WI: French Military crushes FLN before 1957 (Algeria)

WI: French Military crushes FLN before 1957 (Algeria)
What If France was able to defeat the Front Liberation de Nationale before it brought the fight to the streets of Algiers? Could Algeria stay under French control in the long term? Remember around a million Europeans live in Algeria at this point and much of the French public still sees Algeria as part of France not just a colony. Could the Forth French Republic survive? Would De Gaulle still retake power?
 
You need a pre 1900 POD to avoid Algerian independence in the 20th century. The demographics of population growth in Algeria are so heavily weighted against the French that independence is all but inevitable. LSCatalina can explain in more detail on this topic.
 
You need a pre 1900 POD to avoid Algerian independence in the 20th century. The demographics of population growth in Algeria are so heavily weighted against the French that independence is all but inevitable. LSCatalina can explain in more detail on this topic.

That's the case for quite a few European colonial possessions in Africa and Asia.

Suffice to say, the 1950's was a time of immense demographic shift for quite a large amount of the world thanks to innovations in medicine and agriculture: in other words, fewer people were dying, and more food was produced so that people could have more children. A natural recipe for a population explosion, and this came about most dramatically in places like Asia and Africa which had long had large populations kept down by natural factors like disease, famine, etc. but then really took off as a result of this.

Add in the fact that colonialism was already living on borrowed time after two world wars and you basically have a recipe for an inexorable and inevitable tide of collapse.
 
More French immigration to Algeria from the get-go, and continuing incentives for immigration from France or even other European countries. Possibly encouraging North African Jews to go to Algeria (a bit ASB I know but they would definitely be "pro-French"). A stronger push to "Christianize" the locals - higher education restricted to Christians (and Jews), various commercial or tax regulations that favored non-Muslims & so forth. Non coercive measures like this accounted for a good deal of conversion to Islam in conquered areas.

If you do this by the 1950s you can end up with an Algeria that could even be majority non-Muslim or certainly with a much stronger non-Muslim presence and attachment to France.
 
French rule in ALgeria was not dependent on having a majority of ethnic Europeans there. It depended on whether the native population could accept rule from Paris. Even IOTL there was a large minority of native Algerians who accepted French rule, and many ended up fleeing to France after the war. There was a large body of moderate native Algerians who were prepared to support Paris provided that sufficient concessions were made so that native Algerians were not discriminated against. These moderates ended up supporting independence only when they came to the conclusion that Paris would never support that, and by the time Paris was prepared to concede on many of those issues, those moderates had were no longer moderates and the issues was moot.

Military victory in 1957 doesn't change this dynamic. I take it by saying victory is achieved in 1957 you intend to avoid the May 1958 crisis that lead to De Gaulle gaining power? By avoiding that, you may buy France a few years or a decade more rule, but they'll leave at some point.

I think only an earlier POD - right before WWII and soon after WWII ended - might change the dynamic enough so that Algerian moderates remain dominant and accept continued French rule. It would take a very farsighted statesman willing to anger the pied-noirs, but it's at least possible. A combination of early political concessions and early military victory could keep Algeria part of metropolitan France.
 
I think only an earlier POD - right before WWII and soon after WWII ended - might change the dynamic enough so that Algerian moderates remain dominant and accept continued French rule. It would take a very farsighted statesman willing to anger the pied-noirs, but it's at least possible. A combination of early political concessions and early military victory could keep Algeria part of metropolitan France.

Though then you might get a backlash from the other side deciding the pieds-noirs are not listened to by the metropole who "don't understand how to deal with the indigenous" and decide to try and pull a rhodesia on france.
 
I think only an earlier POD - right before WWII and soon after WWII ended - might change the dynamic enough so that Algerian moderates remain dominant and accept continued French rule. It would take a very farsighted statesman willing to anger the pied-noirs, but it's at least possible. A combination of early political concessions and early military victory could keep Algeria part of metropolitan France.
IIRC weren't quite a large number of the early Free French forces made up of colonial soldiers, who then later got screwed as was the way of things but that's another matter? Fairly sure there was a film about it a few years back. Perhaps this participation is used, at least in Algeria's case, to argue for covenant of blood type deal where their support is repaid with reforms.
 
