Pied-noir (plural: pieds-noirs) is a term for the former population of European descent of North Africa, especially Algeria. It is sometimes used to include the Algerian Jewish population as well. Literally Pied-noir means "black foot" in French. Supposedly, one way the colonists could be distinguished from the indigenous Algerians was by the black shoes the French wore. According to most scholars, however, the term is of unknown origin. One of the most famous pieds-noirs was Albert Camus. North Africa is a region generally considered to include: Algeria Egypt Libya Mauritania Morocco Sudan Tunisia Western Sahara The Azores, Canary Islands, and Madeira are sometimes considered to be a part of North Africa. ... Albert Camus Albert Camus (pronounced Kam-oo)(November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960) was a French author and philosopher and one of the principal luminaries (with Jean-Paul Sartre) of existentialism. ...

History

European settlers started colonizing the Barbary Coast from 1830 when France conquered Algiers from nominal Ottoman control. These settlers came from all over the Catholic parts of the western Mediterranean, particularly coastal and island regions in the present-day countries of Italy, France, Spain, and Malta. They became known as colons or pieds-noirs. The Algerian Jews, however, had a different history. While a Jewish presence had existed since late Roman times, the majority had arrived as refugees from the Reconquista around 1500, when Sephardi Jews and Muslims were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula. After centuries of dhimmi status, the local Algerian Jews became associated with the European-Algerian community following the décret Crémieux of 1871, when they largely embraced French citizenship and identity and adopted French culture and language over the course of just one generation. Before 1962 (independence of Algeria), both the Europeans and the Jews of Algeria were listed under the name Européens (Europeans) for statistical or official purposes. They all considered themselves simply French, or Algerian, or African, each of these identities intertwined in their mind. The unofficial anthem of the pied-noir community is the Song of the Africans (Le chant des Africains). The Barbary Coast, or Barbary, was the term used by Europeans till the 19th century to refer to the coastal regions of what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. ... Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix commemorates the July Revolution 1830 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ... Map of Algeria showing Algiers province Algiers (French Alger, (Arabic: ولاية الجزائر) El-Jazair, The Islands) is the capital and largest city of Algeria in North Africa. ... Imperial motto (Ottoman Turkish) Devlet-i Ebed-müddet (the Eternal State) The Ottoman Empire at the height of its power Official language Ottoman Turkish Capital Bursa (1335 - 1365), Edirne (1365-1453), Ä°stanbul (1453-1922) Imperial anthem Ottoman imperial anthem Sovereigns Padishah of the Osmanli Dynasty Population ca 40 million... The Mediterranean Sea is an intercontinental sea positioned between Europe to the north, Africa to the south and Asia to the east, covering an approximate area of 2. ... Jews and Judaism have a rather long history in Algeria. ... For other uses, see Reconquista (disambiguation). ... In the strictest sense, a Sephardi (ספרדי, Standard Hebrew Səfardi, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄ardî; plural Sephardim: ספרדים, Standard Hebrew Səfardim, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄ardîm) is a Jew original to the Iberian Peninsula (Spain and Portugal: ספרד, Standard Hebrew Səfárad, Tiberian Hebrew Səp̄áraḏ / Səp̄āraḏ), or whose ancestors were among the Jews expelled from... A Muslim is a believer in or follower of Islam. ... topographic map of the Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula, or Iberia, is located in the extreme southwest of Europe. ... A Dhimmi, or Zimmi (Arabic ذمي), as defined in classical Islamic legal and political literature, is a person living in a Muslim state who is a member of an officially tolerated non-Islamic religion. ... Isaac Moïse Crémieux [known as Adolphe] (1796 - February 10, 1880), French statesman, was born at Nîmes, of a rich Jewish family. ... 1871 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... World map showing location of Africa A satellite composite image of Africa Africa is the worlds second_largest continent in both area and population, after Asia. ...

In 1959, the pieds-noirs numbered 1,025,000, and accounted for 10.4% of the total population of Algeria, a percentage gradually diminishing since the peak of 15.2% in 1926. However, some areas of Algeria had high concentrations of pieds-noirs, such as the regions of Bône (now Annaba), Algiers, and above all the area from Oran to Sidi-Bel-Abbès. Oran had been under European rule since the 17th century, and the population in the Oran metropolitan area was 49.3% European and Jewish in 1959. In the Algiers metropolitan area, Europeans and Jewish people accounted for 35.7% of the population. In the metropolitan area of Bône they accounted for 40.5% of the population. The département of Oran, a rich European-developed agricultural land of 16,520 km² (6,378 sq. miles) stretching between the cities of Oran and Sidi-Bel-Abbès, and including them, was the largest area of pieds-noirs density outside of the cities, with the pieds-noirs accounting for 33.6% of the population of the département in 1959. 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... Annaba (ِArabic عنّابة, formerly Bône) is a city in the north-eastern corner of Algeria near the river Wadi Seybouse and Tunisian border. ... Map of Algeria showing Algiers province Algiers (French Alger, (Arabic: ولاية الجزائر) El-Jazair, The Islands) is the capital and largest city of Algeria in North Africa. ... Oran (population 700,000) (Arabic: ولاية وهران ) is a city in northwest Algeria, situated on the Mediterranean Sea coast. ... Sidi Bel Abbes is one of the wilayas, or provinces, of Algeria in Saharan Africa, as well that wilayas capital. ... Oran (population 700,000) (Arabic: ولاية وهران ) is a city in northwest Algeria, situated on the Mediterranean Sea coast. ... Oran (population 700,000) (Arabic: ولاية وهران ) is a city in northwest Algeria, situated on the Mediterranean Sea coast. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Oran (population 700,000) (Arabic: ولاية وهران ) is a city in northwest Algeria, situated on the Mediterranean Sea coast. ... Oran (population 700,000) (Arabic: ولاية وهران ) is a city in northwest Algeria, situated on the Mediterranean Sea coast. ... Sidi Bel Abbes is one of the wilayas, or provinces, of Algeria in Saharan Africa, as well that wilayas capital. ... The départements (or departments) are administrative units of France, roughly analogous to British counties. ... 1959 (MCMLIX) was a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

