France gives all Algerians citizenship

[Ricardolindo]

Was there ever a time France could have given all Algerians citizenship? The Arab elites of Algeria did hope for a long time that they could get France to accept them. France did give Algerians
very limited opportunities to get French citizenship but it required them abandoning their customs so very few of them did. I don't think this would affect the demographics of France aa much as you may think. If Algeria had remained part of France, it would have been more developed and had more access to contraception. I think a France with Algeria would have only been 25% Muslim at its peak which is probably how it's going to end up anyways and most French Muslims are of Algerian origin.
Thus, France could have kept Algeria peacefully, giving them a lot of oil and still have had a solid Christian and Irreligious majority. A big reason this didn't happen is that no one could have foreseen this.

 

[Nyvis]

Was there ever a time France could have given all Algerians citizenship? The Arab elites of Algeria did hope for a long time that they could get France to accept them. France did give Algerians
very limited opportunities to get French citizenship but it required them abandoning their customs so very few of them did. I don't think this would affect the demographics of France aa much as you may think. If Algeria had remained part of France, it would have been more developed and had more access to contraception. I think a France with Algeria would have only been 25% Muslim at its peak which is probably how it's going to end up anyways and most French Muslims are of Algerian origin.
Thus, France could have kept Algeria peacefully, giving them a lot of oil and still have had a solid Christian and Irreligious majority. A big reason this didn't happen is that no one could have foreseen this.

The reason it didn't happen isn't that people couldn't foresee this. It's that merely keeping Muslims and Algerians a minority in the overall country wasn't good enough for French racists, and especially not good enough for French settlers who benefited from inequality in Algeria.

 

[Ricardolindo]

The reason it didn't happen isn't that people couldn't foresee this. It's that merely keeping Muslims and Algerians a minority in the overall country wasn't good enough for French racists, and especially not good enough for French settlers who benefited from inequality in Algeria.

You are completely correct, but I wonder whether if French people had known that France would end up with a large Muslim minority anyways, they would have been more willing to give all Algerians French citizenship. The Pied Noirs would still be a big problem, though.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Something after WWI which gives veterans and Arab elites French citizenship would be a good start. 240,000 Algerians served in WWI. Algeria had around 4 million inhabitants at that point. The children of those men get citizenship. France continues a policy where Algerians who serve in the French military or satisfy other criteria (income? advanced education? holding a large enough amount of property?) get citizenship. Another 290,000 fought in WW2. There were about 9 million Algerians in 1950. I suppose that would mean 10% to 15% of Algerians would be Arab and Berber Algerians with French citizenship. Plus another 10 or 12% were Pied Noires or Jews.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what would motivate the French to give many more Algerians citizenship in the 20th Century. A status as 'French Nationals' for much of the remainder (sort of like Hong Kongers to the British or American Samoans to the US) could be a possibility. The prospect of an Algerian Parliament where the Nationals and the Citizens are equally represented, but only citizens can vote for the National Parliament seems like an option (albeit one that I think would attract continued resistance) but I think it'd at most effective be something as a transition to some kind of eventual promise of full citizenship to all Algerians




Otherwise, I think you need a nineteenth century POD. France only gave the Jews of Algeria citizenship in 1870. This may be counterintuitive, but France giving the Kabyle people citizenship would be a big strategic move. The biggest revolts against France were led by Kabyle people historically.

 

[Ricardolindo]

Something after WWI which gives veterans and Arab elites French citizenship would be a good start. 240,000 Algerians served in WWI. Algeria had around 4 million inhabitants at that point. The children of those men get citizenship. France continues a policy where Algerians who serve in the French military or satisfy other criteria (income? advanced education? holding a large enough amount of property?) get citizenship. Another 290,000 fought in WW2. There were about 9 million Algerians in 1950. I suppose that would mean 10% to 15% of Algerians would be Arab and Berber Algerians with French citizenship. Plus another 10 or 12% were Pied Noires or Jews.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what would motivate the French to give many more Algerians citizenship in the 20th Century. A status as 'French Nationals' for much of the remainder (sort of like Hong Kongers to the British or American Samoans to the US) could be a possibility. The prospect of an Algerian Parliament where the Nationals and the Citizens are equally represented, but only citizens can vote for the National Parliament seems like an option (albeit one that I think would attract continued resistance) but I think it'd at most effective be something as a transition to some kind of eventual promise of full citizenship to all Algerians




Otherwise, I think you need a nineteenth century POD. France only gave the Jews of Algeria citizenship in 1870. This may be counterintuitive, but France giving the Kabyle people citizenship would be a big strategic move. The biggest revolts against France were led by Kabyle people historically.

