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Notre Dame D'Afrique, a church built by the French Algerian pieds noirs.

Pied-noir (plural pieds-noirs) (French: "Black foot") is the term used in reference to French nationals, "born and raised in North Africa", and most specifically to those from Algeria ,which formed three Departements of France (Alger, Oran and Constantine) until the end of the Algerian War of Independence in 1962. In reference to North Africa, the term Pied noirs is generally used to include both Christians and Jews of European descent who had been born there, as many of the colonial settlers had come from countries such as Spain and Italy, in addition to France.

Perhaps one of the most famous pied noir's was Albert Camus.

Origin of the term

Eugene Delacroix painting depicting women in Algeria.

The origin of the term pied noir (French: "Black foot") is difficult to precisely determine. Figuratively there a two potential explanation for the expression's development. First, the term suggests that the colons (French: colonists) could be distinguished from the indigenous population by their black boots (as the French soldiers in Africa wore black boots). Second, it was asserted in the magazine Pieds Noirs d'Hier et d'Aujourd'hui that the phrase was derived from the pieds-noirs working in the marine sector had been assigned to duty in the coal-room because of their experience with warm temperatures, thus causing their feet to become black.

At that time, European Algerians described themselves as Algerian in relation to metropolitan French, and as Europeans vis-à-vis the indigenous Arab and Berber population. In the 1920s and 1930s, the term Algerian came to be monopolised by indigenous Arab/Berber Algerians as Algerian nationalism became a political force to be reckoned with. By 1955, European Algerians started applying the term pied-noir to themselves.

History

French Invasion

Main article: French Algeria

European settlers began arriving in substantial numbers to the Barbary Coast in the 1830s when France invaded Algeria, wresting the region from nominal Ottoman control. Reasons behind the precipitation of French military activity in Algeria revolve around a number of issues. First, it was posited that the actions would be an excellent source of employment for veterans of the French Napoleonic Wars; and second, that the war would mask internal discontent in France. Finally, it is contended that the Algerian Dey had been owed substantial quantities of money, mostly for grain, by Napoleon's regime following the Italian Campaign of 1796.[1] The French invasion itself was purportedly instigated by an event in which the French consul was struck in the face with a fly-swatter by the Dey of Algiers, an appointed provincial ruler of the Ottoman Empire from 1671 onwards (dey, from Arabic: داي and Turkish Dayı ).

The bombardment of Algeria by Admiral Duperré's forces in 1830.

In response to the "fan affair", military action began three years later. The government of Charles X (1824-1830), the last Bourbon king of France, chose to blockade Algeria and placed Admiral Duperré at the command of a six hundred ship armada. The fleet proceeded to Algiers. Following the failure of the blockade, the French then used this as a reason to outfit a land expedition into the country. Using Napoleon's 1808 plan for the invasion, General de Bourmont then landed with a complement of 34,000 soldiers on June 18th, 1830 at Sidi Ferruch, which lay 27 kilometers (17 miles) west of Algiers. Following a roughly three-week campaign of fighting, the Dey Hussein capitulated on July 5th, 1830 and exiled himself and family aboard a French ship heading for the Italian peninsula, which was then under control of the Austrian Empire. Thus, after 313 years, the Empire abandoned administration of Algeria. At this point, the French began the expropriation of Turkish property and organized the occupation of the Algerian territories.[2]

Abd el-Kader.

The French presence, which had met with some resistance from the North African population, in the early 1830s extended only to Algiers, Bougie, and Bonemet. Then, in the 1830s, the French entered the Oran region and began to face significant resistance from Emir Abd al-Kader (alternatively referred to as: Abdelkader or Abd el-Kader), a Moroccan and leader of the Sufi Brotherhood, who attempted to create a state based on "egalitarian Islamic principles". Abd al-Kader declared jihad against the French and at this point, a period of full war which lasted seven years began. The French Army signed two treaties with Abd el-Kader, however these treaties were broken due to miscommunication between the French in the field and the government in Paris. In response to the breaking of a second treaty, in 189, Abd el-Kader went on the offensive and drove the French back to the Algerian coast. In reply, General Thomas-Robert Bugeaud led a French force now numbering almost 100,000 troops (about a third of the total French force) to Algeria. Bugeaud's campaign caused a significant amount of onslaught and devastation to the North Africans and their landscape and ultimately proved successful for the French. Although various pockets of the country remained independent, the war effectively ended in 1847 with the surrender of Abd al-Kader, and Algeria was French territory.

