The French Algeria movement

Young men had no desire to become cannon fodder in the colonial war in Algeria and when they were drafted into the army in 1954, a wave of mutinies swept across the country and riot police had to be called in. However, no attempt was made anywhere to politicize this soon-to-be war resistance. The official organizations, including the Communist Party, all considered that Algeria was ”part of France” and that the Muslim uprising must obviously be put down.

Opponents of war, often coming from Christian circles around the Fellowship of Reconciliation, from a non-sectarian labour movement environment or from a general radical environment established by the resistance movement during the WW2, therefore saw nothing better to do than become the Algerian movement’s extended arm in France and mainly smuggle money, in deepest secret.

Nothing else happened until 1959-60. A group of money smugglers were then arrested and decided to use the trial as a tribune. And at the same time, a series of reports of torture and massacres against Muslims and their French sympathizers in Algeria were published. And this made a huge difference in the debate-happy France. The picture above is a demo where eight participants were killed by police, which then led to further mass demonstrations, etc.

Due to the rather elitist nature of the resistance to the war, it became a matter mainly for academics until the end. Unlike in the United States ten years later, there were few mass demonstrations (until just before the end) and no conscientious objection. But what the French intellectuals (Sartre, in particular) succeeded in doing was to establish the Third World’s right to independence in the European public debate.

Reading
Alistair Horne: A savage war of peace, Macmillan 1977