Cinquante Cinq Millions de Français?: French Propaganda During the Algerian Revolution

Abstract

In the late 1950’s to early 1960’s, the visual landscape of Algerian communities would have included walls plastered with various posters and pamphlets in both French and Arabic urging them to “talk,” or to enlist in the French Army, or to “say yes to France and Algeria,” or to say “Yes to Peace.” During the Algerian Revolution, a conflict of urban warfare, terrorism, torture, and no detectable enemy for the French to target, both sides recognized that the war would be won through political control of the population. One of the ways they fought for this control was through visual propaganda. In this paper, I analyze and compare pro-French and pro-independence propaganda produced by French organizations. I argue that over 100 years of justification of French colonial rule in Algeria resulted in both pro-French and pro-independence French people appealing to the civilizing mission and colonial ideas about Algerians in order to make their arguments.