...I think the figure of "the Arab" is quite different from "the Black" in the US. The Arab is not quite seen as inferior, as a child, or as an animal, but as a dangerous individual.
A very violent individual who always has a knife hidden to kill the whites but still, intellectually equal to a white, or at least very close
Hitler didn't think of Jews as he conceived them as childish either, nor are US or I suppose South African forms of white panic based on the incapacity of Africans either--there is quite the same sort of fear of an actively dangerous race. It may be in logical contradiction with other racist tropes but hey, these are irrational (though socially functional, for a certain kind of society) pathologies anyway. As Jefferson revealed in his famous "I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just," the weight of it is an expression of guilt, and projection of what we think
we would do it the tables were turned. Bigotry remains bigotry, in all its guises.
You mention South Africa again later in your post, but there's something to be said here. South Africa's survival was balanced on keeping the Blacks cowed, but without any mass uprising as a mass Black uprising would have killed all the whites. France in an apartheid like regime still has the metropole.
The Arabs can try revolting if they want, in the end, the whites are numerically superior, big difference. If really needed, France can put one soldier for every Arab inhabitant in Algeria
A very salient pragmatic point! But the point is, to mobilize the overwhelming power of the metropolis against the Algerians, it would be necessary for some degree of an apartheid mentality to prevail. The French would have more margin for "error" as it were; they could be less intolerant of dissent, more torn by differing opinion, less absolute--and after all, dissent (much to my amazement, when I took to reading English language South African periodical articles first hand as part of a job I had in the summers of 1983 and '84) was to be found in published writing in the RSA too. The power of the state to limit it seemed sweeping and extreme to me on paper, but over the years I came to realize how it is that public discourse is shaped and molded here in the USA as well.
So France might not require something like Franco's dictatorship in Spain, though I do think that on a spectrum that is the direction it would be shifted relative to OTL. And note that in this time, the USA was allied to Franco's Spain, with lots of bases there too and Spain part of NATO already.
The point is, the regime must move the "Overton window" of debate in France to make the notion of withdrawal from Algeria out of bounds and this won't happen without some punishment of some strong dissenters. Perhaps they can merely be ridiculed and discredited, perhaps stronger measures would be needed, but given the ability and willingness of France overall to accept the loss of Algeria OTL, I think some serious force would be needed to keep sufficient numbers of French people backing intervention and repression. Repression in Algeria must involve some in France itself.
Don't believe in genocide: you still need the Arabs for the shit job. Or if you go full Vlad Tepes, kill all the Arabs, displace people from the Black colonies, repopulate Caribean style. But come on now...
I do trust you don't approve of genocide. Neither do I.
But it is a logical outcome of the combination of French insistence on Algeria remaining and failure (for whatever reasons) to persuade the native Algerians to shift their identity to a notion of being a kind of French citizen and French failure to find a place within the French identity for them. Either the pretense that Algeria is part of France is bunk and acknowledged to be so (easier for an undemocratic than democratic government to do while still asserting control of the territory, as acknowledged alien possession) or else all the people who give the lie to it have to go away--by cultural conversion, or by expulsion, or...other means all too common in the 20th century. I have little sympathy for the cause of union of Algeria to France because I do think it is by that point tantamount to genocide, cultural if not physical, with alternatives that themselves are nasty harsh, such as avowed colonial/imperial domination.
As a romantic and lover of France I like to fantasize about earlier success in merging French and Algerian identities, so that Algerian natives do indeed identify as French citizens, on some terms or other, but it would be cultural genocide if those terms did not include Arab identity and Islamic faith, at least to the degree the infamously secular French remain nominally "Roman Catholic." A secular Republic, passionately devoted to the Rights of Man, as proclaimed in the great Revolution, ought to be able to pull this off. But if it hadn't by the era of WWII they never would. And frankly looking at the actual history, it seems that perhaps French-Arab relations were better under the Orleanist and Bonapartist monarchies than under the Republics, a sad and sobering reality to me.
