of the Europeans were not French in origin but rather Spanish, Italian, Greek or something else. Even an emblematically French Algerian like Albert Camus was part-Spanish, part-French; and his French forebears were very recent arrivals. It was a long time since France had had an excess of people; and unlike Russia, Poland, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Scandinavia, Germany, Ireland, Scotland (and even England), France had not been a land of emigrants for many generations. The French were not natural colonizers.
