Abstract
Since the mass evacuation of the French of Algeria in 1962, the most contentious point of debate between the repatriate community and the Fifth Republic has been the question of indemnification for properties left behind in Algeria. For repatriates, the dispute over indemnities was really about the responsibilities of the state. For the French in Algeria, the Fifth Republic had relinquished sovereign territory and displaced one million citizens from their homeland. For the French state, repatriation was the tragic outcome of an unavoidable historical event. As far as the government was concerned, the state could not recompense the repatriates for their losses; it had not instigated the mass departure.
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Notes
Jacques Ribs, L’indemnisation des Français depossédés outré-mer (Librairie Dalloz, 1971).
John H. Lichtblau, “Oil in the North African Economy,” in Leon Carl Brown, ed., State and Society in Independent North Africa (Washington, DC: The Middle East Institute, 1966), 275.
Samir Amin, L’Économie du Maghreb, La colonisation et la décolonisation (Paris: Les Éditions du minuit, 1966), 258–261; 267.
David Ottoway, Algeria, Politics of a Socialist Revolution (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1970), 52.
This takeover of former colonial property by indigenous elite and wealthy prospectors occurred throughout the decolonized nations, driving an “internal struggle between remnants of imperial forces and those embedded in traditional resistance in Africa.” Ngûgy Wa Thiong’O, Decolonising the Mind; the Politics of Language in African Literature (London, UK and Portsmouth, NH: James Currey, 1992).
Ahmed Ben Bella, Discours du président Ben Bella (Alger: Ministère de l’information, 1963).
Ibid. In this regard, repatriates were different from guest workers and labor migrants. Whereas the latter had all the desirable skills for employers but the undesirable traits foreigners, repatriates carried with them the critical asset of civil status but had little to contribute in terms of economic skills. See Kristin Surak, “Guestworkers: A Taxonomy,” in New Left Review 84 (2013), 84–102.
Jennifer Hunt, “The Impact of the 1962 Repatriates from Algeria on the French Labor Market,” in Industrial and Labor Relations Review 45:3 (April 1992), 556–572; 558.
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© 2016 Sung-Eun Choi
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Choi, SE. (2016). Gaullists and the Repatriate Challenge. In: Decolonization and the French of Algeria. Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137520753_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137520753_5
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