French, along with Spanish, Italian and other European settlers, moved to France's overseas colonies and territories. The largest group of one million settled in Algeria, followed by 200,000 in Morocco and proportionally fewer in other colonies. These settlers often took land that had been forcibly taken from the local population. While they had full political representation in Paris and the French government, the native population did not. Many settlers were fiercely committed to maintaining the overseas empire because they came from impoverished European backgrounds. Nearly half of the Algerian settlers in the 1880s were from Spain, southern Italy, or Malta, and the remainder were mostly poor French. They had nothing to return to if a local nationalist movement won its war of national liberation.
French conquest and initial settlement 's forces in 1830 s embarking at
Algiers for
Tonkin, January 1885 . European settlement of Algeria began during the 1830s, after France had commenced the process of conquest with the military seizure of the city of Algiers in 1830. The invasion was instigated when the
Dey of Algiers struck the French consul with a fly-swatter in 1827, although economic reasons are also cited. In 1830 the government of
King Charles X blockaded Algeria and an
armada sailed to Algiers, followed by a land expedition. A troop of 34,000 soldiers landed on 18 June 1830, at
Sidi Ferruch, west of Algiers. Following a three-week campaign, the
Hussein Dey capitulated on 5 July 1830 and was exiled. In 1839 Abd al-Kader began a seven-year war by declaring
jihad against the French. The French signed two peace treaties with Al-Kader, but they were broken because of a miscommunication between the military and the government in Paris. In response to the breaking of the second treaty, Abd al-Kader drove the French to the coast. In response, a French force of nearly 100,000 troops marched to the Algerian countryside and forced Abd al-Kader's surrender in 1847. In 1848 Algeria was divided into three
departments (
Alger,
Oran and
Constantine), thus becoming part of France. This system lasted until the 1880s and the rise of the
French Third Republic, when colonisation intensified.
Development as a society Identity After
French Algeria was redesignated from a colony into a
Department of France in 1848, the country was considered an integral part of French national territory, and this sentiment was largely shared by the
pieds-noirs community. Although the majority of
pieds-noirs were of French origin, many settlers continued to arrive from across the Western Mediterranean region from the 1830s into the twentieth century, particularly
Italy,
Spain and
Malta. The city of
Oran contained a large European population of Spanish heritage which later increased as a result of the
Spanish Civil War. As French Algerian society developed, European Algerians of all geographical background began to largely fall under the
pieds-noirs label or be considered as
Français d’Algérie (French of Algeria), and evolved into a society influenced by French language and social customs, but with their own unique identity and culture. French newspaper
Le Figaro claimed in 1961 that "the Europeans of Algeria [...] have become increasingly independent of French tutelage, and having adapted to the environment, or better yet, to the soil, have become a new race." According to
Ohio State University history scholar Daniela N. Edmeier, the French state even questioned how
pieds-noirs could be integrated into French society after a majority fled to mainland France following Algerian independence due to the cultural and social differences that had built up over time. The end of the
French protectorate of Tunisia and of the
French protectorate in Morocco in 1956 led to mass emigration of French settlers from both states to Algeria. These two countries had been placed under protectorate, whereas Algeria and its population fell under territory status and were considered part of overseas France. As the colony of Algeria grew with each generation,
pieds-noirs began to define themselves as distinct from the French citizens of metropolitan France; they identified as Algerian people. Some
pieds-noirs considered themselves at one time to be "true Algerians", whereas they termed Muslim Algerians as "Indigenous" peoples. An exchange between a
pied-noir student from Algiers and a metropolitan French student was recorded during a
UNEF conference in 1922: "So you're Algerian… but the son of a Frenchman, aren't you?" "Of course! All Algerians are sons of the French, the others are natives." However, many
pieds-noirs avoided using the term after the Second World War so as not to be confused with indigenous Algerian migrant workers who went to France. The
pieds-noirs themselves also used several nicknames to designate the French in metropolitan France, such as
French from France,
Frangaoui,
Patos and sometimes
pied-blanc (). Other terms used internally within the
pied-noir population included
pied-rouge () to refer to
pied-noir members of the
Algerian Communist Party or those who held left-wing beliefs, including a minority of
pieds-noirs sympathetic to the independence movement. The term
Pied-Gris was used to refer both to children with parentage from both metropolitan France and French Algeria, and to French settlers from independent Tunisia and Morocco who moved to French Algeria in the late 1950s rather than to France. French writer René Domergue noted that
Pied-Gris was used by both French settlers from Tunisia and Morocco and the
pieds-noirs themselves to distinguish themselves from each other. Algerian-born
Pieds-noirs writer and historian Jean-Jacques Jordi documented that
Mahonnais was used as a nickname for the descendants of settlers from the
Balearic Islands who migrated to Algeria after the French conquest as agricultural workers. After the French committed the
Sétif and Guelma massacre (1945), with the French navy and air force shelling and bombing Algerian territory, native Algerians increasingly began to look towards increased autonomy or outright independence. In 1954, the Algerian nationalist and pro-independence
FLN movement launched its first operations and this marked the start of the
Algerian war, after which Algerian militant groups carried out attacks against both
pieds-noirs and targets associated with the French colonial administration. The French government and military reacted with implementing a brutal torture regime inspired by the likes of French general Massu. The
Organisation armée secrète (OAS) started to increase murders and bombings against Algerians and French who opposed further French control of Algeria. In response to the attacks committed by the FLN and political demands for independence,
Pierre Mendès France, the-then President of the Council, expressed a distinction between the political status of Algeria compared to Tunisia and Morocco during an address to the
French National Assembly: We do not compromise when it comes to defending the internal peace of the nation, the unity, the integrity of the Republic. The departments of Algeria constitute a part of the French Republic. They have been French for a long time and irrevocably. Their populations, who enjoy French citizenship and are represented in Parliament, have moreover given in peace, as before in war, enough proof of their attachment to France for France, in its turn, not to allow in question this unit. Between them and the metropolis, there is no conceivable secession. Never France, no government, no French Parliament, whatever their particular tendencies, will ever yield on this fundamental principle. I affirm that no comparison with Tunisia or Morocco is more false, more dangerous. Here it is France."