In 1848, following efforts by the Algerian settlers, the French government officially decreed that Algeria would thus be considered a département of France, with a département correlating approximately to a county in English. In other words, Algeria was recognized as an integral part of the French state, with recognition similar to other French departments such as Côte-d'Or, Paris, or Bouches-du-Rhône. These départements were named Alger, Oran and Constantine and were modeled on the Turkish system.

Settlement

Initially, the French modeled their colonial system upon that of their predecessors, the Ottomans. This consisted of mainly employing local tribes via a series of agreements. However, in 1843 the French began to supervise the province directly, by setting up the Bureaux Arabes (Arab Bureaus). Originally, the Arab Bureaus were operated predominantly by military having no financial interest in the region. Due to their lack of monetary investment the officers often sided with the locals in dispute, at least until the 1880s with the fall of Napoleon III. At this juncture and with the rise of the French Third Republic, when the efforts to colonize and "confiscate" lands intensified. It was now that the French began the large-scale expropriation of Algerian lands, according to Lapidus:

Massive French colonization began almost immediately after the French conquest as companies were formed in France to speculate Algerian land, and would-be settlers seized abandoned properties. The French government soon decided to expropriate Algerian lands on a large scale...The French also forced tribal groups to move out of their traditional domains or to occupy smaller spaces so that the "surplus" land could be converted into colonial farms...Vast tracts were made available to French settlers. By 1900 Europeans held 1,700,000 hectares and by 1940 2,700,000 hectares, about 35 to 40 percent of the arable land of Algeria.

— Ira Lapidus, A History of Islamic Societies

These settlers were actively encouraged to arrive in Algeria (in an effort at "assimilating Algeria into France") via a number of efforts. Some of these French initiatives were generated by a desire to lead to the "extinction of pauperism", such as the earmarking of 50 millons francs to the process of moving unemployed Parisians to the colony. These settlers came from all over the western Mediterranean region, particularly coastal and island regions in the present-day countries of Italy, France, Spain, and Malta. Therefore, the "French" or pied-noir population was not exclusively from France, but rather from a range of European communities. They became known as colons, Européens, and eventually pieds-noirs.

Pied-noir relationship to Metropolitan France and Muslim Algeria

A map of French Algeria.

The pied-noir relationship to France and Algeria was marked by a number of factors. First, the settlers of European descent considered themselves French and were considered integrally French, characterized by Assembly Member Pierre Mendes-France's quote in A History of the World from the 20th to the 21st Century: "France without Algeria would be no France". Hence, many of the European descendants viewed themselves as "French in Algeria" and thus did not see themselves as colonists, but rather as French in the same way as a Parisian would.

Further, as noted above, many of the pied-noirs arrived initially from a range of European nations, in other words the settlers' ancestry was not exclusively French. These settlers further encompassed a fairly wide range of socio-economic stratum, including fishermen, peasants, as well as higher classes of large landowners. In this characteristic, they were divided between the larger landholders grands-colons (French:Great colonists) who had amassed large estates, mostly through wine, citrus, olives, and vegetables; and petits-blancs (French:Little whites) who were small farmers. Moreover, although the pied-noirs considered themselves to be French, the actual physical connection with metropolitan France was tenuous. To demonstrate, in the book "Population Resettlement in International Conflicts: A Comparative Study" authors Arie Marcelo Kacowicz and Pawel Lutomski examine the arriving pied-noirs following Algerian independence and note:

Of the 900,000 European “repatriates” from Algeria arriving in France in the spring and early summer of 1962 only 9 percent had visited the metropole often before the evacuation from Algeria. Eighteen percent had only visited “mainland France” once in their life. Forty-five percent had visited France “only a few times.” Indeed a full 28 percent had never before been to the metropole.

