What happened to French settlers in Algeria?
Owen Barnes
Published Mar 01, 2026
What happened to French settlers in Algeria?
The conflict contributed to the fall of the French Fourth Republic and the exodus of European and Jewish Algerians to France. After Algeria became independent in 1962, about 800,000 Pieds-Noirs of French nationality were evacuated to mainland France, while about 200,000 remained in Algeria.
What is the name given to the French settlers who lived in Algeria?
As one of France’s longest-held overseas territories, Algeria became a destination for hundreds of thousands of European immigrants known as colons, and later as pieds-noirs.
Was Algeria a French settler colony?
Between 1830 and 1962, Algeria came under French colonial rule. Unlike other French colonies, Algeria was annexed and made officially a part of France in 1848. It became a settler colony almost immediately after the wars of conquest, which largely ended in 1847.
Who were the original inhabitants of Algeria?
The Amazigh, the Mozabite and the Tuarega are the indigenous peoples of Algeria, as well as of other countries of North Africa and the Sahara. The Amazigh are also known by the name “Berber”, which derives from the Roman term for “barbarian”, a name given to anyone who did not speak Latin.
Why did France conquer Algeria?
The conquest of Algeria began in the last days of the Bourbon Restoration by Charles X of France. It aimed to put a definite end to Barbary privateering and increase the king’s popularity among the French people, particularly in Paris, where many veterans of the Napoleonic Wars lived.
Why did the French leave Algeria?
In 1959 Charles de Gaulle declared that the Algerians had the right to determine their own future. Despite terrorist acts by French Algerians opposed to independence and an attempted coup in France by elements of the French army, an agreement was signed in 1962, and Algeria became independent. See also Raoul Salan.
Why did the French occupy Algeria?
Who Colonised Algeria?
France
ALGIERS, Algeria It took France about 70 years to fully control Algeria since occupying it on July 5, 1830.
Why did the French Colonise Algeria?
What was the religion in Algeria before Islam?
Before the Arab incursions, most of the Berber inhabitants of the area’s mountainous interior adopted traditional Berber mythology. Some had adopted Judaism, and in the coastal plains many had accepted Christianity under the Romans.
Who are the Berber tribe?
Berbers are the indigenous people of Morocco and Algeria and to a lesser extent Libya and Tunisia. They are descendants of an ancient race that has inhabited Morocco and much of northen Africa since Neolithic times.
Does Algeria speak French?
French is a lingua franca of Algeria according to the CIA World Factbook. Algeria is the second largest Francophone country in the world in terms of speakers. In 2008, 11.2 million Algerians (33%) could read and write in French.
What is the history of Algeria in France?
French Algeria ( French: Alger to 1839, then Algérie afterwards; unofficially Algérie française, Arabic: الجزائر المستعمرة ), also known as Colonial Algeria, was the period of French colonisation of Algeria. French rule in the region began in 1830 with the invasion of Algiers and lasted until the end of the Algerian War of Independence in 1962.
What do we know about settler colonialism in Algeria?
For their part, scholars of French Algeria have long been constrained by a French republican historiographical tradition which has tended to reduce the examination of settler colonialism to a politically charged interrogation of settlers’ allegiance to the French nation.
Why are Algerians not French citizens?
Although Algeria was made into a province of France, Muslims were only declared French subjects and thus did not receive the benefits of citizenship. Socially, the Algerians developed an inferiority complex as a result of the continued oppression by the French and the colons.
How did the Algerian Civil War start?
With an agreement reached between the Algerian nationalists and the French administration in Paris, the conflict became a civil war, as the pro-colonial paramilitary group known as the OAS stepped up its desperate efforts at disruption, targeting the French army and gendarmes, Muslim civilians, and pro-independence settlers.