Algeria

Since the conquest of Algérie, by the french troops, which began with the capture of Alger, on July 5. 1830, to the war of Algeria in 1954, then finally independence was declared on March 18th, 1962, following the agreements of Evian, the life of the two nations is closely dependent.

The first phase of immigration algerian in France began in 1905, the labour kabyle works in the refineries and oil mills of Marseilles or as dockers or drivers on ships. hundreds of Algerian workers are engaged in the mines and the factories of the North and the Pas-de-Calais, , industries of Clermont-Ferrand and Paris. Since 1912, there was a true migratory movement of 4.000 to 5.000 Algerians a year.

In the north of France these were approximately 1.500 kabyles who work in the mines, for normal wages and profiting from the application of the social laws of the time for the miners. They are generally well accomodated by the working population. In the Paris region, they work in the building and public works, chemical industries, the refineries of Say sugar, the railroads and the subway. They settle, in the cities and gather in certain districts like Montmartre.

The migratory movement accelerates since 1913 thanks to the suppression of the licence of voyage which was then necessary for the Algerians and in 1914, there were approximately 13.000 Algerians a year coming in France.

At the time of the First World War, France very largely calls upon the workers and the soldiers of the colonial Empire. There were then nearly 80.000 workers and 175.000 soldiers who came from Algeria. Those which are not fighting are employed in the vital sectors of the war effort, production of armament,, aeronautics, transport, mines. The participation of the colonial workers in the effort of war was well known and the French were grateful. At that time, Muslim holidays were celebrated in France with a certain ostentation and there were many mixed marriages.

After war, the France repatriated 250 000 workers and soldiers to thecolonies. From 1920, immigration began again, the France, victorious but ruined by the war, is partly destroyed. It again calls upon the workers of the colonies. Between 1919 and 1931, there was a massive immigration. If the component kabyle remains important among the Algerian immigrants, others, as that of the inhabitants of the Oranian North-West gained ground. It was during this period that were born the first anti-imperialist movements within the immigrant Algerian community.

After 1945, the migratory flux began again, the Algerians occupied of employment in the fields which allow the rebuilding of France and the economic revival, like mines and iron and the steel industry, but also the industry and the construction of new infrastructures. Since 1947, the Algerians become then, officially at least, citizens, called by the administration of the Moslem French of Algeria (FMA) and started to organize themselves politically as well in metropolis as in Algeria. They are not any more foreign immigrants but regional immigrants like the Bretons and the Corsicans with the right to vote, the same rights and duties as other French citizens.

However, according to Daniel Lefeuvre, professor at the University of Paris 8, which is a specialist of French Algeria, it appears that Algerian immigration in France in the Fifties originates in the demographic explosion and poverty. Indeed, in his work Dear Algérie published in 2005, he affirms that this immigration is less due to the needs for labour of the French economy during the years of rebuilding or of the Thirty Glorious but more to the terrible situation in which the Muslim populations live at that time. The resources are insufficient to nourish a population which grows very quickly. misery extends and the Algerians are constrained to emigrat to nourish their families. The administrators of the colony encourage this emigration to reduce the social pressure. But the metropolis was not fully prepared to accept these new workers, who did not have any professional training, and did not answer at the request of the companies.