I'm fairly sure Monarchy is dead by that point. Some people do still cling to it but it's a very small fringe.
I really don't know just how rare Monarchism is then or today, but one certainly does hear about it and a crowned head, with or without affiliation explicitly with the Roman Catholic Church, is certainly convenient to conservative authoritarianism. Under the circumstances the idea might become widespread enough to be imposed, particularly since the Catholic connection might seem convenient to the cause of asserting control in Islamic Algeria.
To be sure by this late date, the Catholic Church was undergoing a wave of liberalizing reform that would put the Church in conflict with being abused for such crass purposes.
Then there is the whole question of which dynasty to favor, which depends on the character of the individual pretenders to the Bourbon, Orleans and Bonapartist lines.
The fall back would be to create a new quasi-dynasty under some strongman. I don't suppose the characters of any of the more infamous OTL plotters would lend themselves to the mantle of a new Bonaparte, would they? Some one among them might try.
Instability due to inability to agree on who should wear the crown could be yet another dystopic feature of this ATL, or perhaps they'd have the wisdom to stay away from that tar baby and remain a nominal republic, with a junta committee overseeing a nominally civil state.
...The mindset was basically a knife in the back scenario, à la 1920's Germany. France had been lost due to a general in 1940, but that had been blamed on the weakness of the IIIrd Republic. Then, the Indochinese war had been lost due to political concerns (Dien Bhien Phu was a partial success in the grand scheme of thing, but the fact a peace conference had been called at that moment screwed them over).
So finally, they were in Algeria were they could "compensate" and try to regain their honor. Part of why it got so ugly.
And now, once again, the politicians want to cover them in dishonor? They couldn't let it pass.
OK, that's the right wing position, as exemplified by the rebel Army officers. If it were the overwhelmingly majority opinion in France, clearly there would be no Algerian crisis, or rather its nature would be the nastiness of the repression campaign in Algeria, and complications of French international relations stemming from it--but no coup or repressive measures in a France that overwhelmingly supported French dominance in Algeria, on Euro-chauvinist terms, would be necessary. Clearly then there were limits to this mentality in France in the late '50s!
I'd have to recheck but it's not just de Gaulle having an issue with the States. The Left was very much looking toward Moscow but even then, the fact the US wanted to set an occupation zone in France didn't go down easily, not counting the rapes and indiscriminate bombardments.
I know in Normandy, there still are some heavy memories of the bomber raids.
This seems to mix up the far right and far left in one shared sentiment, "Yankee go home!" And this is also your sole response on the nature of French leftist views--which seem to only include hard-line Third Internationalist Stalinists obedient to Moscow. But wasn't the entire Fourth Republic period dominated politically by less radical leftists, viz the Socialists? Clearly the agreement to allow US forces into France was something majority governments signed off on. That majority clearly was not made up of either radical rightists who believed France could or should go it alone, nor of radical Communists who professed to welcome Soviet rule. I think we have yet to see any expression of what the moderate left, which apparently dominated the government until the Algerian crisis toppled it, really wanted.
I strongly doubt anyone other than card-carrying, devoted agents of the French Communist Party actually wanted to see the Soviet Union dominate all of Europe, certainly not France itself. I suppose it is too early for self-professed hard line Communists to be espousing "Euro-Communism" yet, though the straws are certainly blowing in the wind. Khrushchev himself has already made his ironically world-famous "secret" address to the Party in Moscow denouncing Stalin's "cult of personality" and this may already seem like license for otherwise hard-line Communists to assert independence from Moscow's orders and start talking about plans to seize the means of production and introduce radical socialism entirely by domestic means, and running a Communist France entirely on French direction. It would be a respectable position to take given the overall history and ideology of Marxism after all, Marx himself revering France as the mother of revolutions. So even Communists, while they might look forward to truly fraternal relations with the Soviet behemoth, probably don't want to see KGB officers conducting purges in France.
