the 13th had not adjusted theirattire as part of the manifestation of their allegiance to France. These women, however, symbo-lically removed the large white veils they were wearing and proceeded to burn them.Not much is known about the women who participated in the unveilings that occurred on 17

May. Most likely, some of them came from well-to-do Muslim families and had either neverreally veiled or had veiled when they were younger and then stopped. As MacMaster observesfrom the surviving photographs of the events, two of the women seemingly belonging to thelocal educated elite look as though they encouraged other women to unveil that is, to takeoff their haks off their heads and drape them over their shoulders, if not to remove them comple-tely. MacMaster also comments that two of the women wear clothing and hairstyles that suggestedthey belonged to the urban Muslim elite (MacMaster 2009, 128). Like Amziane, they may haveonly taken up the veil at the command of French officers, another attestation of the theatrical andstaged character of this spur-of-the-moment spectacle.What is known, however, is how the French used the images of these women to forward their

own agenda of keeping Algeria French. Fifth Bureau agents circulated photos in which formergovernor general of Algeria Jacques Soustelle congratulates unveiling local women on their sup-posed entry into modernity (CAOM 81 F 88). Photos of Muslim women unveiling in the Forumalso circulated the international media thanks to the efforts of the Fifth Bureau (SHAT 1 H 2504).They also appeared in brochures given to global news distributors and foreign governments likethe one in which these two images appeared.Regarding the content of these images, military photographers tended to show Algerian women

who did not share the appearance of modernity that some Algerian women such as MoniqueAmziane and French women supposedly possessed. For instance, in the photo of Soustelleencouraging the Muslim women to drop their headscarves, the Muslim women who have purport-edly just unveiled and who are smiling at the likewise beaming Soustelle are not wearing makeupor European clothing or other contemporary markers of beauty in Western nations. Other imageswhich eventually made their way into the French press likewise showed Europeans eitherencouraging or directly assisting in unmodern looking Muslim womens shedding of head-scarves, although it is difficult to determine whether these images came directly from militarycameras. Le Figaro, for instance, published on the front page of its 20 May 1958 an image ofa European woman with her hair pulled back, made up, and sporting pearls holding a veil thatshe has presumably just lifted off the head of the Muslim woman standing to her right. Thiswoman, wearing no makeup and ostensibly local clothing, is holding her hands up as if tryingto while perhaps marvelling at the sight of her uncovered arms, a clear sign that the woman isnot accustomed to being unveiled in public. This representation of the unveiling events, whichis presented to readers as a photograph but appears to perhaps be an illustration, is indicativeof the type of images pro-French Algeria newspapers and agents published, although this exactphotograph may have not come from the armys cameras. Many other images that appeared inthe press following the May 1958 unveilings showed similar manifestations of Muslim and Euro-pean solidarity tended to display women who did appear European-like. There were exceptionsto this rule, however; as mentioned above, some of the women who unveiled in the Forum werewearing Western-style clothing and had a well-to-do appearance and images of women unveil-

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ing on the Forum show such modern-looking female Muslims clad in heels, handbags, andbutton-down blouses tossing headscarves into fires (SHAT 1 H 2504).Most likely the French military propagandists hoped by displaying Algerian Muslim women

who did not look like Europeans in terms of dress, makeup, and hairstyle to underline the longway Muslim women still needed to go before they would be on par with European women interms of their modernity.During the many unveiling ceremonies that occurred across Algeria in the weeks following the

May 13th Revolution the Fifth Bureau organised parades and demonstrations and the army-organ-ised medical social services and feminine groups (Equipes medico-sociale itinerants or EMSI andSections administrative spcialise or SAS) brought out women. Possibly, a number of womenwho took off their veils at these events and spoke in favour of a French Algeria did so becausethey actually adhered to the French cause. However, others such as Amziane had only partici-pated because the French military, EMSI, or SAS had forced them to do so.Although getting Muslim women to unveil in their everyday lives could not inspire the same

