AHC: Algerian independence without a European exodus

With a POD no earlier than 1945, is it possible for Algeria to gain independence without losing its European population of pieds-noirs? From what I can see, it looks rather tricky as the extremists on both sides came to dominate the mainstream political rhetoric early on in the conflict, limiting the possibilities for an amicable solution to satisfy both the FLN and the pieds-noirs. However, I'm guessing that with a POD in the mid to late forties, somebody on the board might be able to come up with a plausible way to get it done.

Any takers?
 
Not necessarily ASB, but you'd need a call for tolerance from the Algerian side, probably requiring one highly-respected, unifying figure a la Nelson Mandella. And the problem with extraordinary individuals like that is that they're also extraordinarily rare.
 
With a POD no earlier than 1945, is it possible for Algeria to gain independence without losing its European population of pieds-noirs? From what I can see, it looks rather tricky as the extremists on both sides came to dominate the mainstream political rhetoric early on in the conflict, limiting the possibilities for an amicable solution to satisfy both the FLN and the pieds-noirs. However, I'm guessing that with a POD in the mid to late forties, somebody on the board might be able to come up with a plausible way to get it done.

Any takers?

Quite hard.

The European population of Algeria wasn't an homogenous body. Urban elites, Rural landowners, little landowners (mainly non-french).

The urban elites were the most opposed to any form of independence, while the rural landowners (critically in the departement of Constantine) could accept it but by keeping their power on the little landowners.

These rural landowners were by the way more connected to their Muslims counterparts, as Abdallah Laroui described it.

The problem isn't a racist issue (the french colons were far more racist towards Spanish : my father said he was punished by his parents if he spoke a spanish word) but a question of social and economical dominance.

After the independence, my grand-father stay in Algeria during 2 years, while he had been mayor and a locally important landowner. The problem is that Algerian government asked him to pay his land, he refused and left Algeria (trying to divide the land between the peasant working for him, but the Algerian Government took it from them).

The departure of at least the landowners, urban elites, police forces, army an their families, high industrials (but not the industries) is, at my sense, unaboidable after 1945.

For the remaining (let's say, 2/5, 1/3 of the europeans) it's doable if

-No Setif Massacre
This thing was awful. It have certainly nothing different from what Hitler did in Europe, it was just more acceptable because it was only Muslims.
The number of deaths is reaching enormous numbers, at least 8 000 probably much more.

It made the use of a growing violence unavoidable, and if the defiles and demonstrations of Algerians weren't really pacifist (it's quite understable) the French army and officials proceed to mass execution, mass humiliations, mass deporation, torture. And it was the day the WW2 was over. (And it show that french army and police didn't forget too much on their 1940-1944 experience of collaboration)

Basically, the locals were treated no longer as 2nd class citizens but as strangers in their own country. Events like October 1961 are directly linked to this.

Avoid that, by an action of the PCF which was very very influent but didn't acted at all, and it's a great change. It wouldn't butterfly the riots and deads of the first day, but a communist official reaction would seriously cool the govermnent's act (De Gaulle treated the Algerians of "hitlerians elements")

As we talking about PCF

-An anticolonialist PCF
Until the 60's, the PCF position was the maintain of Algeria (and Syria-Lebanon in 45) in the French Union. The change was they have to be treated as equals, a empty declaration regarding the huge economical power of the european landowners.

If PCF had the same attitude in Algeria than Indochina, it would be enough to make between 1/4 and 1/3 of the metropolitan population accept the idea of independence since the 50's, and a growing proportion after.

But it didn't, mostly because Thorez (leader of PCF) was quite a nationalistic troll into the party, and because they quite modified the marxism-leninism perception of state, praising the "paceful conquest" of the communism by elections (it was periodically criticed by Moscow, with little effects).

You can get rid of Thorez by killing him, let's say a vichyst, doriotist attentat. If he's replaced by Duclos, or even better Marty it's done.

- A more autonom PCA
The Algerian Communist Party was composed by both europeans and algerians. He was quite linked to the PCF's wills but during the war, his elements were far more favorable to Algerian's independence. If the PCF let them, they wouldn't be forced to join the FLN as OTL, but could became a force of their own.

Not able to take the country, but enough to influence a fight against landowners (european and muslims) and praise an union of the little landowners and workers, europeans and muslims.

Maintain of the PPA
The People's Party of Algeria was more centrist and relativly less extremist than FLN. It was dissolved in 1945 by France, but have it survive even in clandestinity, and it could make the algerians more willing to collaborate between them, instead of having a faction's war which will be translated into "i'm killing more europeans than you".

And of course : An earlier independence to avoid things going really wrong.
 