Thanks for the reply. What about the Blum-Viollette proposal in 1936? AFAIK, it was the last scheme to give citizenship to a significant amount of Algerians.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Thanks for the reply. What about the Blum-Viollette proposal in 1936? AFAIK, it was the last scheme to give citizenship to a significant amount of Algerians.

What was that proposal?

 

[Ricardolindo]

What was that proposal?

Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blum–Viollette_proposal.

 

[Jackson Lennock]

Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blum–Viollette_proposal.

Oh, so more or less what I said?

If that had somehow passed, I guess that would have been a step in a more egalitarian direction.


The hard part is going from that (which by 1950 would only be between 11% to 17% of all muslim Algerians) to all Algerians getting citizenship.

 

[Nyvis]

Something after WWI which gives veterans and Arab elites French citizenship would be a good start. 240,000 Algerians served in WWI. Algeria had around 4 million inhabitants at that point. The children of those men get citizenship. France continues a policy where Algerians who serve in the French military or satisfy other criteria (income? advanced education? holding a large enough amount of property?) get citizenship. Another 290,000 fought in WW2. There were about 9 million Algerians in 1950. I suppose that would mean 10% to 15% of Algerians would be Arab and Berber Algerians with French citizenship. Plus another 10 or 12% were Pied Noires or Jews.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what would motivate the French to give many more Algerians citizenship in the 20th Century. A status as 'French Nationals' for much of the remainder (sort of like Hong Kongers to the British or American Samoans to the US) could be a possibility. The prospect of an Algerian Parliament where the Nationals and the Citizens are equally represented, but only citizens can vote for the National Parliament seems like an option (albeit one that I think would attract continued resistance) but I think it'd at most effective be something as a transition to some kind of eventual promise of full citizenship to all Algerians




Otherwise, I think you need a nineteenth century POD. France only gave the Jews of Algeria citizenship in 1870. This may be counterintuitive, but France giving the Kabyle people citizenship would be a big strategic move. The biggest revolts against France were led by Kabyle people historically.

If you start giving citizenship earlier, even in a limited fashion like that, it's likely French settling in Algeria won't develop as much either, as settlers won't be as interested if they have to share local political power with enfranchised veterans.

A regional parliament with a different voting base is unlikely to happen because it will (correctly, honestly) be felt as a road to independence rather than a road to integration. You might get the universal vote for municipalities though, since those will be able to self segregate so it won't be as much of an imposition on the settlers (who are the most committed opposition to enfranchisement). But that's hardly going to appease anyone.

 

[LSCatilina]

If you start giving citizenship earlier, even in a limited fashion like that, it's likely French settling in Algeria won't develop as much either, as settlers won't be as interested if they have to share local political power with enfranchised veterans.

By the 1920's, the European settlers in Algeria pretty much already developed as much as they ended up to be, both economically and demographically, so I wouldn't really see a lesser power imbalance on a social-economical basis except when it comes to Muslim urban "évolués" (i.e. people considered functionally, socially and culturally "ripe") and important rural landowners, their enfranchisement potentially creating a non-radical Islamic and Arabist (basically IOTL Jeunes-Algériens and khalédistes) political class more important than IOTL, think on the lines of the "affiliated" political parties in AOF/AEF,

A regional parliament with a different voting base is unlikely to happen because it will (correctly, honestly) be felt as a road to independence rather than a road to integration.

It really depends of the kind of agency such an assembly would have : I could fairly well see something akin to the Assemblée Algérienne, based on a principle of a fiscal and legislative agency from metropole, but whose actual power would be probably hard to really exert at least in a first place.

That said, while the ship of an actual large autonomy had sailed by the twenties, you did have some serious considerations (both amongst Europeans but also amongst French political circles) on the opportunity granting Algeria a dominion-like statute between the mid-XIXth and the twenties, on the basis French Algeria being a building-up new nation (ostensibly Europeans and Muslims, but the latter lacking agency there) that shouldn't be estranged from the metropole but that the mainland French people couldn't really relate to (which, culturally, was pretty much the case). It never really went anywhere, less due to colonial society (who, again, was more or less open to the idea) but because of a general opposition : it clashed with military own perception, with general republican political values, with native elites that rightfully saw that as a mean of even greater colonial hold as they couldn't even count on metropolitan arbitrage and checking settlers for at least the sake of stability, etc.