Now of course the Communists are considerably stronger in France than in the USA or Britain, or West Germany. Only in Italy at this date would they be nearly as popular, or more so. Even so this is comparing a tenth of a percent or so of the electorate in the northern, Germanic countries and USA versus considerably less than 10 percent in France or Italy, I think. Certainly if we total up a bunch of splinter parties and call them all "Communist," even without lumping in the Trotskyists, only a portion of them are hard-line followers of the Moscow line. They were strong enough to be included, or almost be included were it not for CIA/OSS manipulations, in the early 4th Republic governments. But under Thorez IIRC in order to be contenders for government portfolios they had to adopt a pro-colonial line, joining with the Socialists and right wing parties in affirming French possession of not only Algeria but Indochina as well. Ironic considering that Ho Chi Minh, in the years just after the first World War, was a founding member of the French Communist Party, precisely because of Lenin's anti colonial line. But there you have it; Stalin relaxed the Kremlin line enough for the French Party to affirm continued French authority in the hope of getting his party into government; I really have lost track of whether they were in briefly despite US opposition and were only blocked out later, or whether their bid for a coalition portfolio always fell through. Anyway they had the numbers for a while to be contenders. But the point is to get that close to elected power, they had to compromise a lot, and surely an open avowal of intention to align with the USSR would be one of those points they'd soft-pedal or contradict. Not that followers of other parties would be likely to trust them on it!
So setting the Communists aside as an extreme, if one commanding substantial numbers (as well as cultural pull out of proportion in some some leading cultural circles)--I really don't think they ever calculated they could pull off a coup and seize control by purely revolutionary means either, though they doubtless hoped to someday--we are left with a considerably larger number of French leftists across the spectrum of several parties that dominated the 4th Republic, though doubtless requiring coalition with some non-Marxist parties and vulnerable to a possible moderate/right wing coalition replacing them. It is these middle parties, and the people who voted for them, that I would like a better accounting of. I'm sure they weren't extremist in demanding Yankees Out (not that that would be an insane position, but something must account for US presence before DeGaulle). Nor were they Soviet fifth columnists, though perhaps the farther right party members believed they were either insincere or weak patsies in their claims to be French patriots. I assume they were in fact staunch patriots, and while perhaps not all as hostile to Soviet power as was fashionable in America, at any rate realists about the risks of relying too much on Soviet promises as well as patriots about French power.
My guess, subject to correction by those in the know about the grassroots moods of French politics in the 50s, was that they were indeed much like the British Labour party, desiring much needed American support albeit perhaps more resentful of the strings attached. Still, realizing US backing multiplied French ability and standing in the world, they were willing to deal to get it and worried about the consequences of a defiant go-it-alone policy. This is just my impression, much of it based on inference. More radical Socialists might resent, in addition to US prioritizing our national interests, also our hostility to socialism and advocacy of the power of private wealth, but given US New Deal legacies may have felt they had some leeway for reforms.
Anyway in foreign policy, the broad consensus may have resented American interference in things like the Suez affair and our arrogance in general, and perhaps a desire for more of a free hand for strictly French policy may have extended pretty far left, but on the whole they recognized a need for a common front in Europe against Soviet aggression. While I suppose not only rightists but a broad swathe of the left would be pleased with DeGaulle's eventual strategy of using French nuclear forces to fight to the last German, targeting Warsaw Pact forces that made it onto West German soil, I do not think the notion that the Soviets ought to be able to conquer and incorporate West Germany or Austria would be very popular. The need for NATO to stand firm to deter any westward surging of Soviet power would be common ground from the far right even into the ranks of domestically militant Marxist Socialists I'd think, and less and less offensive even to Communists as time passed.