— Arie Marcelo Kacowicz and Pawel Lutomski, Population Resettlement in International Conflicts: A Comparative Study

On the Algerian side, the relationship between those of European descent and the Muslim Algerians was strained and marked by pied-noir hegemony. The Muslims were not considered French citizens and also did not share the same manner of life, either politically or economically. Economically for example, the indigenous population did not own most of the settlements, farms or businesses although they numbered nearly 9 million at Algerian independence. Politically, the Muslim Algerians had no representation in the Algerian National Assembly and limited influence in local governance. and were required until the mid-twentieth century to renounce their Muslim identity in order to obtain citizenship. Moreover, education was only available to Algerians at the primary level. Therefore, the settlers established for themselves near total dominance politically, economically, and in education; and the relationship between the pieds-noir and the Algerian was therefore tense.

The Pied Noir population as part of the total Algerian population

Non-Muslim proportion of population in 1954 by département (post-1957 administrative division). Click image for key to map.

From roughly the last half of the 19th century until independence, the pied-noirs accounted for approximately 10% of the total Algerian population. Although they constituted a numerical minority, they were undoubtedly the prime political and economic force of the region.

In 1959, the pieds-noirs numbered 1,025,000, and accounted for 10.4% of the total population of Algeria, a percentage gradually diminishing since the peak of 15.2% in 1926. However, some areas of Algeria had high concentrations of pieds-noirs, such as the regions of Bône (now Annaba), Algiers, and above all the area from Oran to Sidi-Bel-Abbès. Oran had been under European rule since the 17th century, and the population in the Oran metropolitan area was 49.3% European and Jewish in 1959. In the Algiers metropolitan area, Europeans and Jewish people 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 16,520 km² (6,378 sq. miles) stretching between the cities of Oran and Sidi-Bel-Abbès, and including them, was the largest area of pieds-noirs density outside of the cities, with the pieds-noirs accounting for 33.6% of the population of the département in 1959.

The general Algerian Population vs. the Pied Noir population

Year	Algerian Population	Pied Noir population
1830	1,500,000	14,000 (in 1836)
1851	2,554,100	100,000 (in 1847)
1960	10,853,000	1,111,000 (in 1959)

The Jewish Pied-noir Community

Main article: History of the Jews in Algeria

An Algerian Jew.

Upon the French arrival, Jews and specifically Sephardi Jews had been present along the Northern Coast of Africa for thousands of years. The community had formed from a number of different events. First, many had been present since the time when "Phoenicians and Hebrew, engaged in maritime commerce, founded Annaba, Tipasa, Caesarea, and Algiers." Many others arrived following the Reconquista in Spain and more came from Palestine running from the Egyptians and Titus. When the French invasion began, the number of Jews in Algeria was estimated to be 25,000.

The Algerian Jewish community became associated with the European-Algerians fairly quickly and in 1870 Adolphe Crémieux, the present Justice Minister, wrote a number of proposals aimed at allowing the naturalization of the Algerian Jews. This work was titled the décret Crémieux (French: The Crémieux decree) and granted French citizenship to all Algerian Jews. This had the effect of bringing the once mostly poor community into a more professional role. It was in this fashion in which the Jews of Algeria came to be, according to some sources, part of the pied-noir community.

However, this advancement for the Jewish community was not without resistance from the European descended pied-noir community: in 1897 a wave of anti-semitic riots rolled through Algeria.

The Algerian War

For well over a century France maintained colonial rule in the Algerian territory. This predominance began to end following the growth of Algerian nationalism, and the creation of paramilitary independence groups such as the Front de Libération nationale (FLB) which appeared in response to inequalities between the pied-noir and the Algerians (see above). These concerns led to a war for independence which was waged in Algeria from 1954 until 1962 and is called the Algerian War. This conflict led to the relocation of approximately 900,000 Europeans and Jews (collectively, the pied-noir), which has been alleged to be the most massive relocation of people in Europe since the Second World War.

Throughout the French Algerian era, the pieds-noir had controlled government, the majority of Algerian wealth and through parliamentary representation had been able to block most reform to Algeria. In the mid 1930s the indigenous population began performing increasing acts of protest. The colonists replied with increased efforts aimed to maintaining the contemporary order. As an example, the Algerian nationalist enumerated various complaints in the Manifesto of the Algerian People, which requested equal representation under the state and access to citizenship. The French response was to grant citizenship to only a number of worthwhile or "meritorious" Algerians (who numbered about 60,000 out of 9,000,000). Further, in 1947 in an effort of reform, the French modeled a bicameral legislature with first house representing the pied-noirs and the second the Algerians. The European house's vote was seven times more valuable than the Muslim Algerian one. Due to the lack of reform, the Algerian nationalist movements became increasingly radical and violent, culminating in the outbreak of total war in 1954.

