Pied-noir

See also: Pied-noir (homonymy)

A “ Pied-Noir ” is a “French of Algérie”, repatriated in France starting from 1954.

In the everyday usage, “Pied-noir” is quasi synonymous with “repatriate”. Pied-noir includes of Christian and Jewish French, but not the Moslems, who are designated by the term harki .

“Repatriated” refers to an administrative statute which concerned, starting from 1962, primarily folded up French of Algeria at the time of the independence, then which was extended to other populations coming from the Morocco and Tunisia, even old colony S Frenchwomen. Among the repatriates of Algeria, who were all of French nationality, the Moslem , more often indicated by the term of Harkis are included, i.e. those of the soldiers, former back-up troops of the French Army, and their families which could find refuge in France, and the not-Moslems, either of European origin, or of the Jewish community local.

“Pied-noir” applies more precisely to these two last categories, like with the repatriates originating in the other countries of the the Maghreb, also sometimes but some extend it to the harkis.

Origins of the term

Appearance

The appearance of this term to designate the French of Algérie is dated, according to Paul Robert, which was itself Pied-Noir, of 1955.

For others, this term would have already been of use towards 1951 - 1952, in the barracks in Métropole, well before arriving in Algérie, to indicate the French recruits originating in North Africa. There was not in Algérie, before the Guerre of independence, any Sobriquet to designate the French of Algérie themselves, if they are not current names of “Algerian S” or of “Nord-Africain S”, then designating only the French of Algérie or North Africa, whereas the natives were designated like “Arab S”, or “Moslem”.

The French of Algeria, on the contrary, used on their side several nicknames to designate the French of Métropole (" French of France" , " Francaoui" , " Patos" )

The nickname of “pied-noir” seems to be parvenu in North Africa, only after 1954, perhaps brought by the come metropolitan soldiers of number. However its use was really spread in Algérie only in the very last years of the French presence and especially in France, after repatriation. At all events, the first unquestionable certificates of this term, in this meaning, are to date the following ones:

Explanations suggested

More or less credible explanations, probably imagined afterwards, were then advanced: allusion to the presumedly varnished shoes or the black boots of the first immigrants or the Laced boot S blacks of the soldiers of the army of Africa, to the legs of the colonists, blackened by clearing the Marsh S, etc Certains evoke even the Pied-noir Indians ( Black-Feet ) of America, who would have been present in the American quotas which unloaded in North Africa in 1942. All these explanations are probably false well since, if they were true, the denomination of “Pied-noir” would have been known in Algérie, before the Guerre of independence.

According to other expressed certificates they also afterwards, the term would have indicated, towards 1901, of the “Arab S”, drivers on the Bateau X with vapor crossing the the Mediterranean. According to a recent article “You have known as Pieds-Noirs”, appeared in the magazine Black Pieds of Yesterday and of Today of January 1999, one clarifies the origin of this Sobriquet used in the Jargon of the marine, mechanized as of the end of the 19th century: the sailors of Algérie accustomed to the torrid temperatures would have been assigned to the machines with coal, like the “black mouths” of the mine S, while the metropolitan sailors, armed with the flue brush to lubricate the gun S, would have seen themselves baptizing fatty stoppers then with ground: the patos” of the Spanish “Duck”, because of their rolling gait acquired on the bridge in consequence of rolling. A Photography of 1917, being marked this, is inserted there. This last explanation is perhaps valid for the word “Patos”, very much used on the spot before 1949, but probably not for the “Pied-noir” term which was rigorously unknown with Algiers until in 1954.

Designating the French of Algeria, this name took, as of 1958, clear a pejorative connotation in Métropole, in particular under the feather of François Mauriac. But then, the interested parties themselves, per hour when them destiny was threatened, seized themselves some, to make the standard of their identity of it, as the names testify some to many associations.

The Communities

The Pied-noir ones of Algérie represented at the time of the Indépendance a population of approximately a million people.

The community of European origin resulted from the mixing of populations of European origins varied but with strong dominant the Mediterranean: French (especially of the Alsatian ) Spanish S, Italian S, Maltese, Corsica S, German S and Swiss S.

Jules Ferry on this subject, the July 28th 1885, at the time of a debate to the House of Commons: the colonists must be recruited not only among the French, but also among the foreigners, in particular the Germans, with solid qualities, the Malteses and Mahonnais, less advisable, but adapting easily to the country. Remainder it would be imprudent to be demanding on quality where one needs the quantity.

