French Algeria More Intergrated

The biggest sticking point of French Algeria seems to be that the Arab Algerians had absolutely no part in French Algeria. The French Government after it had got done looting the remains of the previous government's treasury and the countryside apparently bought as it were 80% or so of the land in Algeria, which in the end of the matter secluded the vast majority of Algerians from having any economic or political clout or even true presence in French Algeria.

I am curious if it was possible that this system could have been changed or at least altered enough so that the French Algerians, those French Immigrants and descendants of French Immigrants, could have had found common cause with the Arab and Berber Algerians against France.

In theory of course that would have been possible. You can run a colony on a fair and equitable basis, or at least as fair and equitable as the basic setuip of conquest and external government allows. The problem is I can't see how anyone would do that. Making Arabs and Berbers equal partners in the operation wasn't the point of the exercise. If all the French wanted was a place to farm, they could have made a treaty and spared themselves the trouble of invading. Ultimately, the reason for French Algeria to exist was to enforce the inferior station of the local popualtion to the French settlers, to ensure them privileged access to resources. Any French government that refuses toi do this would find it hard to maintain colonial rule.

Maybe a system where the locals are more thoroughly divided? Allow fully Francophone Aölgerians integration, separate the status of Berber and arab legally, produce certain groups that have too much to lose to support independence.... but of course, there were these people IOTL. I'm not sure how to create more, or whether it would help change the outcome.

I read somewhere that Napoleon III was considering establishing an Arab kingdom in the Algerian interior. That seems more doable, because an integrated Algeria is one fully subject to secular French law with little room for traditional sharia jurisprudence, even in civil affairs, not to mention French language replacing Arabic and Berber (more) fully.

carlton_bach said:

Making Arabs and Berbers equal partners in the operation wasn't the point of the exercise. If all the French wanted was a place to farm, they could have made a treaty and spared themselves the trouble of invading. Ultimately, the reason for French Algeria to exist was to enforce the inferior station of the local popualtion to the French settlers, to ensure them privileged access to resources. Any French government that refuses toi do this would find it hard to maintain colonial rule.

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The 'reason' for French Algeria is France wanted to gain new territory after lsoing the Franco-Prussian War.

France itself in terms of legal theory was not opposed to treating others as equal, hence Algeria being an integral, legally equal part of France and the whole concept of the Évolué elsewhere.

To really get France to do this would require both more stable government AND, in the case of Algeria, the French government NOT spending the 1925-1938 peiod basicaly making every wrong decision possible in regards to Algeria and perhaps accepting an earlier idea of a Fedral system, though in this case not one with France as one state and each colony as another, but rather France and the colonies all comprising multiple states.

The Algerian conquest ended in 1847 way before the franco-prussian war.

Xgentis said:

The Algerian conquest ended in 1847 way before the franco-prussian war.

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The coastal areas and their hinterland yes, but I was thinking more Algeria as a whole.

I think that was more like the French Sahel Iori

erich von changstein said:

I think that was more like the French Sahel Iori

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The Sahel to, yes, though like Algeria France had conquered bits there prior to the War as well.

The Southern 70% or so was conquered after 1870, as can be seen in this map.

I didn't know that.

I didn't know that.

Iori said:

The Sahel to, yes, though like Algeria France had conquered bits there prior to the War as well.

The Southern 70% or so was conquered after 1870, as can be seen in this map.

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70% of surface but more like 5% in terms of usefulness (this was before gas was found under the desert).

Actually, integrating Algeria was tried several times by the left-wing governments of the Third Republic: Adolphe Crémieux gave French citizenship to Algerian Jews, and Léon Blum tried to give it to (some) Algerian Muslims.

Circonflexe said:

Actually, integrating Algeria was tried several times by the left-wing governments of the Third Republic: Adolphe Crémieux gave French citizenship to Algerian Jews, and Léon Blum tried to give it to (some) Algerian Muslims.

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Actually there seem to have been a window of opportunity between the senatus-consult of 1865 and the code de l'indigenat of 1881. The senatus-consult allowed algerian musulman who requested it to access to french citizenship. It was nearly not used, as it also subjected them to french laws rather than muslim one and so the imams preached against it and those accepting french citizenship. If the imams can be convinced to preach for rather than against the opportunity (preferably before the Cremieux decret of 1870), then there will be a significant numbers of muslim algerian holding french citizenship, which wll have a huge impact on later colonisation and expropriation.