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In the middle of the Algerian War of Independence, the French military and government launched an elaborate campaign to ‘liberate’ Algerian Muslim women. The timing of its inception indicated one of the strongest motivations behind this elaborate series of policies. Indeed, French propagandists and officials, prompted by the appearance on the international stage of ‘modern’-looking female Algerian nationalist agents, scrambled to uphold the myth that Algerian Muslim gender relations in the territory were ‘backwards’ and only they could rectify this shortcoming in Algerian society. They consequently embarked upon the emancipation campaign mainly in pursuit of convincing outsiders of France's purported ability and duty to make Algeria ‘modern'. For this reason, the production of photographic evidence capable of visually demonstrating that Muslim women were becoming French and liberated under French guidance was one of the campaign's central aims. In order to obtain such evidence, military agents exploited and falsified representations of Muslim women, a process this article examines. The present work additionally elucidates many of the hypocrisies inherent in the French army's exploitation of Muslim women and their bodies through their elaborate propagandist efforts; through their actions on the ground in Algeria, French soldiers and military leaders, including individuals directly implicated in the ‘emancipation’ campaign, were actually confining, abusing, and torturing Muslim women rather than freeing them. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The participation of many thousands of troops recruited in France's overseas colonies, including many Moroccan infantrymen, known as ‘goumiers’, has been overlooked by historians and left out of accounts of significant battles of the Second World War. Yet Moroccan soldiers took part in some of the fiercest combat in the Mediterranean region, in Tunisia, in Sicily and Corsica, in the liberation of Marseille, and went on to liberate Paris and provide manpower for the invasion of Germany at great cost. Tracing the trajectory of thegoumierunits in the later years of the war, this essay recovers many details of their suppressed history, situating the memory of their exploits, along with the recollection of some of their less heroic deeds, within new frameworks of interpretation informed by the idea of empire, the historiography of race, and narratives of colonial exploitation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article looks at an episode which though it happened in Tunisia had a direct link to the Algerian War of Independence (1954–62), and thus propelled the war to an international conflict that pitted the Western powers, namely; France, Britain and America against each other. By the time the incident occurred the Algerian War had been going on for just over three years with the French seemingly gaining the upper hand. This article endeavours to show how this incident complicated the Algerian conflict and how the episode was viewed internationally, especially from the British Government and media perspectives both had keen interest on the Algerian conflict as a result of their own empire in other parts of Africa. The article is based largely on archival research at the Public Record Office at Kew, (England) and Newspaper archives at Colindale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses the relationship between France and Algeria in the immediate aftermath of Algerian independence. In 1963, Algeria repeatedly breached the Evian Accords, and continuously threatened France's national interests. Yet, French policymakers accommodated Algeria's reassertion and even rewarded it with a generous coopération package. I will argue that this remarkable discrepancy was due to Gaullist France's belief that association with its former colony would benefit its image and influence in the Third World. Algeria at the time enjoyed significant prestige in Asia and Africa, and this was precisely the arena where France was keen to deploy its leadership in order to enhance its independence from the two superpowers. This perception detracted Paris from the cool-blooded pursuit of ‘realist’ state interests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Monumental history seems to be fading in the films on contemporary Algeria. The unrest of the last decades has fractured false certainties and new images have since emerged. Although present, the relationship to France, as a colonial power, is secondary; this positioning allows a tangential critique of the Algerian political regime, while daily experiences are explored and given more exposure. In continuity with the films of the 1970s and 1980s, this exploration is mainly performed by female characters, with the particularity that they are left alone in their search for a better life and/or recognition. This paper aims to examine the aforementioned search in light of two major lines: first, the absence of strong male characters and the political and social marginality of female characters, and second, the contemporary expression of the logic of honour. Spatiality is central to the examination of the function of France as a constitutive part in the formation of Algerian (urban?) identities, be they problematic and highly conflictual. It allows shedding some light on the difficulty to foresee a possible change in the social structure and in the defining identities. In these contexts, social reality is raw and exposed, and life is so tenuous that the body becomes the prime target and the only shield to the violence. How then is speech rendered and how could it be transformative? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to the longstanding ties between Algeria and France, the recent and ongoing 'civil war' has given rise to or revealed a large number of formal arrangements, associations, NGOs and exchange networks. However, it is important to know that the 'events of 1988' and all that grew out of them were not the social system's final implosion, but the aborted 15-year struggle aimed at acquiring basic liberties. Above all, Algeria most needs to share symbolic resources, of all segments of its disarticulated society. The great majority of the actors in these struggles have left the country, and it is on this exodus, its forms and effects, that we must meditate now. What becomes of the exiles? What are their ties with their country of origin? What sort of proximity do they make for themselves with those compatriots who left long before they did and for different reasons? And above all, what has become of the task of breaking free from 'unanimism', both inside and outside Algeria? [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]