File:Manifestation-1960.jpg

Clash between French Security Forces and French Algeria supporters in 1960.

At the onset of the war, the pied-noirs believed that the French military would be able to overcome any opposition by the FLN. However, in May, 1958 the situation intensified following the seizure of power in Algiers by General Massu who, as head of a military junta demanded that Charles de Gaulle be named President in order to prevent the "abandonment of Algeria". In response, the French Parliament voted 329-224 to place de Gaulle back into power.[3]

Once de Gaulle assumed leadership of France, he made attempts to resolve the Algerian crisis by visiting Algeria within three days of his appointment. To the crowds of Algerian and pied-noir settlers he remarked "I have understood you." De Gaulle organized a national referendum which introduced the proposal for Algerian self-determination which passed overwhelmingly. In response to what they felt was abandonment, numerous pied-noirs formed what was called the Organization Armee Secrete (OAS) and began attacking metropolitan France, the Algerians, and de Gaulle himself (once shooting his car). The OAS was accused of particularly violent actions, including random murders and bombings which effectively nullified opportunities for reconciliation between the Algerian and European communities. The bloodshed culminated in an attempted coup by retired generals (see Algiers Putsch of 1961). Following the generals arrest, in March 18, 1962 de Gaulle and the FLN signed the Evian accords which called for a cease fire. A few months later, in July, the Algerians voted in referendum 5,975,581 to 16,534 to become independent of France. Considering that many settlers had witnessed various alleged massacres and torture was reported, and that the chance for reconciliation seemed slim, the pied-noir's confidence diminished.

Exodus

File:Pied-noir-barricade.png

Hated "colons" for the FLN, "slavagists" and "assassins" for the metropolitan French, the Français d'Algérie were exiled from their native land. (Algiers, Jan. 1960)

The exodus to mainland (or metropolitan) France began once the pied-noirs became convinced that the country would become independent of France and accelerated after the 5th of July 1962 massacre, in which hundreds of militants entered European sections of the city, and began attacking civilians. At the time Oran had the country's highest percentage of residents of European heritage. Estimates of the total casualties vary widely. Local newspapers at the time declared that 1500 were killed. Dr. Mostefa Naït, the post independence director of the Oran hospital center, claimes that 95 persons, including 20 Europeans, were killed (13 stabbed to death) and 161 people injured. Other sources claim that as many as 3500 persons were killed or disappeared .

The total number to leave Algeria numbered more than one million between 1962 and 1964. Due to the violence and chaotic conditions caused by the war, many of the pied-noir left with only the material which they were able to carry in a suitcase. Adding to the confusion was the fact that the French Navy was not authorized to assist in the transportation of French citizens. By September 1962, cities like Oran, Bône, or Sidi-Bel-Abbès were left half empty. All administration, police, schools, justice, commercial activities stopped in a matter of 3 months after many were famously told to choose either: "la valise ou le cerceuil" (French: "The suitcase or the coffin"). Only 100,000 pieds-noirs chose to remain, but they gradually left through the following decade, until in the 1980s there remained only a few thousand pieds-noirs in Algeria..

The French government had not planned that such a massive number would leave; it estimated that perhaps 300,000 might choose to temporarily go to metropolitan France and even amongst those that a large proportion would return to Algeria following a "cooling-off" period. Furthermore, the De Gaulle government had earmarked about two billion dollars (or roughly $1600 per pied-noir) for the absorption of the "repatriates". This fund was intended to assist in the relocation of the pied-noirs as well as partially reimburse the group for the loss of their property, which was valued roughly at twenty billion dollars. Unfortunately, the estimations were vastly under the reality of the situation (about one million fled to mainland France). The arrival of the pied-noirs was hampered even further by the government following a policy in which it did not disclose the true numbers of refugees in order to avoid influence on its Algeria policies and to increase the panic of the French nationals in Algeria. Consequently, little was planned for their return, and psychologically at least, many of the pied-noirs were alienated.