IIRC weren't quite a large number of the early Free French forces made up of colonial soldiers, who then later got screwed as was the way of things but that's another matter? Fairly sure there was a film about it a few years back. Perhaps this participation is used, at least in Algeria's case, to argue for covenant of blood type deal where their support is repaid with reforms.
Hell, during the Algerian war there were even more Algerians in the French army then there were in the FLN.
 
I'd make the III République both semi-presidential AND federal from the get-go (whether that requires a pre-1900 or post-1900 POD is up to you), which can still retain much of the centralized unitary structure. That way Algeria could have a lot more latitude in both regional issues there and accomodating native concerns in a way not possible by the centralized formula. (Hmm, could France take a leaf from Canadian history in this case, where French federalism starts out as being a quasi-federal unitary state but then over time becomes more and more decentralized? That would be something to see.)
 
are you thinking of Indigènes?
That's the bunny.


Hell, during the Algerian war there were even more Algerians in the French army then there were in the FLN.
Though then you might get a backlash from the other side deciding the Pieds-Noirs are not listened to by the métropole who "don't understand how to deal with the indigenous" and decide to try and pull a Rhodesia on France.
Huh, this might actually work out even better. Post-WW2 in return for their service the French government starts introducing some reforms in Algeria, the Pied-Noirs seeing this as a threat to the status quo and their position get worked up and attempt a Unilateral Declaration of Independence like Rhodesia only to be crushed by the central government. In revenge and to help settle the issue once and for all the government decides to go even further than they were planning before and introduces full-on reforms that grants similar rights to everyone and firmly ties Algeria to France as an integral part.
 
Huh, this might actually work out even better. Post-WW2 in return for their service the French government starts introducing some reforms in Algeria, the Pied-Noirs seeing this as a threat to the status quo and their position get worked up and attempt a Unilateral Declaration of Independence like Rhodesia only to be crushed by the central government. In revenge and to help settle the issue once and for all the government decides to go even further than they were planning before and introduces full-on reforms that grants similar rights to everyone and firmly ties Algeria to France as an integral part.

OK, je vous démande créer cette TL, maintenant! Tout de suite!
 
T'as oublié le mot magique, Dan.

D'oh! :eek: J'ai comprendé que j'oublie une p'tit chose. OK - "s'il vous plaît?"

(and if that is messed up, we can blame it on English lacking a difference that French has between "savoir" and "comprendre", thus throwing in an additional complication akin to the "ser"/"estar" distinction of most Romance languages, like Spanish and Portuguese and Catalan)
 
D'oh! :eek: J'ai comprendé que j'oublie une p'tit chose. OK - "s'il vous plaît?"

(and if that is messed up, we can blame it on English lacking a difference that French has between "savoir" and "comprendre",

isn't that simply in english "to know" and "to understand" ? (or I might be misunderstanding your misunderstanding)
 
Alas, as one of God's chosen - an Englishman ;), I neither speak French or know enough about the period and personalities involved to do the idea justice. Your best bet is to hit up one of our resident Frenchies and see whether it's a viable idea to run with.
 
There's always the idea of avoiding WWI: without that the hayday of colonialism would continue for quite a while and Europe would have quite a population surplus to dump to its colonies. Then have a couple of small-scale Arab and Berber revolts and let the French deal with those in the typical manner of colonial wars...
 

BlondieBC

Banned
There's always the idea of avoiding WWI: without that the hayday of colonialism would continue for quite a while and Europe would have quite a population surplus to dump to its colonies. Then have a couple of small-scale Arab and Berber revolts and let the French deal with those in the typical manner of colonial wars...

Agreed. This is the best way since it will allow for continued large scale exportation of surplus European population.
 
There's always the idea of avoiding WWI: without that the hayday of colonialism would continue for quite a while and Europe would have quite a population surplus to dump to its colonies. Then have a couple of small-scale Arab and Berber revolts and let the French deal with those in the typical manner of colonial wars...

Slowdown in French population growth was already a foregone conclusion by the end of the 19th century. The First World War just accelerated it.
 
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