Again this is my guess. Gaullist policy differed from 4th Republic consensus mainly in asserting a greater independence of French power, but France remains a NATO ally to this day. Under DeGaulle France developed its own nuclear capability and at least a token pretense of a delivery system, eventually developing ICBMs and SLBMs of their own. While kicking the Yankees out was a "horseshoe" issue uniting far right and far left, I think it took maturation of France's post-war recovery for that to become a majority view.
I think another thing is Germany. Would France try anything there? What about occupation zones?
Indeed. Note again that the French never pulled out of their occupation zones in West Germany or West Berlin OTL. A civil war in France might be very problematic for NATO.
But in a pinch, even if all French forces were withdrawn to France very suddenly, it's not like this would be a green light for Khrushchev to launch a Warsaw Pact invasion either. These were tense years, especially regarding Berlin, and mistakes might have been made. But I think the Soviet leadership understood that what was protecting Western Europe was the US resolve to defend it with our "nuclear umbrella." US forces in Europe were a tripwire, albeit a pretty heavy battery of them. What ultimately deterred Soviet aggression was the certainty of US retaliation on the USSR wrecking them; in these late 1950s/early 60s years while Soviet power would be sufficient to wreck Europe in the course of such a war, they could do little to harm the US heartlands and so the Yankees would mop up. For France to break ranks would be dismaying and cast a shadow of uncertainty, but it would do nothing to change US interests nor would it fatally undermine US capabilities. It might be debilitating in a NATO conventional ground war, but nobody believed such a war would remain limited unless one side or the other called for a truce, and that would be quite unlikely as well. The war would go nuclear, and once that escalation happened, SAC would wind up bombing the Soviet Union and WP allies quite flat. We might lose a lot of aircrew and planes--but we had them to lose. France would be irrelevant in that outcome. Perhaps by diplomacy the French might evade Soviet counterstrikes. But in fact I think it would be clear that no government was going to arise in France that would not assist in the defense of Western Europe.
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These considerations make be think that if in the absence of DeGaulle, no one or group of people would in effect fill his shoes, and the right-wing army faction would attempt a coup, that President Eisenhower would intervene in the guise of responding to an appeal from the legitimate, civil government of France. I do wonder about mixed sympathies due to the right wing plotters matching the sentiments of many in the USA; their attitude toward the Algerians would be comfortable to US white supremacists (and this means not only radical, outspoken fire-eaters but the comfort zone of many much more moderate types); their staunch anti-Communism would be appealing as well. I think the likely spectrum of opinion among US service members and their families present in France and elsewhere in Europe deserves some careful study and research and consideration, but being ordered to aid the 4th Republic state would not be orders they'd have a hard time following. However I think many of them, and the US military chain of command linking all the way up to President Eisenhower, along with urging from factions in the CIA, would interpret their orders to imply a soft line against the Army rebels, and pressure US policy in that direction too. That is--first of all the American forces would guarantee security and order in US and other foreign installations in France. The French coup plotters would probably have the good sense to respond by avoiding direct conflict there, and keeping hands off American bystanders generally, however much they might want to urge them to leave. Secondly, when ordered (
if ordered!) to actively aid loyalist French military and police against the plotters, they will seek relatively gentle and lenient treatment--mediating surrenders in the field in return for generous amnesties, and so forth. The plotters would feel safer surrendering to US custody than to their own government I suspect. Eisenhower would insist the coup be defeated and the plotters stand down and surrender themselves to justice, but also that the justice be conciliatory. This would entangle the USA into taking some sort of position on the Algerian mess, to be sure.
