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- Algeria was annexed to France despite
intense popular resistance. Resettlement programmes were
implemented by the French government using land-owning
incentives to draw French citizens to the new colony. The
colonials exploited the country's agricultural resources
for the benefit of France. The concept of French Algeria
became ingrained in the French collective mind.
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- This period of
early French influence over the country saw a huge drop
in Algeria's native population, as it fell from around
4 million in 1830 to only 2.5 million in
1890.
- The French
colonials looked upon the Muslim populace as an inferior
underclass that had to be tightly controlled. Muslims
were not allowed to hold public meetings, bear arms or
leave their districts or villages without government
permission. Although they were officially French subjects
they could not become French citizens unless they
renounced Islam and converted to Christianity. It was a
brutal, racist regime which alienated the vast majority
of Algerians. The French attempt at acculturating an
Algerian elite backfired badly. Those few schooled in
French academies and infused with French values suffered
the inherent racism of their French overlords and became
the nucleus of the Algerian nationalist movement.
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- The Algerian nationalist
movement emerged between the two World Wars,
first simply demanding civil rights for the indigenous
peoples of Algeria. The French government proposed
concessions to the nationalists but these were blocked by
French colonial reactionaries in the National Assembly.
The colonials resisted any reform giving Muslims equal
rights until, after 20 years of fruitless non-violent
activism, the frustrated nationalists formed a militant
anti-French party in 1939 called the Friends of
the Manifesto and Liberty, combining Islamic
and communist factions. By the 1950s revolutionaries were
being hounded into exile or hiding and the stage was
being set for the Algerian War of Independence.
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- In
March 1954 a revolutionary committee
was formed in Egypt by Ahmed Ben Bella and eight other
Algerians in exile which became the nucleus of the
National Liberation Front (FLN). On November 1st of the
same year the FLN declared war on the French through a
spectacular simultaneous attack on government buildings,
military installations, police stations and
communications facilities in the country.The populist
guerrilla war paralysed the country and forced the French
government to send 400,000 troops to try and put down the
uprising. However, the courage and ruthlessness of FLN
fighters and their tactical use of terrorism dragged the
French into the reactive trap of bloody reprisals against
the general population,which served to galvanise the
Algerians and strengthen the revolution.
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- The cruelty and brutality of French
colonial forces and the government's inability to find a
political solution turned world opinion against France.
The French use of concentration camps,
torture, and mass executions of civilians
suspected of aiding the rebels, isolated
France and elicited invidious comparisons with
totalitarian regimes and Nazism. The French government
was caught between a colonial policy based upon racism
and exploitation, and its place as a standard-bearer of
democracy. On the one hand, the French colonials were
intransigent. On the other, the world community was
calling for a cessation of hostilities and a political
solution.
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- In 1958 colonials
and French army officers joined forces to bring down the
French government and demanded the return of
General Charles De Gaulle
to lead France
to victory over the Algerian Nationalists and the
preservation of French Algeria. De Gaulle returned to
power with the support of the political extreme right
but, realising that the war could never be won, announced
a referendum allowing Algerians to choose their own
destiny, be it independence or remaining part of
France.
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- De Gaulle's move was seen as betrayal by
the colonials, the extreme right wing and certain parts
of the military. The OAS, a militant
terrorist organisation, was formed by an alliance of
these groups with the aim of overthrowing the general.
The OAS carried out a ruthless terrorist campaign against
the FLN and the French government, but they were doomed
to failure.
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- In
March 1962 a cease fire was negotiated
between the French government and the FLN and De Gaulle's
referendum was held in July
5th. The Algerian people spoke with a
single voice. They voted for independence. Following the
referendum most French departed from Algeria. By the end
of the year most colonials had evacuated the country that
had once been French Algeria.
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