One of the first communities to be settled in Algeria at the beginning of colonization, were Spanish originating in the Balearic Islands. The rear-guard of the French task force was stationed in Maho on the island of Minorque. The inhabitants of Maho were thus the first to embark with the French ships dice the conquest of 1830. These mahonnais marked the area of the Inhabitant of Algiers deeply and was a community specialized in the production of early products. This immigration was strongest between 1830 and 1845. This community will be integrated quickly thanks to the military service and into the school.

The Jewish community in the past installed - often of Berber stock was added to it and whose origins go back to the period of before the Arab conquest, entirely acquired with the French presence after the Crémieux decree, and it had adopted the culture and the combat, in 1914 and 1939.

If the immigrants of French nationality were majority, the foreigners formed a long time an important percentage of this population until reaching 49% in 1886. After the automatic law of naturalization of 1889, their number will fall quickly. This integration of the Pied-noir ones, which was not obvious so much at the beginning of colonization (certain local politicians spoke about “foreign danger”) the racial tensions were strong between the European French and foreigners on the one hand, between local Europeans and the Jews on the other hand, was probably supported by two factors:

  • the policy of the French government which, anxious at a certain time to see the French element overflowed démographiquement, took measures to naturalize in an automatic way the children from abroad born on the Algerian ground (laws of 1889 and 1893) and to grant in block to the Juif S, which had accommodated the French as liberators in 1830 and massively had since then adopted the French culture, the statute of French citizens (decree Crémieux of 1870).
  • the feeling of a community of destiny vis-a-vis the indigenous population Moslem in a colonial system.
On the other hand, no fusion occurred with the Algerians resulting from the Moslem culture then designated under the generic term of “Moslem French”. That results with the fact that the Moslem authorities gave the order to the Algerian Moslems to refuse the French citizenship because of the barrier of the Religion in an Islamized population of long time.

The Pied-noir ones during the War of Algeria

See also: Week of the barricades, OAS, Shooting the street of Isly

Starting from November 1st, 1954, date known as of the massacre of the red All Saints' day, Algeria plunges in violence. The independence claims of May 1945 of a minority of the Muslim population (marked by the repression of Sétif) did not mark a rupture shouting between Algerian resulting from a Moslem culture and the European Community; it is starting from the attacks of August 1955 in Constantinois that Algeria is inserted truly in chaos. The massacres of several hundreds of Pied-noir perpetrated by FLN on August 20th, 1955 in the area of Constantine, in particular with Philippeville and El-Halia, will have a heavy incidence on the continuation of the conflict. In France, the images of these events are however censured. At the time, one speaks only about “events” to qualify a conflict which evolves/moves gradually in true a Civil war (role of the Harkis on the side of the Algerian communities, then later in 1960, formation of OAS on the French side).

In 1959, the Pieds-Noirs were 1.025.000, that is to say 10,4% of the population living in Algeria. Their relative weight was in fall after a maximum reaches of 15,2% in 1926. Demography in full expansion of the Muslim population contributed to this situation. However, the distribution of the population resulted in areas with strong concentration from Pied-noir. Bône, (Annaba), Algiers, and especially the Oranie. Oran had been under European control since the 17th century. The population of Oran was European to 49,3% in 1959.

In the Inhabitant of Algiers, the Pied-noir ones accounted for 35,7% of the population. With Bône, they counted for 40,5% of the population. The Department of Oran, with a richly developed agricultural zone of 16.520 km ² between Oran and Sidi-beautiful-Abbots, had the highest European rural population density, that is to say 33,6% of the population of the department in 1959.

Many Pied-noir felt betrayed by the attitude of Charles de Gaulle which initially stated (in particular at the time of the speech of Mostaganem) to support French Algeria, for then approving the principle of the right to self-determination of the Algerian people and consequently independence of Algeria, while at the same time they could not ignore the concrete consequences of them and than it had also made use of the most radical fringe of the partisans of French Algeria to return to the businesses.

Vis-a-vis the disengagement of the French state and with the absence of concrete measures aiming at protecting the ethnic minority and nun which they represented, the majority of pied-noir, in particular in Oran, supported the OAS and its burned ground policy and terror towards the Moslems, not yielding of anything to that the FLN.

