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Concept
Pied-Noir
Summary
The pieds-noirs; pje nwaʁ; pied-noir) are people of French and other European descent who were born in Algeria during the period of French rule from 1830 to 1962; many of whom departed for mainland France once Algeria gained its independence.
From the French invasion on 18 June 1830 to its independence, Algeria was administratively part of France; its European population were simply called Algerians or colons (colonists), whereas the Muslim people of Algeria were called Arabs, Muslims or indigènes. The term pied-noir came into common use shortly before the end of the Algerian War in 1962.
As of the last census in French-ruled Algeria, taken on 1 June 1960, there were 1,050,000 non-Muslim civilians (mostly Catholic, but including 130,000 Algerian Jews) in Algeria, 10 per cent of the population.
During the Algerian War, a vast majority of Pieds-Noirs were loyalists and overwhelmingly supported colonial French rule in Algeria and were opposed to Algerian nationalist groups such as the Front de libération nationale (English: National Liberation Front) (FLN) and Mouvement national algérien (English: Algerian National Movement) (MNA). The roots of the conflict lay in political and economic inequalities perceived as an "alienation" from the French rule as well as a demand for a leading position for the Berber, Arab and Islamic cultures and rules existing before the French conquest. 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. Of the latter, there were still about 100,000 in 1965, about 50,000 by the end of the 1960s and 30,000 in 1993. In recent years, smaller numbers of Pieds-Noirs or those of Pied-Noir descent have returned to Algeria.
Those who moved to France suffered ostracism from some left-wing political movements for their perceived exploitation of native Muslims, while others blamed them for the war and thus for the political turmoil surrounding the collapse of the Fourth Republic.
Official source
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