The Impact of the Algerian War of Independence on Antiracism in France during the Period 1954-1981

Table of Contents

Introduction1

Discussion2

The Algerian War of Independence3

Antiracism in France8

Impact of Antiracism in France11

FLN (Front de Libération Nationale)11

1954-196213

Reasons of Discrimination and Racism17

Conclusion22

References23

The Impact of the Algerian War of Independence on Antiracism in France during the Period 1954-1981

Introduction

The Algerian War of Independence began on 1 November 1954, when the newly formed FLN (Front de Libération Nationale) launched guerrilla attacks on military and police targets. The early stages of the war saw polarisation and radicalisation of opinion and a rapid escalation of violence on both sides. Prominent incidents in this first phase included the vote in the French parliament in March 1956 that granted 'special powers' to the French military in Algeria; the kidnapping in October 1956 of FLN leader Ben Bella, who eventually came to power in 1962; and the 'Battle of Algiers', a period of conflict in 1956-7 comprising a wave of attacks and general strikes orchestrated by the FLN and its violent suppression by battalions of parachutists (Liauzu 2007).

That military victory for the French proved, in the longer term, a propaganda victory for Algeria, focusing international attention on the war and the French Army's systematic use of torture. In May 1958, rebellious actions by the French Army in Algeria led to the end of the vacillant Fourth Republic and the return to power of de Gaulle. Like his predecessors he initially underestimated the momentum of the independence movement, but by 1959 he had begun to speak of Algerian self-determination, and in June 1960 effectively recognised the GPRA (Lloyd 1998).

Political progress was slowed by hard-liners including the colons (or pieds-noirs) who threw up barricades in Algiers in January 1960, and the generals who joined the pro-French-Algeria OAS (Organisation Armée Secrète), with its plans to assassinate de Gaulle. He survived a putsch in Algiers in April 1961 and signed the Evian agreements with the GPRA on 18 March 1962, which led to full independence in July 1962. The most detailed account of the war in English is still Horne's A Savage War of Peace, though its tone now sounds a little dated and - like much of the historiography - it is Eurocentric. The legacy of the war remains fiercely contested, and recent works (historical, literary and cinematic) have revived debates around torture, the fate of the harkis (Algerians who fought with the security forces, and many of whom were killed in the violence that continued after July 1962) and the slaughter in Paris in 1961 of pro-FLN demonstrators (House et al. 2006).

Discussion

It is a peculiarity of Algerian literary history that the first great wave of Algerian literature, by writers such as Mohammed Dib, Mouloud Feraoun, Mouloud Mammeri and Kateb Yacine, predates not only independence but the war. Kateb's classic Nedjma, though published in 1956, was largely written earlier, and like other works of the era it emphasises the importance for the nationalist movement of the Sétif massacres of 8 May 1945, when Algerian demonstrators ...