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Algeria
Eight-year war of national liberation (1954–62) in a colony of about one million European settlers, ending with the 1962 Évian Accords, a referendum, and the mass departure of settlers.
- Independence
- July 5, 1962
- Before
- French Algeria
- Metropole
- France
- Leader
- Ahmed Ben Bella
- Transition
- Armed Insurgency
- Movement
- Front de Libération Nationale (FLN)
“The restoration of the sovereign, democratic and social Algerian state, within the framework of Islamic principles.”
— FLN, Proclamation of 1 November 1954 (stated goal), 1 November 1954
Conquest and Settler Algeria
France captured Algiers in 1830 and, after decades of brutal conquest, organised northern Algeria as French départements from 1848. By the 1950s a large European settler population (pieds-noirs) lived alongside a far larger Muslim Algerian majority, which was largely denied equal rights. On 8 May 1945, VE Day, a nationalist demonstration at Sétif led to riots and ferocious reprisals around Sétif and Guelma. The French official toll was 1,165; General Tubert's inquiry suggested 5,000, the historian Jean-Pierre Peyroulou estimates 6,500–8,000, and Algeria's official figure is 45,000.
War of Independence
The FLN launched its insurrection on 1 November 1954. The conflict included the 1956–57 Battle of Algiers, systematic torture by the French army, and the regrouping of some two million rural Algerians into new settlements. In May 1958 a settler revolt in Algiers, tacitly backed by army officers, brought down the Fourth Republic and returned Charles de Gaulle to power.
Évian and Independence
De Gaulle moved towards self-determination despite the failed generals' putsch of April 1961 and the terror campaign of the settler OAS. The Évian Accords were signed on 18 March 1962. In a referendum on 1 July, 99.72 per cent of voters approved independence; France recognised it on 3 July, and Algeria proclaimed independence on 5 July, 132 years after the French capture of Algiers.
Chronology
- 8 May 1945 — Sétif and Guelma massacres
- 1 November 1954 — FLN launches the war of independence
- 1956–1957 — Battle of Algiers
- May 1958 — Algiers crisis returns de Gaulle to power
- 18 March 1962 — Évian Accords signed; ceasefire from 19 March
- 1 July 1962 — Self-determination referendum approves independence
- 5 July 1962 — Independence proclaimed (recognised by France on 3 July)
Aftermath
Most of the European population left in 1962, taking with them the great majority of senior administrators and technical experts. Ahmed Ben Bella became Prime Minister in September 1962 and President in 1963, but was overthrown by Houari Boumediene in June 1965. Algeria became a leading voice of the Non-Aligned Movement and a supporter of liberation movements.
Legacy
The Algerian War became one of the defining anti-colonial conflicts of the twentieth century and an inspiration to revolutionary movements worldwide. The dominance of the FLN and the army after independence shaped a one-party state whose crisis culminated in the civil conflict of the 1990s.