Culture, food and language French writer Léon Isnard noted that
pieds-noirs often mixed traditional French and occasionally Spanish and Italian cuisine with local Arab and Jewish influences. Dishes such as
gazpacho,
paella,
méchoui and
brochette skewered meat were commonly consumed by the
pied-noir population and often accompanied with
white wine produced by
pied-noir farmers in
Tlemcen and
red wine from
Mascara. Although French was the main language of the
pieds-noirs, a distinct form of French known as
pataouète developed in the
pied-noir community in Algeria and contained words, idioms, expressions and slang terms not commonly found in Metropolitan France. Ferdinand Duchene noted that
pataouète was largely derived from mainland French but contained words from
Spanish and
Catalan (influenced by Spanish workers in Algeria during the late 1800s), as well as
Italian, and local Arab dialect. Despite marked differences and disparities between the two communities, it was not uncommon for
pieds-noirs to socially mix and form connections with their Arab neighbours as French Algerian society expanded. Those living in the countryside were known to adopt similar customs and habits to the native Algerian population. Intermingling between
pieds-noirs and native Algerians was considered commonplace in rural Algerian towns such as
Dellys,
Sidi Daoud and Rébeval (today
Baghlia) which contained significant European populations before the independence of Algeria.
Social structure Like other white populations in colonial-era Africa, the
pieds-noirs generally dominated much of Algeria's industrial, cultural and political institutions, comprising the most influential section of society. However, French Algeria also attracted laborers, farmers, blue collar and agricultural workers from metropolitan France, Spain, Italy and Malta in search of better economic opportunities. European manual laborers came under the
pied-noir fold and acquired French nationality after several years of living in Algeria. As such, the
pied-noir community contained different social classes and structures from wealthy landowners and affluent urban dwellers, middle-class intellectuals and professionals, to artisans and poor agricultural classes. The
pieds-noirs writer
Albert Camus was born in impoverished circumstances. Following the exodus to France in the aftermath of the Algerian war, working-class
pieds-noirs were particularly scathing in response to accusations from the French political left that they were exploiters or elite colonialists over the indigenous population. In 1955, Camus published an opinion column in
L’Express in which he wrote against stereotyping in the metropolitan French press of the pied-noir population during the Algerian war: "When one reads certain newspapers, it looks like Algeria is populated by one million colonists wearing a tie, smoking a cigar, and riding a Cadillac… 80% of the
Français d’Algérie are not colonists, but employees or small business owners. The employees’ standard of living, albeit superior to the Arabs’, is inferior to that of the metropolis." Pied-noir author Jean-Jacques Jordi wrote that the standards of living for the average
pieds-noirs was more often than not higher than that of the Arab population but lower compared to people in mainland France.
Relationship to mainland France and Muslim Algeria , a church built by the French
pieds-noirs in Algeria The
pied-noir relationship with France and Algeria was marked by alienation. The settlers considered themselves French, but many of the
pieds-noirs had a tenuous connection to mainland France; 28 percent of them had never visited there. The settlers encompassed a range of
socioeconomic strata, ranging from peasants to large landowners, the latter of whom were referred to as
grands colons. To obtain citizenship, they were required to renounce their Muslim identity – with only about 2,500 Muslims acquiring citizenship before 1930. Oran had been under European rule since the 16th century (1509); the population in the Oran metropolitan area was 49.3% European in 1959. after
Operation Torch in 1942 In the Algiers metropolitan area, Europeans accounted for 35.7% of the population. In the metropolitan area of Bône, they accounted for 40.5% of the population. The
département of Oran, a rich European-developed agricultural land of stretching between the cities of Oran and Sidi-Bel-Abbès, and including them, was the area of highest
pied-noir density outside of the cities, with the
pieds-noirs accounting for 33.6% of the population of the
département in 1959.
Jewish community Jews were present in North Africa and Iberia for centuries, some since the time when "Phoenicians and Hebrews, engaged in maritime commerce, founded
Hippo Regius (current Annaba),
Tipasa, Caesarea (current
Cherchel), and Icosium (current Algiers)". According to oral tradition they arrived from
Judea after the
First Jewish–Roman War (66–73 AD). It is known historically that many
Sephardi Jews came following the Spanish
Reconquista.
Mozabite Jews were excluded from the
Crémieux Decree, and were only granted “common law civil status” and French citizenship in 1961. ==Algerian War and exodus==