Economic and Social Destruction

The horrific violence used by France against Algerians in the context of colonization did not limit itself to physical brutality and cruelty. It also came in the form of humiliation, economic dispossession, and social dislocation. After France decided to colonize Algeria and transform it into a French land, its military repression was complemented by a series of actions and policies that disrupted the lives and livelihoods of several generations of the indigenous population.

During the repressive "pacification" of Algeria´s population, the colonization of the land also went forward, involving the destruction of the existing social structures and economic system. This was done by force and by passing laws, such as the sénatus-consulte and the Warnier law of 1873, which dispossessed rural families and communities of ancestral land that was not alienable under the existing Islamic and customary laws. General Bugeaud summed up France´s interest in the land: "What is to take in [Algeria] is only one interest, the agricultural interest. . . . Oh, yes, I could not find another way to subdue the country other than take that interest" (Stora, 1991, p. 25). The expropriation of land was massive, and most Algerians found themselves deprived of their main mean of subsistence. Those who were lucky found insecure employment in the new large European-owned properties. Collective punishment was also used a regular means to take more land away from the local population. This happened after the El-Mokrani upheaval, in which 500,000 acres of land were confiscated. This punishment was accompanied by a total denial of due process and the 1881 imposition of harsh common law sanctions formulated in the Code de l´Indigénat (laws for the natives).

When France lost Alsace-Lorraine to Germany in 1871, thousands of residents of that region were resettled in Algeria and awarded land confiscated from the Algerians. By the end of the century, over half of Algeria´s arable land was controlled by the Europeans. The few Algerians who had retained their land were so heavily taxed and victimized by so many natural and bureaucratic calamities that they could barely subsist. This condition led Alexis de Tocqueville—who wrote a blueprint for colonization—to observe in 1847 "we have rendered the Muslim society a lot more miserable, more disorganized, more ignorant, and more barbarian than what it was before it knew us" (p. 17.

Between 1830 and 1860 there were 3 million Algerians, 3.5 million by 1891 and 5 million in 1921. In 1886 there were 219,000 French settlers and 211,000 other Europeans (Spaniards, Italians, and Maltese). The total European population reached 984,000 in 1954, while the Algerians numbered 6 million. Yet the European minority controlled not only most of the country´s wealth, but also the fate of those they had subjugated in their own land.

Using the "divide and rule" principle, the French created through the 1870 Crémieux Decrees, which extended French citizenship to Algerian Jews and European settlers while excluding Muslim Algerians from citizenship. The French also created a distinction between Arab and Berber Algerians, and promoted Berber over the Arabic language because the latter was a unifying medium for Algerian nationalism. The social schisms thus created among Algeria´s peoples continued to have a negative legacy into the twenty-first century, more than 40 years after Algeria´s independence.

Violence at Independence and Beyond

The war of independence waged by the Algerians for more than 7 years (1954–1962) left 1.5 million Algerians dead and substantially weakened the already meagre economic and social infrastructure. Eighteen months after coming to power in 1958, retired General Charles de Gaulle understood that the war in Algeria no longer served France´s interests. In 1960, negotiations with the Algerian nationalists (National Liberation Front) began for a "clean" and orderly exit of France from Algeria. A referendum in Algeria and France gave an overwhelming support to de Gaulle´s policy with regard to Algeria. The Evian Accords between France and the Algerian nationalists sealed the final terms for Algeria´s independence in July 1962. However, the hardliners among the French settlers in Algeria did everything possible to resist such an outcome. They disobeyed orders from Paris, and even threatened to invade the motherland and take control for the sake of maintaining Algeria as a French possession. In a last desperate attempt, they created the Organization of the Secret Army (OAS) which would use terror to try to stall the independence momentum. Led by General Raoul Salan, this organization engaged in terrorist actions not only against Algerians, but also against French individuals and public offices deemed sympathetic to Algeria´s independence. A few months before Algeria regained its sovereignty, French radical settlers and disenchanted members of the military engaged in a systematic campaign of murder and destruction. Hundreds of people were killed in the midst of burning towns and cities.

In June 1962 French settlers began their exodus, returning to France by the thousands each day, leaving behind them death and destruction. France was exiting Algeria the same way it had entered, with a widespread terror and scorched earth policy. On July 1, 1962, a referendum in Algeria showed that 91.23 percent of voters supported independence

The Harkis

In 1954, France managed to entice thousands of Algerians to collaborate with its forces with the promise of assimilation and better treatment by the colonial administration. They became known as the harkis and served mostly as self-defense groups aiding the colonial forces against the nationalists. According to a report sent the United Nations in 1961, there were 263,000 pro-France Algerians, of whom 58,000 were harkis.

When the French began to withdraw from Algeria, they knew that the harkis were in imminent danger of being slaughtered by fellow Algerians for treason. Nonetheless, French officials did not seem too concerned with the fate of their erstwhile allies. Thousands of harkis were left behind to die within the first weeks of independence. According to a 2003 book, Un Mensonge Français (A French Lie) by Georges-Marc Benamou, the government of Charles de Gaulle explicitly refused to repatriates the bulk of the harki population. Legal representative of thousands of harkis that managed to reach France in 1962 began a lawsuit in November 2003 against the surviving members of De Gaulle´s government, accusing them of crime against humanity and ethnic cleansing.

The colonial venture in Algeria thus closed with yet another massacre that France could have avoided. Many of those responsible for the crimes committed in Algeria escaped persecution because of French amnesty laws protecting them and because of the resistance of French officials to open the files of colonization for an objective analysis and evaluation of that painful past

Violence in Independent Algeria

After 132 years of colonial subjugation and a bloody seven-year war for independence, Algeria went through a period of relative peace and economic development that lasted almost three decades. However, the country entered into another troubled era in the 1990s. As one of the nationalist leaders, Larbi Ben M´Hidi was quoted as saying to his compatriots in the 1950s: "the easiest part was to regain independence and the toughest one comes after that." The economic and political systems that were established in independent Algeria failed. This led in the early 1990s to a social rebellion headed by Islamist groups, which, after having been denied a legitimate electoral victory in 1991, opted for armed rebellion against the state. However, the war they waged for a decade extended also to the civilian population and foreigners. Between 1992 and 2002, over 150,000 people were killed, entire villages were abandoned, and the economic infrastructure was badly damaged. While most of the violence is attributed to the Islamists, the government also committed repression and reprisals and is responsible for the disappearance of thousands of people. Many also accuse the Algerian security service of using French-style torture and of the summary execution of suspected Islamist rebels or their supporters. Because there has not been a full and independent inquiry of the massacres and other violations committed during this internal war, the whole truth about the ongoing tragedy in Algeria remains unknown