The Social Origins of the French Capitulation in Algeria

Abstract

The French War in Algeria (1954-1962) deserves attention, above all, because of the remarkable divorce between France’s military success and the failure to secure her preferred political results. This article identifies the agent responsible for that discrepancy and for the eventual French capitulation as essentially social, explaining how the defining struggle over Algeria’s future revolved round issues of purpose and identity. Specifically, the article explains how the French opposition to the war stirred France in its direction by gaining control over the domestic marketplace of ideas and inadvertently escalating a process of wrenching radicalization. This process was critical because it forced the French people and leaders to choose between the mutually exclusive options of retaining Algeria as French or preserving France as democratic.