WI: The French tried to intermarry with, Frenchifry, and Catholicize the Algerians?

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We had that in the USA, Canada and other immigrant countries where people were expected to assimilate to their adoptive country culture, language but not always necessarily religion. The issue for example with the Canadians was how they tried to assimilate the native populations that existed here and what cultural, social destruction occurred due to the misguided racist attempts to stop them from being "indian" and become "Canadian" but incidentally those that came out of the program damaged and all still faced discrimination and were looked as natives just dressed as "whites" but in meantime lost connection to their culture. Leading to many social problems such as alcoholism and other problems.

The issues here in this thread is a different culture, religion moving into a region, being the minority and how they could convert the locals to their side be that language, religion, culture or all three. The problem was that even those who did convert and tried to assimilate were never treated as French citizens but always as 2nd class citizens better than the 3rd class natives but not same as true French.

I dont want to defend the conduct of the french in Algeria. This is a very delicate issue and discussing it IMO requires utmost care - something the OP absluty lacked. However the questions - why didnt France try to convert the local muslims? Could he have succeded if he tried? Would it have been possible to retain control of a part or the whole of Algeria for France if he went down this route? These I think are interesting question that I think we should be able to debate - while going out of our way to avoid any allegiations that christianity is superior to islam or being french is in any way preferable to being algerian.
 
I dont want to defend the conduct of the french in Algeria. This is a very delicate issue and discussing it IMO requires utmost care - something the OP absluty lacked. However the questions - why didnt France try to convert the local muslims? Could he have succeded if he tried? Would it have been possible to retain control of a part or the whole of Algeria for France if he went down this route? These I think are interesting question that I think we should be able to debate - while going out of our way to avoid any allegiations that christianity is superior to islam or being french is in any way preferable to being algerian.
Yeah and even if people disagreed with this particular thread, the risk is that one can easily cast the net too wide and make it so that we couldn't talk about alt linguistic, ethnic and religious configurations. According to some every change requires violence and making threads about it is endorsing it, but both of those are not necessarily true and usually users aren't banned for that anyway, but more because they are obsessed with it and/or lack common sense.
 

Lusitania

Donor
Ok let’s look at this from a perspective of significant part of Africa including Algeria being populated by people who associate themselves as being “French” and feel that belonging to greater France is prefereable to living in an independent North African or African country. Like someone today who has emigrated to France or descendant of immigrants living in France. What would be the necessary government policies, social and religious practices to allow this.

Pod of late 19th century or later.
 
You can't just intermarry and Christianize the population who are dedicated to one religion. It requires a lot of... How do I say it... painful measures. Crack down on the clergy, strict secular rule (Because if you act as it is a christian duty then it will turn the people with different religions to see it as a holy cause to boycot or even fight the occupiers). And it takes several generations to do so. The occupation happens in 1830, the crackdown happens directly afterwards, getting rid of all literate or government officials or military figures. Reducing, not forbidding, religious freedom. At first, the target have to be the men. Because if you can convert the men there won't be anyone left to marry the women off. Not sure if the French families are willing to marry off French women to Berber and Arab men.
Russia tried it after conquering the Tatar Khanates but the results were nill. The Tatars remained largely Muslim while some of the elites converted to Christianity to become a part of Russian nobility. They gave up by the 18th century.

It is a cruel campaign but these are kinda the way. Considering France did non of those in Algeria and the Algerians rebelled anyway, such campaign would massively cause hostility. France has zero chance to populate the region with Frenchmen as it becomes more of a military zone with all things that can follow by, like large scale killings.
 
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I dont want to defend the conduct of the french in Algeria. This is a very delicate issue and discussing it IMO requires utmost care - something the OP absluty lacked. However the questions - why didnt France try to convert the local muslims? Could he have succeded if he tried? Would it have been possible to retain control of a part or the whole of Algeria for France if he went down this route? These I think are interesting question that I think we should be able to debate - while going out of our way to avoid any allegiations that christianity is superior to islam or being french is in any way preferable to being algerian.

If they actively tried they would face another rebellion. And if you want France to support church funded missionary activity you need a monarch who has strong ties to the church, not a anticlerical Republican government (not sure how anticlerical the second and third republics were).
 