media frenzy the public shedding of headscarves could, the French pursued more subtle meansof persuading Muslim women to unveil. French efforts at promoting Muslim womens unveil-ing dated earlier than the summer 1958 demonstrations. Around the time, the French were dis-covering Muslim womens participation in the nationalist movement, the Fifth Bureau beganprinting tracts to convince Algerian women that they should unveil. Propaganda posters(posted exactly where, the archives do not reveal) attempted to persuade Muslim women toshed the veil. One such image shows Muslim women side by side. The women on the leftand, significantly, to the rear still wear the veil while the woman to the right has partiallytaken off her veil and revealed her face. The phrase above the image queries, Arent youpretty? and then the one below firmly commands Unveil! as though it were the answer tothe question (SHAT 1 H 2504).French propagandists clearly wanted to appeal to Muslim womens supposed sense of vanity

to persuade the latter to cast aside their headscarves and prove to the world that they were infact beautiful. Most conveniently, their unveiling would also allow French men to view them,perhaps thereby fulfilling deep-seated Orientalist fantasies (Clancy-Smith 1998). Anotherposter has a similar set up, only this time the answer is not only to unveil but to be awoman like the others (SHAT 1 H 2504). The architects of this propaganda focused on theappearance of women and tried to make them feel as if they had to unveil in order to provetheir beauty as well as their femininity. The message to women rang clear unveil andprove you are beautiful and a woman; stay veiled and show that you have no beauty andare not a real woman. Most significantly, as the women in these posters discard their veils,they reveal made up faces and sparkling earrings, a sign of their integration into French con-sumer community.38

One message among many Fifth Bureau headquarters spread among Muslim women was thefollowing, taken from an internal directive on propaganda to circulate among this population:Assuredly the veil that hides faces is a barrier between the two communities: it would be agreat step towards integration to take it off.39 Here the veil is taken as a sign of the lack oftrust between the European and Muslim communities. Only by doing away with it will they over-come their differences to form a unified nation. In portraying the fierce divides between the Euro-pean settler and Algerian Muslim communities as hinging onMuslim womens veiling, they madeit appear as if the responsibility for the ending the war fell upon them.One of the French strategies for coercing Muslim women into abandoning the veil included

making a religious notable appear in public assure women that no Islamic principle mandated

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the veil. Before Monique Amziane gave her address on 26 May in Constantine, local immCheikh Lakhardi Abdelali delivered his own speech to the crowd in which he announced, Theimaginary and exaggerated veil has nothing to do with the Muslim religion.40 By having this reli-gious figure dissociate headcoverings from Islam, the French tried to convince Algerian womenthat unveiling would not jeopardise their status as good Muslims. While doctrinally there wassome basis for this statement, in practice the covering of womens hair and modest dress forboth men and women alike was associated with Islam.41

French propagandists were also not above bending the truth to Algerian Muslim in their ownwork to incite them to take off their veils. In a European-created and -distributed journal, anauthor advised women that she resolved the problem of trying to get Muslim women to unveildespite veilings religious connotations by (1) insisting that Islam did not require Muslimwomen to veil and (2) by informing them that women across the Muslim world (and especiallyin neighbouring Tunisia and Morocco) had stopped veiling. This writer clearly lied to AlgerianMuslim women by telling them they were the last women in the Muslim world to wear the veil.42

French pamphlets intended for the French leaders of the womens groups provided detailedinstructions on how to pressure Algerian Muslim women to unveil.43 One of the pamphletsstated the following:

At the first meeting, do not require women to take off their veils, or rather their hack44[sic]Butfrom the second meeting on, invite the women to lower their hack under the pretext that you do notrecognize them, that you cannot speak only to eyes but (instead) to real friends. To be veiled is alack of confidenceLittle by little, bring them to go out without the hack in the street, in groups first, not alone. Theywill feel stronger if they are many. They will get used to it quickly, finding for themselves the comfortsof an uncovered face. Two months later they will find it totally normal to go out in the street unveiled,even alone. (original emphasis)

Officials behind the womens groups developed almost a formula for persuading Algerian Muslimwomen to abandon Muslim head and face coverings. It is telling that this document, which thearmy possessed, has the paragraph on convincing women to go out into the streets unveiledmarked with a red pen. Thus, the real interest the army had in the EMSI getting Algerianwomen to unveil lay in prompting these women to enter public spaces while looking more Euro-pean.Of course, all of these efforts by French propagandists did not go unperceived by Algerian

nationalists and their sympathisers. In his 1959 work on decolonisation, A Dying Colonialism,Martiniquais philosopher and psychiatrist Frantz Fanon recognised that the unveilings of May1958 constituted a calculated French effort to stem the participation of Algerian women in thenationalist movement (Fanon 1967). Residents of Algiers including nationalist militantsdenounced the women who took part in the organised burning of veils on the Forum on 17May 1958. By November 1958 at least, the FLN had developed plans for a series of measuresto check Frances emancipation campaign that included convincing Muslim women that theFrench were acting to infiltrate Algerian society and break the will for independence ratherthan acting out of altruistic concern for them. In addition, the FLN authors of a tract outliningstrategies for limiting the impact of the French emancipation campaign upon women notedthat the French militarys desire to convince the international community of the humanitariantask towards the Algerian people that France was accomplishing drove the campaign.45