So, apart from a very voluntarist bonapartist policy under a more successful Napoleon III that would drastically change the political situation with a "fair" dominion-like Arab Kingdom of Algeria, I'd say the dominion road might be only tangentially what we'd be looking for there comparable to South Africa having dealt with oppression and disfranchisement of natives for decades before turning to an equal citizenship, and the best way to reach it would be trough voluntarist metropolitan decision that would, for one reason or another, disregard colonial lobbies or, consersely, inject more European settlement in Algeria to reduce the demographic disproportion.

 

[Nyvis]

By the 1920's, the European settlers in Algeria pretty much already developed as much as they ended up to be, both economically and demographically, so I wouldn't really see a lesser power imbalance on a social-economical basis except when it comes to Muslim urban "évolués" (i.e. people considered functionally, socially and culturally "ripe") and important rural landowners, their enfranchisement potentially creating a non-radical Islamic and Arabist (basically IOTL Jeunes-Algériens and khalédistes) political class more important than IOTL, think on the lines of the "affiliated" political parties in AOF/AEF,

That would probably still lead to an independence movement on more clear cut class lines though, right?

 

[Charles EP M.]

If you did get dominion status by the 20s for all those reasons, what happens (assuming it's not butterflied) when Vichy comes around? Is this hypothetical Algeria now de facto independent, left alone for realpolitik, does Vichy decide "fuck those local rights you're a colony again"; and assuming the Allies still liberate it, do they give it back to France as a dominion or not since it already had locsl parliament? (Very different Algeria if independence was gained in 1942 due to a wider war and foreign help, instead of twenty years later due to local bloodshed against long-term occupiers)

 

[LSCatilina]

That would probably still lead to an independence movement on more clear cut class lines though, right?

It really depends a lot of how much TTL sticks to OTL : the inter-war period pretty much cemented the credibility of an anti-colonial impossibilism but the French defeat in 1940 pretty much defined the decrepitude of colonial structures.

I'd say that, but it depends on several factors to make it happen, up until the twenties, full independence (let alone radical independence) wasn't doomed to happen even if full departementalisation and integration, would it be only because it never was applied, was a pipe dream at best : basically that the Parti du Peuple Algérien's proposals were workable would (and it's a big would) they would have been takens eriously.

 

[LSCatilina]

If you did get dominion status by the 20s for all those reasons, what happens (assuming it's not butterflied) when Vichy comes around?

If Vichy still comes around, and if TTL happens pretty much as IOTL exception made of a dominion status, I wouldn't really see how reactionary ideas (especially, while not exclusively, antisemitism) wouldn't be exported in what would still be a colonial society on which metropolitan power would have little interest to arbiter or balance colonial politics.

Roosvelt IOTL had very little qualms about supporting vichysts and vichysto-resistent (i.e. people fighting against the occupation but pretty much okay with Vichy) in Algeria, namely Darlan and Giraud against De Gaulle, as he favoured a sense of state continuity especially in an Algeria that was quite troubled by an anti-colonial general feeling that was also fairly anti-Allies. I wouldn't see much difference in the support who whoever manages to take control of imperial networks there, would it be full blown vichysts as Darlan or republicans as De Gaulle.

If you want a dominion-like statue on the long term and/or smoother decolonisation, you pretty much need IMO to prevent 1940 to happens.

 

[Ricardolindo]

Something after WWI which gives veterans and Arab elites French citizenship would be a good start. 240,000 Algerians served in WWI. Algeria had around 4 million inhabitants at that point. The children of those men get citizenship. France continues a policy where Algerians who serve in the French military or satisfy other criteria (income? advanced education? holding a large enough amount of property?) get citizenship. Another 290,000 fought in WW2. There were about 9 million Algerians in 1950. I suppose that would mean 10% to 15% of Algerians would be Arab and Berber Algerians with French citizenship. Plus another 10 or 12% were Pied Noires or Jews.

