Driven to Arms? The Escalation to Violence in Nationalist Conflicts

Abstract

This chapter presents the relationship between ongoing conflict and the eruption of nationalist violence, violent and non-violent conflict in the French empire, and French repression in colonial Morocco from 1934 to 1956. According to some scholars, social movements turn violent at moments of weakness, whereas violence can erupt from an ongoing conflict via state repression. In this book, the author tries to establish that most nationalist conflicts do not spark violence. France was stubborn about maintaining colonial rule, provoking a nationalist movement, both violent and nonviolent, in twentieth-century French colonies like Algeria, Cameroon, Morocco, Syria, and Vietnam. Moreover, the French decision to exile the Moroccan sultan and the behavior of French settlers in Morocco provoked nationalist violence there.