Nevertheless, despite their attempts to pose as liberators of Algerian Muslim women, throughtheir actions behind the scene the French showed themselves to be anything but advocates forMuslim womens freedom of action and political choice.

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Hypocrisy of positive images of liberation campaign

French measures to liberateAlgerianMuslimwomen proved hypocritical in more ways than one,yet perhaps the most contradictory aspect of the emancipation campaign revolved around Frenchofficials representations of these women, their own efforts as supposed liberators of the latter,andMuslim gender relations conflicted with actual circumstances. As stated above, the French pro-pagandists depicted women in the wake of May 13th Revolution as entering public spaces for thefirst time. The French were aware, though, that Algerian Muslim women had been active in publiclife long before this moment; the French administration kept tabs onMuslimwomens participationin nationalist groups prior to the start of the war.46 At one point in 1956 as well, intelligence officerswrote, The women, despite their strongly modest condition, are better prepared by their daily con-tacts to receive the rights of the modern world.47 Some French agents thereby voiced their beliefthat womens everyday encounters made them more apt to accept modernisation and thus thatwomen possessed rich existences outside the home or so-called harem. While the French pro-claimed to be ushering Muslim women into modernity and thus the public stage for the firsttime, as the first section of the present work revealed, it was womens engagement on the nationalistside of the war that incited the French decision to undertake the emancipation campaign vis--visthese women. The French knew that at least some Algerian women had a personality and politicalopinions and were opting to lend their skills to the nationalist movement rather than the cause ofFrench Algeria.The French likewise overstated the notion that they were emancipating Algerian women in a

way that local Muslim men were not and could not and the favourable response of Muslimwomen to these efforts. Through information they gathered on the FLN French military officialsand officers were aware that the nationalist movement had adopted more progressive marriagepolicies than Muslim marriage customs under the local French/settler-dominated government.Their claims then to enact the marriage reforms of 4 February 1959 in order to free womenfrom the clutches of unprogressive local men were bunk.48 Also, French officials stood by idlyas leaders of the settler community actually thwarted efforts to grant Muslim women the rightto vote in the late 1940s and early 1950s in spite of Muslim leaders earnest support for themeasure (Seferdjeli 2004b, 2126). All the brouhaha that French propagandists made, therefore,about Muslim women voting for the first time with the assistance the French elided the historicalpart European settlers and French officials had played in keeping the right to vote out of Muslimwomens hands. Additionally, the need for the French to orchestrate elaborate events such as the17 May unveilings meant that Algerian women were on the whole quite resistant to Frenchattempts to manipulate them and their images for propagandist purposes. This was anotherreality French propagandists purposefully hid through contortions of images of women such asAmzianes, although some evidence suggests that a few women who unveiled during the MayDays earnestly supported the continuation of French control over Algeria.49

What is more, the French knew that some Algerian Muslim women such as Amziane did notveil. This was the case among women who served as domestic servants in European householdsor were single women or students in French high school. All in all, these women typically inhab-ited urban spaces and made up a small minority of the Muslim female population. Their existencecontradicted French claims that all Muslim women veiled (MacMaster 2009, 137138). Finally,women living in particular regions of the country did not veil at all. Specifically, some womenliving in the Kabylia region did not don head covering. The French had known that thesewomen abstained from veiling; their claim, then, that the Algerian Muslim womanwas naturally

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veiled and further their insistence that Muslim women acted as a homogenous, singular entityobfuscated a reality that they were familiar with after 120 some years of occupying the territory.50

