"Algeria was to France what India was to Britain". Discuss.

[Tooting Carmen]

Following on from this thread: https://www.theapricity.com/forum/sh...n-quot-Discuss

Just as India was seen as the jewel in the crown of the British Empire, so my impression is that Algeria was seen as the jewel in the crown of the French Empire (insofar as anywhere was). Furthermore, both India and Algeria saw moderately significant European settlement, albeit mostly for bureaucratic and administrative purposes. (Granted, 250,000 Brits living in an India even then filled with hundreds of millions of people was per capita not substantial at all, but of course in absolute numbers still quite a lot of businesspeople, administrators and soldiers had to go over).

[XenophobicPrussian]

Disagree, settlement per capita matters. Algeria also wasn't a major source of resources, while India was very profitable for Britain(most colonies eventually turned unprofitable btw, contrary to popular belief). Indochina is France's India, or West Africa. I hesitate to say West Africa because Indochina, like India, already had a previous level of sophisticated civilization when colonised, West Africa probably had more resources, but Indochina still gave the French good sources of silk, tropical wood, rubber, etc.

French settlement in Algeria was too significant to compare to British in India, Britain's Algeria may've been something like Britain's conquest of Boer South Africa, where lots of Brits settled but Africans and Dutch still made up the vast majority.

[Tooting Carmen]

Disagree, settlement per capita matters. Algeria also wasn't a major source of resources, while India was very profitable for Britain(most colonies eventually turned unprofitable btw, contrary to popular belief). Indochina is France's India, or West Africa. I hesitate to say West Africa because Indochina, like India, already had a previous level of sophisticated civilization when colonised, West Africa probably had more resources, but Indochina still gave the French good sources of silk, tropical wood, rubber, etc.

French settlement in Algeria was too significant to compare to British in India, Britain's Algeria may've been something like Britain's conquest of Boer South Africa, where lots of Brits settled but Africans and Dutch still made up the vast majority.

But aside from the pieds-noirs - many of whom were not even French but Spanish, Italian and Maltese - I thought most French settlement in Algeria was for bureaucratic and administrative purposes?

[Egyptian]

And Iberia was to Morocco , the jewel of Morocco was Al-Andlus.

[PlattitüdenPaule]

If you mean both being flooded with non - whites that way, long before everyone else in Europe, than yes.

[Tooting Carmen]

If you mean both being flooded with non - whites that way, long before everyone else in Europe, than yes.

Well I suppose Indians in Britain and Algerians in France are still the biggest immigrant/diaspora populations in Europe (along with Turks in Germany too).

[XenophobicPrussian]

But aside from the pieds-noirs - many of whom were not even French but Spanish, Italian and Maltese - I thought most French settlement in Algeria was for bureaucratic and administrative purposes?

I mean, why would the Pied-Noirs be excluded though? I count them as colonists. I do believe the vast majority were still French, and Algeria's population was 11 million in 1960 before independence, over 1 million of them being European. 1 million out of 11 million seems a bit much for just bureaucratic and admin purposes.

[Tooting Carmen]

I mean, why would the Pied-Noirs be excluded though? I count them as colonists. I do believe the vast majority were still French, and Algeria's population was 11 million in 1960 before independence, over 1 million of them being European. 1 million out of 11 million seems a bit much for just bureaucratic and admin purposes.

One difference I will concede is that there did seem to be more mixing between Frenchmen and Berber women than between British men and Indian women, at least once memsahibs became more numerous and prevalent. (The Anglo-Indians, who are basically Mestizos, are a tiny proportion of India's population and many of them have migrated to the West).

[Petalpusher]

Im a bit over due when it comes to the time spent today on TA, so i ll cut to the chest. It should have been Algeria or rather Africa as a whole, but i would say it could well turn out to be the DOM-TOM.

First they were seen as unnecessary and that's what made them more 'glorious'. Napoleon called them the confettis of the empire, something mundane.

Today we realize there are immense untaped ressources in the ultra marines territories, not directly on the islands but as the largest maritime space according to sea laws, especially deep down to extract gaz, minerals, metals and biological ressources.

[PlattitüdenPaule]

Well I suppose Indians in Britain and Algerians in France are still the biggest immigrant/diaspora populations in Europe (along with Turks in Germany too).

Agreed.