Return to Mainland France

Most pieds-noirs and some harkis settled in cities across southern France where they assimilated into the local population. Others opted to migrate to New Caledonia, Spain, Australia, and North and South America. Other Algerian Jews left for Israel, where they were granted instant citizenship and support from the Israeli state as olim.

Of those who chose to remain in France, many relocated to the South, particularly in the Provence-Côte-d’Azur region, which offered migrants a geographic territory and climate similar to the North African landscape. However, the influx of new citizens had two main effects upon the present population. First, they brought with them government funds earmarked for their assistance which helped bolster the local economies. Second, the pied-noirs caused increased job competition in the markets to which they arrived. It was this effect that caused the present French citizens to have tense relations with the new arrivals. Due to this, it has been asserted that the pied-noirs experience helped bolster an anti-North African sentiment and perhaps assist in the formation of the Front Nationale, a rightist political group in France.

In some ways, the pieds-noirs were able to integrate well into the French community, at least relative to their Maghrebin and Muslim counterparts. However, depended on which socioeconomic class the individual belonged. It was easiest for the upper classes, many of which found the transformation easier than the shopkeepers and tradesmen who found themselves economically shocked. In addition, the lifestyle transformation was considerable. Many pied-noirs had been accustomed to being considered in a higher class and found that in Metropolitan France they were no longer considered as such and were often treated as an "underclass or out-group" upon arrival.

The Exodus created a culture in which the returned pied-noirs frequently felt "disaffected" from the overall French society. The returned also suffered from a sense of alienation, which stemmed from the change in the French government's attitude towards Algeria. Until independence, the government's view was documented that Algeria was a part of France. However, after the war this stance changed and left many pied-noirs disillusioned and with an image that they were an "embarrassment" to their country. Furthermore, they repatriates were often stigmatized by the general French citizenry, who assumed that they had all been wealthy grands-colons. This effect was compounded because the pieds-noirs were unable to return to their native birthplace, Algeria.

The French government had assigned two billion dollars to aid the pied-noirs and assist in their reimbursement for lost property. However, this money was not immediately allocated. The community lobbied the government intensely and was able to have the majority of that amount distributed to them and also receive an additional amount of 30 billion francs to be distributed over a period of fifteen years.

The French government left control of Algerian administrative records to the new Algerian government; for the pieds-noirs, this led to a situation where hundreds of thousands could not access their birth or marriage certificates after independence, with some unable to prove that they were French, or unable to obtain legal papers. In the 1970s the French government finally sent a mission to Algeria to copy the birth, marriage, and death certificates in the main cities and towns of former European settlement, but village records were not copied, with the result that even today some pieds-noirs in France are still unable to prove their identity.

More generally, the pieds-noirs felt rejected in France, where they were often portrayed as exploitive colonialists, especially by the Communist Party. Famously, as the pieds-noirs arrived in Marseille throughout 1962, they were greeted by the words "The pieds-noirs to the sea!" ("Les pieds-noirs à la mer!"), as painted by the Communist longshoremen (dockers) of the Port of Marseille on the mole at the entrance of the harbor. Communist posters showing a brutal pied-noir whipping Arab workers were also a frequent sight in French cities at the time. In reality, however, the vast majority of Algeria's pied-noir population was lower middle-class or below, with less than 5% of the pied-noir population belonging to the economic elite of major merchants and land-owners. Their rejection by the French left meant that pieds-noirs quickly became the strongest element within the far right in France. Despite this lack of initial acceptance, the major economic boom that France experienced in the 1960s allowed the pieds-noirs to assimilate rather quickly and easily into their new home. The Harkis were less fortunate, remaining a neglected and un-assimilated minority.

More recently, the French government has acknowledged the trauma and suffering felt by the pieds-noirs, with frequent ceremonies organized to commemorate their tragedy. Many pieds-noirs have received some compensation from the French government for the loss of their property in post-independence Algeria. The French government did, however, cap the amount of compensation, with the result that many pieds-noirs have never received full compensation for what they lost. In any case, the feeling among the majority of the exiles is that money could not compensate for their lost lives. It is not uncommon to hear of pieds-noirs requesting that, after death and cremation, their ashes be strewn on the Mediterranean Sea, in the hope that the currents will wash them up on Algerian shores.

