The Algerian War and the Remaking of France

By Meredith Alaback

On January 29th, Dartmouth hosted Johns Hopkins Associate Professor, Todd Shepard. An author of the book “The Algerian War and the Remaking of France,” Mr. Shepard is a Francophile historian, specializing in post-WWII French Colonialism. His lecture was divided into two, interwoven discussion points. He commenced with the very specific and crucial time in French imperialistic efforts: the Algerian Independence War, and finished with how the combination of the threat of war and French prospects manifested an idea of a “nation-state”.

From 1830 until 1962, the French claimed almost the entirety of northwestern Africa as theirs for the taking. “La Maghreb” consisted of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, with Algeria ultimately becoming the most important territory. Politically, Algeria was viewed as an extension of France outside of its natural borders. In efforts to legitimize their rule, packs of French citizens sailed across the Mediterranean. Men, women, and children, supported by the French government, flocked to Algeria and settled down in hopes of establishing French culture. Although politically incorrect in modern terms, in the 20th century these French-African citizens were referred to as “pied-noirs”. Shepard notes that, as to be expected, the difference between the natives and the Frenchmen were great. After the recent establishment of “un perspectif laique” (secular perspective) under the first Revolution, the French government essentially banned the inquiry of religion in political situations. For the historically native Muslim population, this idea of separation of religion and state was foreign and unwanted.

Common ethnic disparities were another point of contingency. French men and women were endowed with certain rights from the French government overseas, while the locals were not given such benefits. Up until 1952 (the start of the Algerian Independence War), Shepard explains, the most legitimate right that the French gave to the natives was the title of “French Citizen”. Nevertheless, there were varying degrees of “citizenship” that undeniably continued the discrimination. After years of repression and unequal rights, the Algerians finally rebelled. The rebellion was anticipated, Shepard suggests, and the French did not go down without a fight.

As mentioned earlier, Mr. Shepard focused on the 1940s-1960s; better referred to as the end of the Fourth Republic and the beginning of the Fifth Republic. After the Second World War, the French emphasized the benefits of federalism and their pursuit of a super-national connection. The idea was to create a “Grand Ensemble” or super-nation, erasing the identity of being a “colonial power.” A super-nation would have continued in its dominance of non-domestic territories, only it would have been more humanistic. Ultimately, it was a justification to retain the colonizing life-style that the French had been enjoying for over a hundred years. Allegedly through Federalism, Algerians would be given more sovereignty despite the evident linguistic, religious, and ethnic divide. They would only be given this increase in power on the promise of a continued French executive power.
Thus, Algeria became an experiment. Mr. Shepard discussed that many of the social reforms and promotions that are incorporated into the modern French government were first inserted in Algeria for “testing.” This testing did not last very long, however, as de Gaulle entered the political scene. The messiness of the Fourth Republic was soon replaced with the much needed “cleanup” from the Fifth Republic. As much as he tried to resist, after four years into the French Presidency and eight years of an Algerian Revolution, de Gaulle eventually came to the reluctant conclusion of Algerian Independence.
Shepard finished his detail-oriented presentation with a final, interesting addition to the story: Algerian archives were most detailed during French occupation. Although there is an abundance of information in these archives, there will unfortunately always be a lacking in local Muslim records during this crucial Northwest African period. Overall, Shepard’s presentation elucidated France’s history regarding its rule of Algeria, and how its loss of the colony majorly shaped French politics.