It is hard to avoid a European exodus with a POD after 1945, but as the previous poster said doable with the right events and decisions. I would even go as far as syaing that keeping Algeria integrated into France was possible with a POD after 1945, albeit a lot more difficult since huge changes would have been required affecting the structure and nature of the French state itself. Not to mention the huge amount of investments required to bring Algeria to the level of metropolitan France.

A good POD for having an independent Algeria with a pied-noir population, is actually France fighting on in 1940. A large section of the Muslim population would have been de facto integrated into the French state during the war through sheer necessity and the large number of war veterans could easily form the nuclei of a moderate pro-French yet pro independence movement. The mere act of fighting a war together would also push both populations towards each other and create a lot of links and erase some of the differences.
 
A rebel leadership that promises to respect the properties of the pied-noirs, perhaps?

You'd still get the exodus of the really hard-core ones who wouldn't be content with anything less than being master of Muslim degraded peasants, but a lot of the less nasty ones might think living under the new order less of a pain than moving to France.
 
A good POD for having an independent Algeria with a pied-noir population, is actually France fighting on in 1940. A large section of the Muslim population would have been de facto integrated into the French state during the war through sheer necessity and the large number of war veterans could easily form the nuclei of a moderate pro-French yet pro independence movement. The mere act of fighting a war together would also push both populations towards each other and create a lot of links and erase some of the differences.

It didn't worked for the black populations during WW1. Locals were happy, and even polite with them, licking quite their africans.

But at the end of the war, blacks were send to home with peanuts for salary. And colonisation with heavy racism and brutality continued.

I maybe repeat myself, but the treatment that France sucessive's government reserved to Muslims Algerians have nothing to envy to the German methods in France during the occupation. It's really hard to change that, without modifying how metropole is considering that and if frenchmen can make enough pressure on army and police.
 
A rebel leadership that promises to respect the properties of the pied-noirs, perhaps?
No interest at all, great properties of european were bleeding the locals and an independence with this situation would have led to a colonialism without metropole, in a Israel-like situation, or even a South-African one.
 
It didn't worked for the black populations during WW1. Locals were happy, and even polite with them, licking quite their africans.

But at the end of the war, blacks were send to home with peanuts for salary. And colonisation with heavy racism and brutality continued.

I maybe repeat myself, but the treatment that France sucessive's government reserved to Muslims Algerians have nothing to envy to the German methods in France during the occupation. It's really hard to change that, without modifying how metropole is considering that and if frenchmen can make enough pressure on army and police.
It's because France did not lose it's metropole during WWI and the mentality of the time was really different. And they weren't the only one treating their colony like this.
 
A rebel leadership that promises to respect the properties of the pied-noirs, perhaps?

The PPA has already been mentioned. Maybe if Algerian Communists supported the PCF in its colonialism strongly enough, then Algerians would be more likely to look into moderate alternatives. WI: the new regime collapsed soon after independence and was replaced by either a CIA or French puppet that welcomed back the exiled population.
 
So the general consensus is that by 1945, it was too late to prevent the Algerian independence movement from resorting to violence and an expulsion of the pieds-noirs. If we push the POD back to 1900, would it be possible to have an earlier independence to avoid the bloodshed, and if so, when?
 
No interest at all, great properties of european were bleeding the locals and an independence with this situation would have led to a colonialism without metropole, in a Israel-like situation, or even a South-African one.

That didn't happen in Zimbabwe post-1980, even though the white-owned commercial farms dominated the agricultural sector.
 
That didn't happen in Zimbabwe post-1980, even though the white-owned commercial farms dominated the agricultural sector.

And eventually led to an exile anyway of this european population, at the occasion of an "agrarian reform" in 2000.

Let's be realist, in the 1960's, any revolutionary group (anticolonialist even more) who wouldn't have in his program the dismentelment of colon lands during an agrarian reform would be unable to led a war, a fortiori to win this one.
 
It's because France did not lose it's metropole during WWI and the mentality of the time was really different. And they weren't the only one treating their colony like this.

But France didn't loose his metropole in WW2. Vichy was the official France and owned the colonies (at least, the one that matter). And in 1942, nor Vichy or Free France had a real colonial control on French colonial Empire.

Mentality between 1918 and 1945 weren't that different : end of a war, strong left, radical left influence, ravaged economy, etc.

For the treatment of their colonies, France arrived after Belgium. Because of the poor investment the french colonies were (French Algeria represented 1/3 of the colonial wealth) and because they didn't have many money to put in, in order to make the AOF/AEF relativly rentable, they had to put an high pressure on locals.

At the contrary of British colonies that were far more prosperous (just compare Nigeria to Niger) and didn't needed a that much hard pressure)
 
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