Pied-noir

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Pied-noir (plural: pieds-noirs) is a term for the former population of European descent of North Africa, especially Algeria, which was divided into three French departments until its 1962 independence. It also includes the Algerian Jewish population, some of whose ancestors had fled Spain after the Reconquista, whilst others were descendants of Jews who come much earlier or even Berber converts to Judaism. Literally Pied-noir means "black foot" in French. Supposedly, one way the colonists could be distinguished from the indigenous Algerians was by the black boots that the French wore. According to Le Robert French dictionary, it appeared around 1901 to refer to bare-foot indigenous Algerian stokers on ships at a time when coal was the most commonly used fuel. Given their working conditions, they would get their feet dirty in coal dust. By extension, the term pied-noir was applied to indigenous Algerians. At that time, European Algerians described themselves as Algerian in relation to metropolitan French, and as Europeans vis-à-vis the indigenous Arab and Berber population. But in the 1920s and 1930s, the term Algerian came to be monopolised by indigenous Arab/Berber Algerians as Algerian nationalism became a political force to be reckoned with. By 1955, European Algerians started applying the term pied-noir to themselves. One of the most famous pieds-noirs was Albert Camus.

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[edit] History

European settlers started arriving in the Barbary Coast from 1830 when France conquered Algiers from nominal Ottoman control. These settlers came from all over the Catholic parts of the western Mediterranean, particularly coastal and island regions in the present-day countries of Italy, France, Spain, and Malta. They became known as colons, Européens, and eventually pieds-noirs. The Algerian Jews, however, had a different history. While a Jewish presence had existed since late Roman times, the majority had arrived as refugees from the Reconquista around 1500, when Sephardi Jews and Muslims were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. After centuries of dhimmi status, the local Algerian Jews became associated with the European-Algerian community following the 1871 décret Crémieux, when they largely embraced French citizenship and identity and adopted French culture and language over the course of just one generation. Before 1962 (independence of Algeria), both the European colons and the indigenous Jews of Algeria were listed under the name Européens (Europeans) for statistical or official purposes. They all considered themselves simply French, or Algerian, or African, each of these identities intertwined in their mind. The unofficial anthem of the pied-noir community is the Song of the Africans (Le chant des Africains).

However, many European settlers resented having to share their privileged position with the Jewish part of the native Algerian population. That resentment was expressed, for example, in antisemitic riots during the Dreyfus Affair of the 1890s and in strict enforcement in Algeria of the Vichy Regime's anti-Jewish legislation.

Rate of non-Muslim population in 1954 per département (post-1957 administrative division). The départements of Algiers and Oran had over 30 % non-Muslim population.
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Rate of non-Muslim population in 1954 per département (post-1957 administrative division). The départements of Algiers and Oran had over 30 % non-Muslim population.

In 1959, the pieds-noirs numbered 1,025,000, and accounted for 10.4% of the total population of Algeria, a percentage gradually diminishing since the peak of 15.2% in 1926. However, some areas of Algeria had high concentrations of pieds-noirs, such as the regions of Bône (now Annaba), Algiers, and above all the area from Oran to Sidi-Bel-Abbès. Oran had been under European rule since the 17th century, and the population in the Oran metropolitan area was 49.3% European and Jewish in 1959. In the Algiers metropolitan area, Europeans and Jewish people accounted for 35.7% of the population. In the metropolitan area of Bône they accounted for 40.5% of the population. The département of Oran, a rich European-developed agricultural land of 16,520 km² (6,378 sq. miles) stretching between the cities of Oran and Sidi-Bel-Abbès, and including them, was the largest area of pieds-noirs density outside of the cities, with the pieds-noirs accounting for 33.6% of the population of the département in 1959.

The pieds-noirs and the Muslims who had remained loyal to France, the harkis, felt betrayed by the act of Charles de Gaulle sanctioning Algeria's independence in 1962 and some of them fought a limited civil war.

[edit] Exodus

In just a few months in 1962, 900,000 of these Europeans and native Jewish people left the country, the first prior to the referendum (held in Metropolitan France and for which by an unprecedented decision of the de Gaulle government they were not allowed to vote), in the most massive relocation of population in Europe since the Second World War.

The exodus accelerated after the 5th of July 1962 massacre and kidnapping of more than 3 000 Pieds-Noirs in the streets of Oran by the ALN (Algerian Armée de Libération Nationale) entering the country from Morocco after the cease-fire decreed by the French army. Cases of abducted people in the summer 1962 lingered till the mid-1970's. In 1973, President Boumédienne, quoted the figure of several thousand missing French nationals secretly detained and considered 'hostages', in case of French retaliation against the nationalization of (mainly French operated) gas and oil resources.[1]

By September 1962, cities like Oran, Bône, or Sidi-Bel-Abbès were left half empty. All administration, police, schools, justice, commercial activities stopped in a matter of 3 months.