Beyond that, I'm not sure what would motivate the French to give many more Algerians citizenship in the 20th Century. A status as 'French Nationals' for much of the remainder (sort of like Hong Kongers to the British or American Samoans to the US) could be a possibility. The prospect of an Algerian Parliament where the Nationals and the Citizens are equally represented, but only citizens can vote for the National Parliament seems like an option (albeit one that I think would attract continued resistance) but I think it'd at most effective be something as a transition to some kind of eventual promise of full citizenship to all Algerians




Otherwise, I think you need a nineteenth century POD. France only gave the Jews of Algeria citizenship in 1870. This may be counterintuitive, but France giving the Kabyle people citizenship would be a big strategic move. The biggest revolts against France were led by Kabyle people historically.

I have read that most Pied Noirs were a combination of Algerian Jews who were given French citizenship and Spanish immigrants rather than French immigrants. Is that true?

 

[Ricardolindo]

By the 1920's, the European settlers in Algeria pretty much already developed as much as they ended up to be, both economically and demographically, so I wouldn't really see a lesser power imbalance on a social-economical basis except when it comes to Muslim urban "évolués" (i.e. people considered functionally, socially and culturally "ripe") and important rural landowners, their enfranchisement potentially creating a non-radical Islamic and Arabist (basically IOTL Jeunes-Algériens and khalédistes) political class more important than IOTL, think on the lines of the "affiliated" political parties in AOF/AEF,


It really depends of the kind of agency such an assembly would have : I could fairly well see something akin to the Assemblée Algérienne, based on a principle of a fiscal and legislative agency from metropole, but whose actual power would be probably hard to really exert at least in a first place.

That said, while the sail of an actual large autonomy had sailed by the twenties, you did have some serious considerations (both amongst Europeans but also amongst French political circles) on the opportunity granting Algeria a dominion-like statute between the mid-XIXth and the twenties, on the basis French Algeria being a building-up new nation (ostensibly Europeans and Muslims, but the latter lacking agency there) that shouldn't be estranged from the metropole but that the mainland French people couldn't really relate to (which, culturally, was pretty much the case). It never really went anywhere, less due to colonial society (who, again, was more or less open to the idea) but because of a general opposition : it clashed with military own perception, with general republican political values, with native elites that rightfully saw that as a mean of even greater colonial hold as they couldn't even count on metropolitan arbitrage and checking settlers for at least the sake of stability, etc.

So, apart from a very volontarist bonapartist policy under a more successful Napoleon III that would drastically change the political situation with a "fair" dominion-like Arab Kingdom of Algeria, I'd say the dominion road might be only tangentially what we'd be looking for there comparable to South Africa having dealt with oppression and disfranchisment of natives for decades before turning to an equal citizenship, and the best way to reach it would be trough volontarist metropolitan decision that would, for one reason or another, disregard colonial lobbies or, consersely, inject more European settlement in Algeria to reduce the demographic disproportion.

It really depends a lot of how much TTL sticks to OTL : the inter-war period pretty much cemented the credibility of an anti-colonial impossibilism but the French defeat in 1940 pretty much defined the decrepitude of colonial structures.

I'd say that, but it depends on several factors to make it happen, up until the twenties, full independence (let alone radical independence) wasn't doomed to happen even if full departementalisation and integration, would it be only because it never was applied, was a pipe dream at best : basically that the Parti du Peuple Algérien's proposals were workable would (and it's a big would) they would have been takens eriously.

If Vichy still comes around, and if TTL happens pretty much as IOTL exception made of a dominion status, I wouldn't really see how reactionary ideas (especially, while not exclusively, antisemitism) wouldn't be exported in what would still be a colonial society on which metropolitan power would have little interest to arbiter or balance colonial politics.

Roosvelt IOTL had very little qualms about supporting vichysts and vichysto-resistent (i.e. people fighting against the occupation but pretty much okay with Vichy) in Algeria, namely Darlan and Giraud against De Gaulle, as he favoured a sense of state continuity especially in an Algeria that was quite troubled by an anti-colonial general feeling that was also fairly anti-Allies. I wouldn't see much difference in the support who whoever manages to take control of imperial networks there, would it be full blown vichysts as Darlan or republicans as De Gaulle.

If you want a dominion-like statue on the long term and/or smoother decolonisation, you pretty much need IMO to prevent 1940 to happens.

Thanks for the replies, @LSCatilina. Glad to have you back.

