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In 1956 oil was discovered in the Algerian Sahara. The discovery sparked a huge infrastructural investment from the French metropole, with wells, roads and residential areas rapidly constructed across the desert. The colonial state widely promoted these developments as vast social ‘improvements’. But their tangible impacts on local communities were widely overlooked or presupposed, thus affecting the society of the late colonial era in Algeria. This paper examines how the development of the oil industry impacted residents and shaped socio-spatial practices across the Algerian Sahara between 1952 and 1962. The analysis concentrates on how colonial directives and ideologies directly and indirectly shaped the oil sector and explores the corollary implications, focusing on local social structures, urban and infrastructural landscapes and ethnic and regional identity archetypes. As an industry with close links to the state, migratory labour and local communities, the paper posits that the oil sector provides a critical insight into both the lived realities and socio-political mechanisms of late colonial rule across the Mediterranean. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Any one who studies the policy of the French colonialism in Algeria will notice clearly how cruel it was, during about a century and a half, the impact of which is still observable. such are the mines which were planted all along the Algerian borders on Challe and Maurice lines had killed approximately 4762 persons and disabled 12425 others and the number would increase .Adding to that the calamity of the atomic experiences that caused many victims. Thus, the French authorities, should be aware of the responsibility they have against all those rough crimes they committed and any one who took part in those crimes is to be condemned in front of all the world. Then, Israel is to be treated for its rude assaults against Palestine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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