To: epsteinbd who wrote (15229 ) 4/23/2003 4:43:46 AM From: GUSTAVE JAEGER Read Replies (1) | Respond to Re: ...while the French say: Algérie Française urged the Muslims to join them in their fight against the FLN. OAS leaders Gen. Salan and Jouhaud, and other prominent Pied-Noir activists like Jo Ortiz, always dreamt about "integration" and "fraternisation". Although in practice, French ratonnades (Arab-bashing sprees) were as ugly as Israel's state counterterrorism, French racism against native Algerians stemmed from paternalism and class warfare rather than from any official segregationism... That's why liberal pieds-noirs called for granting ever more Muslims the French citizenship. Although a minority of Pieds-Noirs longed for an Israelization of Algeria, that is, a white, European enclave carved out along the coast from Morocco to Algiers, the majority of the Pieds-Noirs, including the OAS leadership, clinged to the Republican ideal of Liberté, Egalité, Fratenité . Ironically, such a Utopian vision conflicted with the liberal quarter in metropolitan France where French pols were somewhat anxious about the prospect of nine million Algerians-turned-Frenchmen... in 1960. If Algeria had remained French, today France would be the EU's most populous country (92 mil) --thanks to its 33 mil Algerians....