Doesn't work. Islam doens't do integration, it integrates you. Notice how, for example, muslim men can marry muslim women, but someone who wants the hand of a muslim woman must convert to Islam. Apostasy in Islam is also considered a very grave crime, and punished with death. It also means you will pretty much break with your family and clan forever, a very serious thing for such a society.

You need to utterly break any power Islam has in its society. Even then, you will probably have crypto-muslims until the cryptos eventually forget they were being cryptos, like with Iberian "New Christians".

The thing about Muslim men marrying Muslim women might be because when men and women of different faith got married, the women tended to take over the religion of her husband. Especially if the husband was Muslim or Christian. This was of course long ago, today is a different situation but a lot of people base their ideas on this which would make sense 300 years ago. Not sure if this was the case when Christian men married Muslim women but when Muslim men married Christian women, the women would take the religion of the husband more often.
 
Russia tried it after conquering the Tatar Khanates but the results were nill. The Tatars remained largely Muslim while some of the elites converted to Christianity to become a part of Russian nobility. They gave up by the 18th century.
I'm not sure how many Tatars converted, but probably you'd have a good number of them because today Tatars aren't exactly fully Muslim and at the same time you probably had a good amount of Orthodox Tatars simply assimilating in the Russian population, so we see today only a part of the population that just converted.
 
Ok let’s look at this from a perspective of significant part of Africa including Algeria being populated by people who associate themselves as being “French” and feel that belonging to greater France is prefereable to living in an independent North African or African country. Like someone today who has emigrated to France or descendant of immigrants living in France. What would be the necessary government policies, social and religious practices to allow this.

While this might not be tasteful, in theory this could happen: let's say France, during the conscription debates of the early 20th century, impliments a policy of extending conscription to Algeria as well as universal citizenship: weather you want it or not, but you still get to keep your language, culture, religious laws, ect. Of course, this would nessecitate the formation of specifically Islamic military units for linguistic, dietary, ect. purposes which, for the sake of smoothing things over with the population, be organized in local, "pals battalion" style recruitment. These do their tour of duty in France... just as WW I roles around, and end up (for a variety of reasons) in some of the higher-causality areas of the line, with their widows and children being taken into a system of public housing/care established for "victims of the costs of war", which could instill in them a greater sympathy to the French state and lead to a generation better versed in French. Perhaps include some kind of G.I bill that pays for education in France proper as well. This could provide a nice "seed population" to provide a bridge between the Pied Noirs and Arab-Berbers, as well as building bussiness connections between split families in France proper and Algeria.
 
If they actively tried they would face another rebellion. And if you want France to support church funded missionary activity you need a monarch who has strong ties to the church, not a anticlerical Republican government (not sure how anticlerical the second and third republics were).

The Third Republic was very anticlerical and took education out of the hands of the church and finally separated church and state (1905).

In the colonies France still did rely on Catholic missionaries at times for administration but this was more of an ad hoc solution and not a dedicated policy.

What France did finally implement was secular government and in West Africa that is still officially the case in the ex-colonies, while the Maghreb countries officially are Muslim but not particularly rigid about it.
 

Lusitania

Donor
The Third Republic was very anticlerical and took education out of the hands of the church and finally separated church and state (1905).

In the colonies France still did rely on Catholic missionaries at times for administration but this was more of an ad hoc solution and not a dedicated policy.

What France did finally implement was secular government and in West Africa that is still officially the case in the ex-colonies, while the Maghreb countries officially are Muslim but not particularly rigid about it.
The French actions in Morocco and Tunisia would be different from Algeria. Both Morocco and Tunisia had ruler and were protectorates of the French while rest of Africa and Algeria were French colonies. So what ever French attitude and actions be different in the protectorates.

