Lorcin on Naylor

The decolonization of Algeria was as divisive for France as the Dreyfus Affair or the period of Vichy and, in much the same way, was shrouded in a disturbing silence for the ensuing decades as its legacy slowly worked its way out into the open. In the past year the subject of France and Algeria’s tortured relationship has been thrust into the limelight with the avowal, first of General Massu (October 2000) and then of General Aussaresses (May 2001), of the use of torture during the Algerian War of Independence (1954–1962). The recent publication of Phillip Naylor’s France and Algeria, on the nature of the connection between the two, is therefore timely.

Algeria as France’s alter ego, an idea that would have raised more than an eyebrow a decade ago, is now a serious consideration as scholars explore the 170 years of interaction between the two countries. Naylor implicitly contributes to this development in that he sees the destinies of the two countries as inextricably entwined. His purported aim is to examine the discourses and dispositions that make up the complex post-colonial relationship of the two countries. The predicament at the heart of the association, in his view, is that its framework was forged out of the differing approaches of French essentialism and Algerian existentialism. Naylor argues that these ontological differences shaped their decolonizing and post-colonial relationships and “served as organizing strategies of power, perception, and identity.” (p. 287)

The book is organized chronologically, with each chapter covering a designated period between 1830 and 1998. The first two chapters deal with the periods 1830–1958 and 1958 –1962 and provide snippets of informative background, which set the stage for what is to follow. The condensation of 126 years of colonization and 6 years of colonial warfare into 46 pages may prove to be more confusing than useful to those readers who do not have some grounding in the history of Algeria’s colonial period. Subsequent chapters are more substantial, however, with each being divided into a series of short sub-headed sections on inter-related themes within the timeframe of a political period, as shaped by a particular leader (de Gaulle, Pompidou, Boumedienne, Benjedid, etc.). The impression imparted by this type of stylistic organization is journalistic, which is misleading as the research is scholarly and the material covered extensive.

Naylor sees French essentialism as an identification of power and grandeur in relation to Algeria. Algeria’s existentialism, on the other hand, arises out of the rebellion of revolution and the need to redress colonialism’s denial of an Algerian historical past and hence its national identity. Thus, while post-colonial France continued to try and assert its grandeur, Algeria strove to gain French acknowledgement not only of its independent status but also of its historical and national identities. The difficulty of the Algerian existential objective was compounded by the FLN’s (Front de Libération National) uncertainty of what those identities actually were (p.6). Naylor argues that the dilemma arose out of the fact the FLN was itself a product of the system it set out to destroy.

In the years immediately following independence, the French-Algerian relationship was defined by French policies of cooperation towards the Third World, which the French considered to be a means of reasserting themselves as a significant global presence. Algeria, while benefiting from a privileged status, was more concerned with ensuring that its political decolonization, attained as a result of the War, was completed by the decolonization of its economy and society. The former proved less problematic than the latter. Nationalization of French and foreign commercial interests and successive measures to regain complete control of its economy enabled Algeria to maintain a certain distance from France economically without altogether rupturing the relationship. The five chapters dealing with the period 1962 to 1992 concentrate on the political, economic and diplomatic dimensions of the ongoing “decolonization” process and the resultant transformation of the France-Algerian relationship...