What if Blum-Violette Proposal is adopted?

Echenberg

Banned
To anyone who doesn't know; Blum-Violette Proposal was a proposal by Popular Front government under Leon Blum to grant citizenship to 20,000- 25,000 Algerian elites, deemed educated and acculturated enough to hold a citizenship, while *biggg caveat* allowing them to apply Quranic law in certain civil spheres. (i.e. Marriage, Inheritance)

Not surprisingly, the proposal didn't even made to the debate in the parliament. Settler and colonial interest in the chamber perceived the proposal as a creeping reform that would eventually dislodge white minority rule in Algiers. Some scholars, such as inestimable Charles-Robert Ageron, viewed it as a great "missed opportunity". Let's say the Blum-Violette proposal passes; after all, Chamber of Deputies of the Third Republic did have a député from Senegal since 1848, and with Originaires - Mostly Muslim Senegalese living in the Quatre Communes (Dakar, St. Louis, Rufisque, Goree)- having their citizenship status guaranteed in the Diagne Law of 1916.

What would have happened? What kind of butterfly would come out of this? French holding on to Algeria? Sucess of French Union as a political structure? Completely different conversation on modern discourse on immigration, assimilation, and laïcité on French politics? or are Algerian War more or less inevitable, with this handful of elites joining the status of Harkis?
 
More than the elite needed to have citizenship to have France keeping Algeria. They would have to had it followed by more laws extending citizenship to most of the population.
 
First, there has to be some way to figure out how to make it pass. The Interwar was a period of time where French citizenship was closing, not expanding, in its boundaries. In French West Africa, citizenship reforms were passed in this period, that while at least making it hereditary for those granted citizenship in the territory, passed a large host of restrictions associated with it. The presence of the 4 communes was an exception, not the rule, and the French in their colonial territories viewed them as a mistake, not a model to be emulated. This was beyond Africa too - the French enacted the same reforms in their possessions in India and later on called it straight up a disaster, with the normal claims that it was just a corrupt voting machine without any democracy and mired in crime on the part of opponents (the same rhetoric was used against democratic institutions in the French Caribbean). They were part of liberalization reforms from the very early period of the French IIIrd Republic (I think the first few months actually, before the conservative turn), and nothing ever really approached that again. And there is not the incredibly vitriolic and entrenched, and powerful in Metropolitan circles, influence of the Algerian settlers. It is extremely difficult to overcome that, and frankly I don't see how it can be done without major modifications. And in any event, presuming that history is not heavily modified, this agreement will have to deal with the travails of the Second World War: Vichy took away citizenship from some colonial citizens in Madagascar, and while I don't know if they would be able to entirely reverse such a decision made by the IIIrd Republic, they might, and in any case it'll leave a legacy which will be even more muddled.

Presuming it is passed by some wave of the hand, and that it survives the Second World War mostly intact or is repaired by the IV Republic after the war, I do not think that it would lead to continued French rule over the state, as previously mentioned by other posters. It is a small elite in a vast population which will continue to be disenfranchised and excluded. Nothing can realistically change that, and so in the long run pressure and tension will still continue to build up. What it might change is that it enables French rhetoric about assimilation to be more viable in the public relations and propaganda front than otherwise. In West Africa (with which I am far more familiar than Algeria), the French were able to use the promised land of assimilation to be waved in front of demands for independence, and to effectively forestall it. Ultimately, this strategy meant that the French were having to increasingly live up to their words and make reforms which caused the colonial costs to skyrocket, demonstrating clearly that it was inevitably impossible - that it was inherently infeasible to integrate West Africa into France - but it bought the French time. The End of Empire in French West Africa: France's Successful Decolonization explores this well. Something like that might be more applicable in Algeria with a native Muslim assimilated class. Furthermore, it might give the French an interlocutor class with which to negotiate, just like in West Africa, where the French had local elites with whom they could negotiate the terms of independence. There was a time period after Charles de Gaulle arrived where the hope was for a reformed French Algeria, and while I personally think it impossible for the French to keep Algeria, the presence of a friendly elite native group might be enough for the French to negotiate with them instead of the FLN, and thus like in West Africa, leave with a friendly local government in power maintaining closer links to France. It might enable a larger pied noir community to remain in Algeria (some did stay afterwards), in line with an Algeria which is less sharply divided vis-a-vis France, although I still think a lot of Pied Noirs would flee to France. The Harkis might also get a better fate. This is being optimistic, there is a whole lot of tension in Algeria, but that's what I think the most optimistic scenario for France is.

The more pessimistic scenario for the French is that it simply means a larger exodus of people from Algeria and more people who get caught up in the post-war purges. Ironically in this case, I could also see the Blum-Violette proposal getting enshrined into post-war pied noir mythology : "we wanted to offer them equal rights and citizenship, they were just radical fanatics who hated us!" despite the pied noir opposition to it historically.
 
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You get a larger exodus to france plus probably a crazier post-revolutionary government in Algeria[1] along with a France even more insistent than OTL on turning immigrants into frenchmen. Hm, perhaps this means France might keep a couple of relatively tiny areas like Gabon or Guinea as butterflies from it.

[1] How does the ME look with a sunni islamist regime in Algeria from say 1963 on instead of Iran in 1979 as the first successful islamist revolution?
 