I think the outcome would be that if France could not provide DeGaulle to handle it his way, American intervention would take the form of catalyzing a fairly DeGaulle-like solution, pulling strings here and quietly blocking moves there to force the French government to negotiate with the Algerians on terms that would result in eventual withdrawal. The USA would already be entangled in one mess in Southeast Asia the French had handled, and probably calculate we could ill afford to pull France's chestnuts out of the fire in North Africa as well, and reckon up the cost of France trying to hang on there while also filling her desired role in the European economy and in filling up NATO ranks, and that France could not afford it nor the USA afford to subsidize them in it. So, the US would be forced to mediate a disentanglement, and in so doing empower the French right (seeking to mollify them, but fundamentally insulting them by failure to deliver what they wanted). I think it is a coin toss whether France limps on under the 4th Republic aegis or the crisis results in a new republican constitution; in the latter case it would be after the Algerian crisis is settled and American meddlers largely back out. The US reputation in France would be tainted across the board, the sentiment that France should do without foreign allies based on her soil would be strong and we'd have to move out as OTL. The French right would resent our intervention straightforwardly as frustrating their necessary grab for emergency power, while the moderates and leftists would be embarrassed by apparent dependency and kowtowing and either lose badly in the polls or need to recover ground with assertive anti-Yankee chauvinism of their own. The position that American help was proper and good might not fail to retain any support, and become a faction with its own identity, but I doubt one welcome in ruling majorities.
My feeling is that this outcome, resulting in closely paralleling OTL outcomes with French pride becoming focused as it did under DeGaulle on assertion of French independent power in the form of nuclear weapons, their own carriers and SLBM programs and all that, and ongoing involvement in African former colonies, is most likely; perhaps the biggest difference would be a lasting chill in US/French relations and mutual esteem. (Insofar as one values the relatively good relations of OTL, yet another thing to grudgingly thank DeGaulle for). With this sort of outcome, I would hope butterflies of other things, such as the probability of an East/West nuclear war, would be largely as OTL.
I can see it going other ways. For instance, perhaps the 4th Republic can quash the rebellion on their own, and not ask for Yankee help, and Eisenhower, seeing this happening, restricts US and other allied forces to keeping their heads down--and perhaps moving out of France in the longer run, out of a sense of general insecurity there rather than being firmly shown the door by a strong French President. This too would be closely parallel to OTL in that a rational 4th Republic government, shocked and shaken, ought to recognize that exiting Algeria is necessary. Again I'd expect a quasi-Gaullist rightward reaction.
Or, perhaps, the 4th Republic regime fails to withstand the coup, and Eisenhower hesitates to intervene, and accepts the new ruling junta as necessary. Or alternatively we do intervene but become entangled with supporting the right wing position on Algeria. After all, the US leaders have no idea yet what a quagmire Vietnam is going to turn into for them, and think that they have at least securing South Vietnamese independence well in hand, and may believe they can somehow or other turn the tables in the North too. At any rate it would not yet seem plain that US power has limits, and so being drawn into aiding French rule over Algeria on some terms or other is within our power. US involvement, even indirectly, in aiding colonial rule there may undermine all our anti-colonial pretensions so much that the mood in Washington shifts toward showing a firmer anti-Communist hand, leading to more aggression--perhaps an invasion of Cuba, or earlier and deeper action in Vietnam. This might make an East/West confrontation and general nuclear war inevitable, or perhaps both sides continue to dance on the edge of the abyss, neither actually wanting to jump into it after all. I would think that these outcomes might empower the American right, making the first part of the 1960s less of a liberal love-in than OTL, which might mean a right wing defeat of progressive hopes across the board--no Great Society, a rougher and more violent road for Civil Rights and perhaps overt reassertion of Jim Crow; less of a break with or even overt embrace of South African apartheid. Anyone who knows me knows I'd think of all that as terribly dystopian, and do wonder if instead a rightward turn in the early 60s might lead to a more hardline leftist actually revolutionary rebound in the later 60s, in both USA and France.
I confess to being some half-assed kind of Marxist dirty hippie after all, and I've come to believe we Marxists are pretty bad at politics on the whole. So my wilder speculations are not worth much I suppose.
I certainly do come out of all this with a greater appreciation for what DeGaulle accomplished OTL, annoying as it might have been. I'm glad France did not go Francoist anyway.