 

[SpanishSpy]

I have read that most Pied Noirs were a combination of Algerian Jews who were given French citizenship and Spanish immigrants rather than French immigrants. Is that true?

You had a bunch of French immigrants, but also many from Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Malta, in addition to Algerian Jews who were to a point preferred by the French authorities so they got wrapped up in the 'pied-noir' category too.

 

[Ricardolindo]

You had a bunch of French immigrants, but also many from Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Malta, in addition to Algerian Jews who were to a point preferred by the French authorities so they got wrapped up in the 'pied-noir' category too.

I knew of the diverse origins of the Pied Noirs. However, I had read that combined Algerian Jews and Spanish immigrants made up a majority of the Pied Noirs. I wanted to know whether that was true. As @LSCatilina is of Pied Noirs origin, himself, maybe he could tell us.

 

[LSCatilina]

I knew of the diverse origins of the Pied Noirs. However, I had read that combined Algerian Jews and Spanish immigrants made up a majority of the Pied Noirs. I wanted to know whether that was true. As @LSCatilina is of Pied Noirs origin, himself, maybe he could tell us.

As @SpanishSpy very well pointed out, you really have a diversity of origin in what makes or is perceived to make a Pied-Noir community out of the whole spectrum of Europeans from French Algeria, especially as the Pied-Noir category is not synonymous with Europeans of French Algeria (Français d'Algérie, Spaniards, Catalans, Italians, etc.) but, even while the name itself is from the early-to-mid XXth century, essentially a re-creation from the forced migration to France (and thus rarely includes the lot of Europeans that migrated to Spain or Portugal) ending up as virtually identical to the legal category of rapatriés at the general exception of harkis (Muslims refugees) and the partial exception of Jews.

Back in French Algeria, all of the components of the Pied-Noir identities would have likely been toughs as distinct and set in a broad colonial cultural hierarchy (the familial memory accounts for my grand-mother having not problem having his son using some Arab words but threatening him with cleaning his mouth with soap when it came to Spanish words) even while, of course, distinction between Europeans from one hand, Muslims from another and Jews in the middle remained primordial.
In order to give some idea, a name a French citizen in Algeria would have used to define himself relatively to both Muslims and other Europeans and from mainland France would have been Algérien (comparatively to Espagnols, Juifs, Arabes or Indigènes).

Now, a distinct French/Algérien identity amongst Europeans didn't meant that Spaniards (in the West) or Italians (in the East) weren't Frenchified or Algérianized, in the sense of forming a part of a colonial French social and political culture and in constant relations with other Europeans; but they also kept a strong distinct identity notably trough language and "nationalized" neighbourhoods without that much mixing up to 1962.

It's even more obvious with Jews, even as naturalisés themselves, definitely seen as non-French and non-Europeans, often victims of antisemit attacks from Europeans as "fraudulent" citizens, parasites, and the whole of charming bigotry that existed in Europe exacerbated by the context of a colonial hierarchy (the withdrawal of the Crémieux decree was even justified as "not being fair to Muslims"); while being seen as colonial accomplices and parasites by the Muslims. Even after 1962, Algerian Jews aren't fully counted among Pied-Noirs, first because of this distinct colonial (but also pre-colonial) history but also trough their own identitary re-construction : "Jews AND Pied-Noirs" is an actual take but alongside (IMHO more common) "Jews TOGETHER with Pied-Noirs" and "Jews from Algeria/Sefardin AND NOT Pied-Noir". For instance, Gargamel Eric Zemmour, while pandering to a victimizing Pied-Noir narrative and being from a Algerian Jewish family, never speak of himself as Pied-Noir or having Pied-Noir origin whereas another Jew born in Algeria would endorse it would it be to oppose the same narrative.

 

[Tamar]

Was there ever a time France could have given all Algerians citizenship? The Arab elites of Algeria did hope for a long time that they could get France to accept them. France did give Algerians
very limited opportunities to get French citizenship but it required them abandoning their customs so very few of them did. I don't think this would affect the demographics of France aa much as you may think. If Algeria had remained part of France, it would have been more developed and had more access to contraception. I think a France with Algeria would have only been 25% Muslim at its peak which is probably how it's going to end up anyways and most French Muslims are of Algerian origin.
Thus, France could have kept Algeria peacefully, giving them a lot of oil and still have had a solid Christian and Irreligious majority. A big reason this didn't happen is that no one could have foreseen this.

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