The French government had not planned that such a massive number would leave; at the most, it estimated that perhaps 200,000 or 300,000 might choose to temporarily go to metropolitan France. Consequently, nothing was planned for their return, and many had to sleep in the streets or in abandoned farms on their arrival in metropolitan France, where the vast majority had never set foot in their whole life.

Most European and Jewish Algerians believed that their choice was between "Suitcase or coffin" ("La valise ou le cercueil"), especially since some actually received warning letters with drawings of a suitcase and a coffin.

Some departing pieds-noirs destroyed their possessions before departure, in a sign of despair, but the vast majority of their goods and houses were left intact and abandoned. Tragic scenes of thousands of panicked people camping for weeks on the docks of Algerian harbors waiting for a space on a boat to France were common from April to August 1962. Some people who were refused the right to take their cars on board burned them on the spot in the docks. For most, departure was meant to be without an idea of return, and despair was general at leaving the land where they were born.

About 100,000 pieds-noirs chose to remain, but they gradually left in the 1960s and 1970s, to the point that in the 1980s there remained only one or two thousand pieds-noirs in Algeria. The Muslim harkis who were unable to escape to France were regarded as traitors by the FLN and many thousands were massacred.

Most pieds-noirs and some harkis settled in cities across southern France where they assimilated into the local population. However, many opted instead to migrate to New Caledonia integrating into the Caldoche community, or to Spain or North and South America. Some Algerian Jews eventually ended up in Israel, where they were granted instant citizenship and initial financial support from the Israeli state as olim.

A similar exodus of Portuguese settlers and mestiços occurred when Angola and Mozambique won their independence - with similar consequences for the administration and economy of these nascent nations.

[edit] In France

The French government left control of Algerian administrative records to the new Algerian government; for the pieds-noirs, this led to a situation where hundreds of thousands could not access their birth or marriage certificates after independence, with some unable to prove that they were French, or unable to obtain legal papers. In the 1970's the French government finally sent a mission to Algeria to copy the birth, marriage, and death certificates in the main cities and towns of former European settlement, but village records were not copied, with the result that even today some pieds-noirs in France are still unable to prove their identity.

More generally, the pieds-noirs felt rejected in France, where they were often portrayed as exploitive colonialists, especially by the Communist Party. Famously, as the pieds-noirs arrived in Marseille throughout 1962, they were greeted by the words "The pieds-noirs to the sea!" ("Les pieds noirs à la mer!"), as painted by the Communist longshoremen (dockers) of the Port of Marseille on the mole at the entrance of the harbor. Communist posters showing a brutal pied-noir whipping Arab workers were also a frequent sight in French cities at the time. In reality, however, the vast majority of Algeria's pied-noir population was lower middle-class or below, with less than 5% of the pied-noir population belonging to the economic elite of major merchants and land-owners. Their rejection by the French left meant that pied-noirs quickly became the strongest element within the far right in France. Despite this lack of initial acceptance, the major economic boom that France experienced in the 1960's allowed the pied-noirs to assimilate rather quickly and easily into their new home. The Harkis were less fortunate, remaining a neglected and un-assimilated minority.

More recently, the French government has acknowledged the trauma and suffering felt by the pieds-noirs, with frequent ceremonies organized to commemorate their tragedy. Many pieds-noirs have received some compensation from the French government for the loss of their property in post-independence Algeria. The French government did, however, cap the amount of compensation, with the result that many pieds-noirs have never received full compensation for what they lost. In any case, the feeling among the majority of the exiles is that money could not compensate for their lost lives. It is not uncommon to hear of pieds-noirs requesting that, after death and cremation, their ashes be strewn on the Mediterranean Sea, in the hope that the currents will wash them up on Algerian shores.

Symbolically, the pieds-noirs were allowed in the 1990s to use the old codes of their départements in French Algeria for official purposes. Until recently, when filing papers, or obtaining social security numbers, they had to list number 99, the code for people born in foreign countries. Many pieds-noirs found this insulting because they were born in Algerian départements that were considered, by the French state, to be French ordinary departments, unlike the other French overseas departments and territories. Thus, on official documentation, they can now use the numbers 91, 92, and 93, the codes for the three old départements of Algeria. Other oddities still remain. For instance, since driving licenses in France are delivered by the prefect of the département for life, hundreds of thousands of pieds-noirs in France still carry a license with the stamp of one of the former départements of French Algeria on it, although these départements no longer exist.

[edit] Famous Pieds-Noirs

[edit] See also

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