Echenberg

Banned
First, there has to be some way to figure out how to make it pass. The Interwar was a period of time where French citizenship was closing, not expanding, in its boundaries. In French West Africa, citizenship reforms were passed in this period, that while at least making it hereditary for those granted citizenship in the territory, passed a large host of restrictions associated with it. The presence of the 4 communes was an exception, not the rule, and the French in their colonial territories viewed them as a mistake, not a model to be emulated. This was beyond Africa too - the French enacted the same reforms in their possessions in India and later on called it straight up a disaster, with the normal claims that it was just a corrupt voting machine without any democracy and mired in crime on the part of opponents (the same rhetoric was used against democratic institutions in the French Caribbean). They were part of liberalization reforms from the very early period of the French IIIrd Republic (I think the first few months actually, before the conservative turn), and nothing ever really approached that again. And there is not the incredibly vitriolic and entrenched, and powerful in Metropolitan circles, influence of the Algerian settlers. It is extremely difficult to overcome that, and frankly I don't see how it can be done without major modifications. And in any event, presuming that history is not heavily modified, this agreement will have to deal with the travails of the Second World War: Vichy took away citizenship from some colonial citizens in Madagascar, and while I don't know if they would be able to entirely reverse such a decision made by the IIIrd Republic, they might, and in any case it'll leave a legacy which will be even more muddled.

Presuming it is passed by some wave of the hand, and that it survives the Second World War mostly intact or is repaired by the IV Republic after the war, I do not think that it would lead to continued French rule over the state, as previously mentioned by other posters. It is a small elite in a vast population which will continue to be disenfranchised and excluded. Nothing can realistically change that, and so in the long run pressure and tension will still continue to build up. What it might change is that it enables French rhetoric about assimilation to be more viable in the public relations and propaganda front than otherwise. In West Africa (with which I am far more familiar than Algeria), the French were able to use the promised land of assimilation to be waved in front of demands for independence, and to effectively forestall it. Ultimately, this strategy meant that the French were having to increasingly live up to their words and make reforms which caused the colonial costs to skyrocket, demonstrating clearly that it was inevitably impossible - that it was inherently infeasible to integrate West Africa into France - but it bought the French time. The End of Empire in French West Africa: France's Successful Decolonization explores this well. Something like that might be more applicable in Algeria with a native Muslim assimilated class. Furthermore, it might give the French an interlocutor class with which to negotiate, just like in West Africa, where the French had local elites with whom they could negotiate the terms of independence. There was a time period after Charles de Gaulle arrived where the hope was for a reformed French Algeria, and while I personally think it impossible for the French to keep Algeria, the presence of a friendly elite native group might be enough for the French to negotiate with them instead of the FLN, and thus like in West Africa, leave with a friendly local government in power maintaining closer links to France. It might enable a larger pied noir community to remain in Algeria (some did stay afterwards), in line with an Algeria which is less sharply divided vis-a-vis France, although I still think a lot of Pied Noirs would flee to France. The Harkis might also get a better fate. This is being optimistic, there is a whole lot of tension in Algeria, but that's what I think the most optimistic scenario for France is.

The more pessimistic scenario for the French is that it simply means a larger exodus of people from Algeria and more people who get caught up in the post-war purges. Ironically in this case, I could also see the Blum-Violette proposal getting enshrined into post-war pied noir mythology : "we wanted to offer them equal rights and citizenship, they were just radical fanatics who hated us!" despite the pied noir opposition to it historically.

Great analysis! I do agree that entrenched settler interest makes the passing of the law incredibly difficult. Reading the accounts, they sound basically like Afrikaners in South Africa in their effort to preserve white rule in Algeria. I do think success of the proposal would hinge on successes of the Front Populaire, passing the proposal through almost sheer revolutionary fervor, "Tout est Possible!" and all that, like how Senegalaise received their political rights in 1848 and again in 1873- apparently Theirs was quite receptive- and making it a fait accompli. Vichy and WWII would be another complicating factor, but surely, couldn't it have been an opportunity for extension of suffrage? with extensive participation of Algerian soldiers in both OTL and ATL WWII.

Creation of Muslim political elite that is amenable (or at least not openly hostile) to the French rule, someone like Algerian version of Senghor or Houphouët-Boigny with significant local support is kind of where I was going with the POD. I recently read Citizenship Between Empire and Nation: Remaking France and French Africa, 1945–1960, not a huge fan of Frederick Cooper, but felt the book's main conceit- that telling the history of decolonization with the nation states in Africa as an ultimate end-point is a teleological position- was quite interesting. Without destructive factor of protracted Algerian War, could something akin to French Union, or more realistically French Community close to how it was envisioned in 1958 possible?

So; considering A) Successful Popular Front that passes Blum-Violette (WWII goes mostly OTL) B) Increased suffrage/ political rights during WWII, increasing the Muslim citizens in Algeria to around 200,000- 300,000 C) Existence of significant interlocuter population that sees French rule/ association as positive; I think a certain political settlement could have been made that is so much more desirable than what happened OTL.
 

Echenberg

Banned
You get a larger exodus to france plus probably a crazier post-revolutionary government in Algeria[1] along with a France even more insistent than OTL on turning immigrants into frenchmen. Hm, perhaps this means France might keep a couple of relatively tiny areas like Gabon or Guinea as butterflies from it.

[1] How does the ME look with a sunni islamist regime in Algeria from say 1963 on instead of Iran in 1979 as the first successful islamist revolution?

FLN was not an Islamist. It was a significant factor in the War of Independence, but only in terms of its role in mobilization and legitimization of the movement, it was certainly more of an Arab Socialist/ Arab Nationalist party that the Islamist.
 
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I was presuming a more radical movement replacing the FNL in TTL with the whole potential collaborator thing causing even more outrage than OTL.
 

Echenberg

Banned
I was presuming a more radical movement replacing the FNL in TTL with the whole potential collaborator thing causing even more outrage than OTL.
Hmmm dunno if it’ll go that way. There were definitely independent strain of the Algerian political movement like Messali Hadj and Mouvement Nationale Algerianne, but I don’t think it was dominant strain at least until early 1950s. Also Islamism is not that much of a thing at all 1960s. Arab nationalism and socialism reign supreme.
 
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