My POD Napoleon III recruits thousands of Algerians and West African men to double the size of the French forces in Europe. Hurried training and while poorly equipped the extra number of French colonial troops are enough to turn the fortunes of the French in the French-Prussian War. While the French not able to defeat the Prussians to gain territorial concession in Germany they are able to get much better treaty with Prussia. France gives citizenship to all colonial troops and also provides the widows of the slain troops with pensions and French education to kids.
 

aenigma

Banned
Christianity during that time had a very tenuous grip over the berber people, especially the indigenous nomads. It wasn't really that difficult. Even large swaths of Europe was pagan at the time. Christianity didn't really have the social capital at the time, meanwhile the muslims who came in like a hurricane did.The 18th century is too late to pull out an islam that is entrenched in every part of Algerian society. The country today is 97% muslim. It'll be ireland all over again. Making them more Francophone is much more possible.

i was under the impression former coastal regions like tunisia where fairly christian by then
berbers may be true but there are plenty of people in the former vandal controlled region

my gues is if spain managed to conquer north africa after granada fell instead of fighting the italian wars
then they would have been able to convert big parts of it by 1800

fairly sure spain would be far more fanatic at attempting to convert them atleast
 
Actually they succeded in converting a tiny minority in the Kabyle region.
It was mainly a divide-and-rule tactic by creating a rift between amazigh and arab speakers.
They tried the same in Morocco but failed.
It worked with morocco's jews though. Many of them grew up speaking only french.
 

Lusitania

Donor
i was under the impression former coastal regions like tunisia where fairly christian by then
berbers may be true but there are plenty of people in the former vandal controlled region

my gues is if spain managed to conquer north africa after granada fell instead of fighting the italian wars
then they would have been able to convert big parts of it by 1800

fairly sure spain would be far more fanatic at attempting to convert them atleast
Spain only received authorization to be in North African after 1580. Prior to that the treaty between Portugal and Spain. Stated Spain get canaries island Portugal get African continent.
 

aenigma

Banned
Spain only received authorization to be in North African after 1580. Prior to that the treaty between Portugal and Spain. Stated Spain get canaries island Portugal get African continent.

intresting to know
so what if the opposite happend and portugal got the canaries in exchange for spain receiving permission to africa earlier ,would they have a change to conquer more ?
 

Lusitania

Donor
intresting to know
so what if the opposite happend and portugal got the canaries in exchange for spain receiving permission to africa earlier ,would they have a change to conquer more ?
Well the Portuguese conquered Ceuta in 1415 and started capturing Moroccan towns from that point to 1550s when our king and most of the nobles died in famous battle. The treaty would not of been possible since the Portuguese had coastal towns from North Africa to the gold coast and would not of traded that for the Canary islands. So you would of needed to have a treaty stating grant Spain to all lands in Algeria. See what they would do there. But the Spanish need not get involved with the Hapsburg otherwise all their energy is diverted to Europe.
 
i was under the impression former coastal regions like tunisia where fairly christian by then
berbers may be true but there are plenty of people in the former vandal controlled region

my gues is if spain managed to conquer north africa after granada fell instead of fighting the italian wars
then they would have been able to convert big parts of it by 1800

fairly sure spain would be far more fanatic at attempting to convert them atleast

Spain was not in a position to conquer the interior of North Africa. Coastal cities is not a problem but the interior will always remain a problem. And converting after conquering? This isn't EU IV. Conquering a large region with its population and enforcing catholicism is not something that happens successfully. Especially when there is an Islamic Power on the other side of the Mediterranean.
 
Honestly if you want greater intermarriage between French settlers and the locals, the French settlers need to be overwhelming dominated by males. So maybe if France had adopted a policy where members of the Foreign Legion had gotten land in Algeria after their 5 year service and significant expanded the size of the Foreign Legion.
 
Honestly if you want greater intermarriage between French settlers and the locals, the French settlers need to be overwhelming dominated by males. So maybe if France had adopted a policy where members of the Foreign Legion had gotten land in Algeria after their 5 year service and significant expanded the size of the Foreign Legion.

The likelier the chance French male population in Algeria converts to Islam and gets absorbed among the Natives. Not all but a fair share of them.
 
I know of the Madagascar plan and I already stated in my first post that later OP - i didnt specify but i think it was obvious - went too far. I didnt check her alleged other threads but guessing from the attitude I think it was probably - I cant say for sure as i didnt check - right to ban her. However I want to be able to disuss possible religious conversions or maybe the possibility or impossibility of turning Algeria french without being banned for proposing genocide.

Don't worry, the ban of Baby Kata was for cumulative offense. I think the idea of more attempts to assimilate the Maghreb is an interesting one.
 
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