Exodus

In a few months between the end of spring and September 1962, 900.000 French, Europeans and Jews, left the country in a situation of chaos and a movement of despair. the bag or the coffin , slogan of certain nationalists algériens, by anticipation the feeling of total abandonment felt by this population summarized. Not feeling its ensured safety more, she sprang in a sudden and massive exodus.

The government had estimated at 200.000 or 300.000 the number of temporary repatriates in France. Also, nothing was planned for their return. Much had to sleep in the streets on their arrival in France, where the majority had never put the feet and neither family had, nor support. Some also suffered from the resentment of the subways which were generally not favorable to the war and had suffered from called died or wounded in Algeria. They profited however from assistances to the installation (which by-effect generated jealousies in Corsica which helped with the takeoff of Corsican nationalism).

The scenes of thousands of panicked refugees camping during weeks on the quays of the wearing of Algeria while waiting for a place on a boat towards France became usual between April and August 1962.

Some Pieds-Noirs destroyed their goods before embarking, as a sign of burned ground and despair, but the majority left while leaving intact and abandoned their inheritances. Much, indeed, hoped that the promises of the government gaullist could be held, at least partially, and that they could return. In September 1962, Oran, Bône, or Sidi-beautiful-Abbots were left with half abandoned. All the administrations, organizes, schools, justice, marketing activities stopped in three months. The population thus massively took refuge in France in a few years, the majority in the chaos of 1962. A small minority went in Spain, mainly in the area of Alicante. Others left for more remote countries, like Canada or Argentina. The Jews massively chose France, and little left in Israel. While counting the repatriates of the other Maghreb countries, one arrives at a total from approximately 1,5 million people, that is to say approximately 3% of the French population.

However, a considerable quantity of French remained to live in Algeria after independence, but their hopes were broken by the decrees of nationalization of the grounds and the trade of the first November 1963. So with most extremely of the civil war to the beginning of the year 1990, it did not remain any more that 2.000 French whose handle of pied-noir, for a few years, Europeans again will be established over there, also the liberalization of the economy attracts the investors more and more.

Situation in France

The French government left all the administrative files to the new Algerian government. What meant for the Pied-noir ones, the absence of access to their birth certificates and other acts of registry office. Some had evil to prove their French nationality. In front of the incongruity of the situation, in the years 1970, the French government, finally, decided to send a mission in the large communes of Algeria to copy the registers of registry office. The town halls of the small communes were not visited, which explains the problems encountered vis-a-vis the administration until today by some.

Generally the Pied-noir ones felt rejected on their arrival in France. They had to face the racist invectives, in particular of the communist left, which caricatured them like colonists profiteurs. At the summer 1962, the Pied-noir ones despaired and stripped, arrived on overloaded boats, were accepted, on the initiative of the CGT dockers, by hostile signs (“the Pied-noir ones with the sea”) at the entry of the port of Marseilles. In spite of the preventions which certain politicians (like the socialist mayor of Marseilles posted, Gaston Defferre, which declared in July 1962: “ Marseilles has 150.000 inhabitants of too, that the Pied-noir ones will be rehabilitated elsewhere. ”) with regard to a population that they really did not know, and catalogued on racist prejudices as being made up colonists “ making sweat the burnous ”, to be racist, violent and machist, and of which the socio-professional structure was not to facilitate integration in a modern economy. However the Pied-noir ones adapted quickly, these dark forecasts were contradicted by the facts.

Actually, the vast majority of Pied-noir belonged to the working class or a urban Prolétariat of small employees. The population was urban to 85%, made up of small civils servant, craftsmen and tradesmen, whose average revenue was lower by 15% than that of the metropolitan French. The educational level seldom exceeded the primary certificate of study. 5% only were farmers owners and very great fortunes amounted on the fingers of a hand.

However, after the rough received reception, the Pied-noir ones were integrated quickly, contributing to the economic advancement of the years 1960. In particular in the areas of Provence, and Languedoc-Roussillon. Cities deadened before knew an economic whiplash which contributed to their current dynamism (Montpellier, Perpignan, Nice, and particularly Marseilles). The black feet remain a singular community. Assimilated French in France which does not exist any more, they have to be integrated then in the old hostile metropolis in their connection. Much is said exiled in a country which will be never completely theirs, Algerian French of ground nationality but.

Some Pied-noir famous

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