Perhaps the most disturbing way the French campaign to emancipateMuslim women provedhypocritical consisted of how the French soldiers and officials treated women when out of thepurview of propagandist camera lenses. At the same time, they claimed to be acting toimprove their lives, some French soldiers and officials committed horrendous acts of both sym-bolic and physical violence against these women and violated what many people today considerbasic human rights. Just as it did Algerian men, the French army subjected Muslim women sus-pected of collusion with the nationalist movement to elaborate and sometimes lethal forms oftorture. In a highly perverted way, torturers reproduced the purported clash of French and Alger-ian Muslim cultures while tormenting prisoners. As mentioned above, torturers frequentlyemployed instruments of modernity (running water and electricity) against a population that pur-portedly resisted this influence by participating in the nationalist movement.51 Indeed, it was as ifthe French yearned to forcefully subdue the Muslims they held in custody by literally shovingmodernity down their throats and sending bolts of it through their bodies. Oftentimes, the mod-ernising torture methods took on sexual overtones. For instance, French soldiers would pass theggne over their victims genitals. Most disturbingly, in their interrogations of Muslim womenpost-1957 and post-1958, elements of the emancipation campaign came into play. As they weretelling women to think of the welfare of their children by electing to keep Algeria French andtransforming into modern housewives, French soldiers were torturing pregnant women bysitting on their stomachs.52 At the same time, they were attempting to get women to unveil,some French soldiers used veils to tie up women in the torture chambers.53 Nationalist femalecombatant Djamila Boupacha likewise incited global outrage when she publicly accusedFrench soldiers of raping her with a coke bottle. The use of a product of modern consumptionin French torture chambers further attests to how this torment adopted modernising overtones.54

In June 2000, former FLN combatant Louisette Ighilahriz came forward with her harrowingstory of being raped repeatedly in the very building that housed Massus office. Indeed, Ighilahrizclaimed to have seen the then-colonel passing by the room in which she was held and tortured inlate 1957. According to her account, Ighilahriz heard Massu give orders for her to be tortured(Le Monde, June 20, 2000). He may have thus known that his own soldiers were rapingMuslim women. Massu denied this, though, in an interview later in 2000.55 Yet, Massus dis-avowal of any knowledge of torture prompted his former colleague, General Paul Aussaressesto step forward with his own version of what Massu knew. He stated that Massus claim toonly have had limited information on the use of torture was utterly false. As Aussaresses revealedin a 2000 interview, during the Battle of Algiers, in the morning after evening torture sessionswith suspected nationalist sympathisers, Aussaresses supplied reports to Massu among othersdescribing the interrogations. According to Aussaresses,

Sometimes I told Massu, We have brought in so and so (referring to a suspect) and I looked him inthe eyes before adding, Were going to kill him tomorrow.Massu would grunt and I would take thatas a yes.56

If Massu knew more than he admitted in 2000 and Aussaresses was supplying detailed reportsabout torture, it is possible that he was aware his soldiers were raping women in Frenchcustody like Ighilahriz.Thus, Massu, one of the officials involved with the liberation campaign, also possibly

oversaw the rape of Muslim women. Jacques Massus wife Suzanne helped to found the Move-ment of Feminine Solidarity. No evidence exists to suggest, though, that Massu admitted to his

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wife the unsavoury work in which he was engaged. Most ironically, one half of this marriedcouple engaged in a crusade to improve the lives of Algerian Muslim women while the otheroversaw the torture and rape of some of these women.57

Besides rape and torture, French soldiers participated in other activities that conflicted with thesupposed goals of the campaign to emancipate Algerian Muslim women. While declaring to theworld that they were liberating local women, to try and cut FLN forces off from the local popu-lation, the French forced millions of Muslims to leave their homes and villages and relocate tocamps during the war (Sutton 2007). To better control these communities, the French adminis-tration began requiring late in the war that Algerians have identity cards. The creation of thesecards meant French photographers would have to force women to unveil. These women didnot passively accept this affront to their customs; many of the photographs army soldier MarcGaranger took in the region of Kabylia show the women glaring disdainfully into the camera(Garanger 2002; MacMaster 2009, 209220).In summary, while declaring to the international community that they were revolutionising

Muslim womens lives and advancing their status, the French army at least engaged in anumber of activities that violated the bodies, liberties, and rights of these women. At times, thedepiction of Algerian women propagandists painted for the world or tried to persuade Muslimwomen to present themselves stood in contradiction with realities of which they were wellaware. Through their efforts, however, the French succeeded at propagating the notion that Alger-ian women had never entered public spaces and been involved in politics prior to the start ofFrances emancipation campaign although they had knowledge to the contrary.

