Instead of setting up a proxy or puppet, France decided to incorporate Algeria into its national structure as three new provinces. In other words, the French treated Algeria not as a colony but as part of France. A “joint stock” company was set up to sell land to French citizens who would immigrate to these new provinces and help “develop” them. Even here in Algeria, which France out and out invaded, the foreigners flooding in as immigrants didn’t fight a war with the natives. They just bought up 80 percent of the land, fair and square, and set up a whole new economy that didn’t compete with
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