Symbolically, the pieds-noirs were allowed in the 1990s to use the old codes of their départements in French Algeria for official purposes. Until then, when filing papers, or obtaining social security numbers, they had to list number 99, the code for people born in foreign countries. Many pieds-noirs found this insulting because they were born in Algerian départements that were considered, by the French state, to be ordinary French departments, unlike the other French overseas departments and territories. Thus, on official documentation, they can now use the numbers 91, 92, and 93, the codes for the three old départements of Algeria. Other oddities still remain. For instance, since driving licenses in France are delivered by the prefect of the département for life, hundreds of thousands of pieds-noirs in France still carry a license with the stamp of one of the former départements of French Algeria on it, although these départements no longer exist.

References in Popular Culture

File:TheBattleofAlgiers.png

The Battle of Algiers' DVD cover. This movie depicts the namesake battle in which the pieds-noirs fought against the Algerians associated with the FLN

One of the most noted and widely known depictions of the pied-noir community is through the eyes of Meursault, the protagonist in Albert Camus's novel L'etranger (French: The Outsider or The Stranger). Meursault leads a life as an office clerk in Algiers and the novel itself is a widely recognized achievement of the Absurdist movement in literature.

Also, the pied-noirs were featured in the 1966 film ''The Battle of Algiers'' which depicts the fight for Algerian independence from France, as the two sides participate in acts of increasing violence which ultimately lead to the introduction of French paratroopers in the city. The film is notable for its exhibition of both sides of the conflict committing brutalities, for example, the pied-noirs engage in lynch mobs against the Muslim community and the indigenous Algerians are depicted performing various acts of terrorism. Variously, the films also contains representation of torture and assassination.

Quotations

Albert Camus as sketched by Petr Vorel

Albert Camus, a pied-noir and famous absurdist author is credited with the following remark published in the French daily l'Express around the time of the Algerian War:

Who has capsized all projects of reform for thirty years, if not a parliament elected by the French? Who has closed its ears to the cries of Arab misery… if not the great majority of the French press? And who, if not France, with its disgusting good conscience, has waited until Algeria bleeds to finally realize that she exists?

Notable Pieds-Noirs

• Louis Althusser, philosopher
• Jacques Attali, economist, writer
• Albert Camus, author
• Étienne Daho, singer
• Jacques Derrida, philosopher
• Annie Fratellini, circus clown
• Tony Gatlif, filmmaker
• Marlène Jobert, actress and author
• Alphonse Juin, Marshal of France
• Jean-François Larios, footballer
• Enrico Macias, singer
• Jean Pélégri, author
• Emmanuel Roblès, author
• Yves Saint-Laurent, couturier

• Comment Were the French sources verified for this article? You note that the French references were taken, as a fork, from the M'ba article, but were they verified for this article in particular? The one source I was able to check regarded this quotation: While wanting and sincerely believing in democracy, to the point of no charges irritating him more than being called a dictator, [M'ba] was given virtually all power and reduced parliament's role in a government which is already substandard. From reading the source, I believe you quoted this phrase:

• « Se voulant et se croyant sincèrement démocrate, au point qu’aucune accusation ne l’irrite davantage que celle d’être un dictateur, il n’en a pas moins eu de cesse qu’il n’ait fait voter une constitution lui accordant pratiquement tous les pouvoirs et réduisant le parlement au rôle d’un décor coûteux que l’on escamote même en cas de besoin». This translates, roughly, as: "Wanting and believing sincerely in democracy, to the point that nothing irritated him as an accusation of dictator, he nevertheles had a constitution according him practically all power and reducing the role of parlement to a "costly decoration (? unsure ?)" that could be "disappeared" if need be". Our article's translation paraphrases the illustrative description found in the French (escamoter: to make disappear--as in, Houdini-style). The quote doesn't note that the parliament had a "substandard" role, but rather that its role could be removed.
• I think it is important that the French sources be verified, in the context of this article. I speak French comfortably, but would still not feel adequate promoting this article without an expert translator verifying the source; because, if an FA exemplifies our best work, the translation should be impeccable. Regards, Lazulilasher (talk) 19:54, 20 October 2008 (UTC)