Conclusion

In the middle of the Algerian War of Independence, the French military embarked upon an elab-orate campaign to liberateMuslim women. Yet, because their objective was to prove to the inter-national community that they were modernising Algerian Muslim women, a good deal of theirefforts focused on altering Muslim womens appearance or producing fabricated images of themthey could then distribute abroad. The images of Muslim women they created, moreover, oftenclashed with reality and thereby perpetuated false notions of Muslim women and society.Additionally, at the same time as they were ardently attempting to posit themselves as thesaviours and modernisers of Muslim women, French officials and soldiers robbed thesewomen of many of their basic human rights. French soldiers employment of modernisingforms of torture, some gender-specific (sitting on pregnant stomachs, binding women withveils) highlighted the hypocrisy underlying this campaign to demonstrate to the world howadvanced Muslim women were becoming with French assistance. French military and govern-ment leaders such as Massu who had helped shape the emancipation campaign knew, further-more, about these atrocities and in some cases ordered them to be carried out. This paper hassought to elucidate an important mechanism the fabrication and manipulation of Muslimwomens images by which the French tried to make it appear as though they were liberatingMuslim women while sometimes resorting to odious means to accomplish this end.Over the past two decades, France has begun re-examining its colonial legacy. In the course of

this reconsideration of past events, officials and scholars must not look to superficial evidence likea photo pulled from the archives of Monique Amziane tearing off her veil to prove that Francebenevolently led the populations of its former colonies into modernity. Instead, they must delvefurther to understand exactly how images came to be produced for they are sometimes no morethan mere creations of colonialist subterfuge.

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Funding

This work was supported by the Newcomb-Tulane College and the Newcomb College Institute of Tulane University.

Notes

1. This description is based on MacMaster (2009, 133135).2. Documents from the colonial archives reveal that the governor general along with many of this colleagues worried

about the reaction of the UN and its CSW to the reality that Algerian women still did not have the right to vote inthe early 1950s. Debates on the Womens Condition at the Economic and Social Council, letter 12 March 1952from Roger Lonard to Minister of the Interior, CAOM 10 CAB 22.

3. In the summer of 1952, the Association of Muslim Girl Scouts Summer Camps took 178Muslim 15-year-old girlson a trip to France. The report on the trip noted that

Some of the girls (the minority) are from rich and bourgeois families but most are from modest or impover-ished neighborhoods. Some live veiled while some have not yet taken up the veil due to their young age andstill others have received from their families, often after some struggle, permission to not wear the veil. Someof the more mature young girls have for many years already been leading a life that requires them to take ongreat responsibilities, but the majority leads a primitive existence; they have never learned how to budget,plan a trip, take out money, send a money order, or use a telephone.

4. These included polygamy, the right of a husband to repudiate the wife, the veil, and exclusion of women frompublic spaces.

5. For instance, this code outlawed polygamy and marriage of anyone under the age of 15 and made consent necess-ary on the part of both spouses for marriage, among other measures (MacMaster 2009, 83).

6. Several American newspapers reported favourably on Bourguibas reforms. See, for instance, Special to theNew York Times (1957).

7. French administrators made no announcements to the international community about their intention to get rid ofthe Muslim personal status at this time. It seems that those in charge of the project kept it secret out of fear that theMuslim community would react violently and perceive it as an attack on their faith.

8. CAOM 12 CAB 207 (1 December 1956) letter from Villeneuve to the Director General of Political Affairs.9. At this time, though, French officials denied that a war was underway in Algeria. They thus argued that prisoners

they captured were outlaws and exempt from rules applying to the treatment of prisoners of war. For more on this,see Reid (2005).

10. The group was the Democratic International Federation of Women, CAOM 81 F 903.11. The Time magazine article referred to Bouhired as pretty and doe-eyed (Tac-Tac-Tac, 1958, 27). Translation

of Bouhireds statement is taken from the article.12. Mujhidt is the Arabic term for female fighters used to describe Muslim women who fought with the FLN.13. CAOM 12 CAB 144. Letter from Robert Lacoste, then governor general of Algeria.14. This film was The Nurses of the Bled (MacMaster 2009, 9098 and 161).15. A document entitled, FLN Directive on the subject of Propaganda and Counter-propaganda to carry out vis--vis

the Muslim woman that the French military found on a political adjunct for the nationalist movement killed inNovember 1958 gave April 1957 as the date when the French began their propagandist efforts towards Muslimwomen, SHAT 1 H 2461.

