West Asia At War: Repression, Resistance and Great Power Games

by Talmiz Ahmad

Algeria had some unique features: in 1848, it had been declared French territory; its three provinces – Oran, Algiers and Constantine – were declared departments of France and provided elected deputies to the Chamber in Paris. But these were French nationals, since Algeria attracted settlers from France who numbered over 800,000 by the 1920s. The other feature of French rule was that, though Algeria was French territory, Algerians were not seen as equal to French citizens – to be considered for citizenship, Algerians needed to give up their Muslim faith and accept French civil law. In Algeria itself, laws discriminated between French nationals and the native population, providing for penalties for actions that were not deemed criminal for Europeans, for instance, criticizing government officials or the French republic. Hence, in the first decades of the twentieth century, the agitation in Algeria was not for national independence but for equal rights.