16. 26 April 1958. General Massu to the Prefect of Algiers, the Inspector General of the Administration in Extraordi-nary mission, CAOM 14 CAB 162.

17. At one point, army officers expressed dismay that they could not monitor public bathhouses as efficiently as theywould like. Intelligence officers also uncovered FLN documents showing that the nationalist movement was usingwomen because of French police and military hesitancy to search Algerian Muslim women. This revelation like-wise may have prompted the French to want women to discard veilings and headcoverings and thus may haveincited them to persuade the latter to unveil CAOM 7G 1143A.

E. Perego368

18. The Indochina war, in which communist forces used psychological techniques on French prisoners of war, con-vinced French military officers of the need to persuade the population through methods to which they themselveshad been subjected. The rise of communism and fascism in the 1920s and 1930s as well as SecondWorldWar alsostressed to the French military the usefulness of propaganda for population control and advancing political causes(MacMaster 2009, 8688).

19. This thought derived from ethnographers and scholars imagined ideas about the Middle East. Typically, theybelieved Muslims to be lascivious. They fetishised local gender and marriage practices such as veiling and polyg-amy. For examples of such works, see the postcards from Alloula. For instances of how this work weighed heavilyon the works of Fifth Bureau propagandists, see MacMaster (2009, 7078 and 8990, 154160) and SHAT 1 H2460 and SHAT 1 H 2461. MacMaster also makes the point in his work about the influence of Orientalist ideas onthese propagandists. The term Orientatlism is Edward Sads. See Sad (1978). Another work which closelylooks at European views of Muslim women, including Algerian, from an earlier period is Taraud (2003).

20. Algerians were not at this point in an economic position to be supporting such costly institutions. For instance,Horne cites the 1955 Masptiol Report stating that one million Algerian Muslims were totally or partially unem-ployed, and that another two million were seriously underemployed (Horne, 1977, 6263). For example, propa-gandists referred to harems in a way that highly replicated Orientalist ideas about Muslim society. A documenttitled Condition of the Muslim Woman in Algeria dating to 2 April 1957 stated of the Algerian Muslimwoman, constrained to wearing the veil, she lives cloistered in a harem (CAOM 81 F 74).

21. This referendum, which took place in France as well as across the empire, was on the new constitution De Gaullehad offered; if the majority of citizens voted yes to the referendum, then the constitution would go into effect(Horne, 304305).

22. CAOM 81 F 439. In document entitled, Dossier on Algeria: From October 1958November 1959, under sub-heading of Referendum: the Response of Algeria, 67.

23. CAOM 81 F 1450. The section of the pamphlet with the heading MuslimWomen Voted declared that for womento vote is often to accomplish an act of faith, it is to believe in the New Algeria, that will witness equality betweenman and woman, in the field of the family as well as in the civic field.

24. CAOM 10 CAB 155. This file contains police reports about womens involvement with the MTLD.25. Connelly (2002, 216), citing Robert W. Shofield, dir., The Falling Veil, Tangent films, circa 1960, CAOM.26. Connelly makes the link between the use of the term electric shock and the French use of electricity in the torture

of Algerian Muslims during the war. See Connelly (2002, 216).27. CAOM 81 F 1450. The Revolution of May Has Emancipated the Algerian Muslim Women sent to ministry of

foreign affairs, French newspapers abroad liaison and diffusion, pro-Gaullist French political party UNR (Unionpour la nouvelle rpublique) La peyronnie, and Chilean journalists.

28. Many of the photos from these events located in CAOM 81 F 88 have captions with women crying kif kif .29. Scholars have elaborated elsewhere the story of how and why the women came to serve as delegates as well as

details of their personal background, such as their regional origins, how they became involved with the cause ofFrench Algeria, etc. The concern here is to delineate the meaning French propagandists attached to their electionand their subsequent inclusion in the National Assembly and the political field. Khedira Bouabsa and Nafissa SidCara were members of Algerias small urban Muslim elite. Both spoke French fluently and had been educated.What is known of Rebiha Kebtanis life will be described further below (Seferdjeli 2004b, 4754).

30. The Mouvement de Solidarit Fminin was one of the European-led womens groups that supposedly sought toassist Muslim women during the war. Lucienne Salan and Suzanne Massu created this association in May 1958after the generals coup. For more on this organisations, see MacMaster (2009, 178208).

31. Although all of the women were voted into power, at least in the case of one, Nafissa Sid Cara; then Interior Min-ister Michel Debr and De Gaulle approved her running for office well in advance of the elections. As Debrpenned in his autobiography,

I mentioned in front of the General my wish to include at least one woman in the government. The Generalsaid neither yes, nor no and asks me which woman? I suggested Nafissa Sid Cara who is the sister of a deputyof Algeria who was made a Minister by the Fourth Republic. She has just been elected deputy of the suburbof Algiers. She would be the symbol of a transformation and advancement that we wish for Algerian society.The General considers my initiative odd but did not resist. If you suggest her to me, I will accept.

Thus, Sid Caras nomination appears to have been decided by the higher echelons of French power. Quotation ascited in Seferdjeli (2004b), Muslim Womens Emancipation, 51, note 139. This is not to suggest, however, thatonce these women were in power that they did not act to effect change. Sid Cara certainly proved that these

The Journal of North African Studies 369

women had a certain level of agency in the state when she promoted the reforms of the Muslim personal statuslaws (Seferdjeli 2004b, 5152).

32. Men made up the majority of delegates in the National Assembly from 1958 to 1962. See for a list of delegates.See Liste alphabtique des dputs de la Ire lgislature 19581962. Also, the fact that Kebtani could be publiclynicknamed the pin-up attests to the misogynist culture that reigned in Frances legislative body at this time.

33. Women in Algeria wore different types and styles of headscarves. Some of the women Amrane interviewed dis-cussed the variety of veils and veiling practices. For instance, women from the Mzab in the northern Sahara woreveils that covered one of their eyes at all times. See Amrane (1994). Her interviews also contain details about howMuslim women belonged to different socioeconomic classes and how womens customs and roles varied fromregion to region. The French were highly aware of this diversity in local female attire and veiling patters;Frantz Fanon rightfully points out in his essay, Algeria Unveiled that the French used the absence of headscarvesamong the Imazighen in order to depict the population as being superior to its Arab counterpart as part of theirdivide and rule policy there. See Fanon (1967, 36, note 1). As for linguistic divides, Algerian dialectal Arabic doesvary from region to region and the Amazigh, who make up about one-third of Algerias population today, do notspeak Arabic.

34. In a booklet titled, Evolution of the Algerian Muslim Woman sent to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Latin Amer-ican press, French newspapers abroad, and the French militarys liaison and diffusion offices asserted,

Everything started in May 1958. Those days, in Algiers, some Muslim women rejected their white veil, thehak, a symbolic gesture that translates the immense hope to shake the yoke of constraints and traditionsthat have deprived them for centuries the most elementary rights.

This pamphlet was also printed in Spanish, CAOM 81 F 1450.35. The French actually did start education Muslim girls in the 1950s, but in 1954, only 10.7% of girls received any

form of education (MacMaster 2009, 155).36. On 13 May 1958, former governor general of Algeria Jacques Soustelle along with the Generals Salan and Gra-

cieux and Colonel Massu overthrow the government in Algeria and called for, the dissolution of Frances FourthRepublic, in disarray at this point, the creation of a French Fifth Republic, and the return to power of GeneralCharles de Gaulle. The political instability in France made the French army in Algeria and the European settlersfeel that the government in Paris could no longer ensure French victory in the territory. For this reason, the gen-erals launched the coup that European settlers overwhelmingly supported.

37. The Fifth Bureau particularly wanted to combat the idea the international press was putting forth at this time thatthe generals were acting in the style of General Franco in 1936 Spain and thus represented a Fascist movement(MacMaster 2009, 115116).

38. Propaganda posters located in SHAT 1H 2464.39. SHAT 1 H 2504, 28 August 1958. Document from General Delegation of the Government, Commander in Chief

of forces in Algeria, Command Superior of the Interarmies for the 10th military region. This appears to have beena list of messages to be propagated among the female Muslim population.

40. CAOM 12 CAB 207 document 10 page F.41. Concerning the textual and historical bases for veiling practices,