The pieds-noirs and their indigenous allies, the harkis, felt betrayed by the act of Charles de Gaulle sanctioning the independence of Algeria in 1962 and some of them fought a limited civil war. The terrorist organization OAS (Organisation de l'Armée Secrète) set up by a group of these who had served in the French army was active in the first half of the 1960s and is well known for its role in the plot of the fictional the Day of the Jackal. Harki (from the Arabic Harka = troop or band of warriors) was the generic Algerian term for Muslim Algerians serving as auxillaries with the French Army, during the Algerian War of Independence from 1954 to 1962. ... General Charles André Joseph Marie De Gaulle ( â–¶ (help· info)) (November 22, 1890-November 9, 1970), in France commonly referred to as général De Gaulle or Le Général, was a French military leader and statesman. ... A civil war is a war in which the competing parties within the same country or empire struggle for national control of state power. ... The Organisation de larmée secrète (OAS; Secret Army Organization) was a short-lived French right-wing terrorist group formed in January 1961 to resist the granting of independence to the French colony of Algeria (Algérie française). ... The 1960s decade refers to the years from 1960 to 1969, inclusive. ... A promotional poster for The Day Of The Jackal The Day of the Jackal is a thriller novel by Frederick Forsyth, first published in 1971, about a professional assassin who is contracted by the OAS, a French terrorist group of the early 1960s, to kill Charles de Gaulle. ...

Exodus

In just a few months in 1962, 900,000 of these Europeans and Jewish people left the country, the first prior to the referendum (held in Metropolitan France and for which by an unprecedented decision of the de Gaulle government they were not allowed to vote), in the most massive relocation of population in Europe since the Second World War. The motto among the European and Jewish community was "Suitcase or coffin" ("La valise ou le cercueil"). The French government had not planned that such a massive number would leave; at the most, it estimated that prehaps 200,000 or 300,000 might choose to go to metropolitan France temporarily. Consequently, nothing was planned for their return, and many had to sleep in streets or abandoned farms on their arrival in metropolitan France, where the vast majority had never set foot in their whole life. Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ...

Some departing pieds-noirs destroyed their possessions before departure, in a sign of despair, but the vast majority of their goods and houses were left intact and abandoned. Tragic scenes of thousands of panicked people camping for weeks on the docks of Algerian harbors waiting for a space on a boat to France were common from April to August 1962. Some people who were refused the right to take their cars on board burned them on the spot in the docks. For most, departure was meant to be without an idea of return, and despair was general at leaving the land where they were born. The exodus accelerated after the massacre and kidnapping of 3000 Pieds-Noirs in the streets of Oran on the 6th and 7th of July 1962 by the ALN (Algerian Armée de Libération Nationale) entering the country from Morocco after the cease-fire decreed by the French army. By September 1962, cities like Oran, Bône, or Sidi-Bel-Abbès were left half empty. All administration, police, schools, justice, commercial activities stopped in a matter of 3 months. About 100,000 pieds-noirs chose to remain, but they gradually left in the 1960s and 1970s, to the point that in the 1980s there remained only one or two thousand pieds-noirs in Algeria. Oran (population 700,000) (Arabic: ولاية وهران ) is a city in northwest Algeria, situated on the Mediterranean Sea coast. ... Sidi Bel Abbes is one of the wilayas, or provinces, of Algeria in Saharan Africa, as well that wilayas capital. ...

On a smaller scale, a similar mass-flight of ethnic Portuguese settlers and mestiços occurred when Angola and Mozambique won their independence - with similar consequences for the administration and economy of these nascent nations. Mestizo (Portuguese, Mestiço; Canadian French, Métis: from Late Latin mixtcius, from Latin mixtus, past participle of miscere, to mix) is a term of Spanish origin used to designate the peoples of mixed European and Amerindian racial strain inhabiting the region spanning the Americas, from the Canadian prairies in...

After independence, most pieds-noirs and harkis fled the country and settled in cities across southern France where they assimilated into the local proletariat. However, many opted instead to migrate to New Caledonia integrating into the Caldoche community, or to Spain or North America. Some Algerian Jews eventually ended up in Israel, where they where granted instant citizenship and initial financial support from the Israeli state as olim. Harki (from the Arabic Harka = troop or band of warriors) was the generic Algerian term for Muslim Algerians serving as auxillaries with the French Army, during the Algerian War of Independence from 1954 to 1962. ... The proletariat (from Latin proles, offspring) is a term used to identify a lower social class; a member of such a class is proletarian. ... Caldoche is the name given to European inhabitants of the French territory of New Caledonia. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America North America is a continent in the northern hemisphere bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the... This page is a candidate to be copied to Wiktionary. ...

In France

The French government left control of Algerian administrative records to the new Algerian government; for the pieds-noirs, this led to a situation where hundreds of thousands could not access their birth or marriage certificates after independence, with some unable to prove that they were French, or unable to obtain legal papers. In the 1970's the French government finally sent a mission to Algeria to copy the birth, marriage, and death certificates in the main cities and towns of former European settlement, but village records were not copied, with the result that even today some pieds-noirs in France are still unable to prove their identity.

More generally, the pieds-noirs felt rejected in France, where they were often portrayed as nasty colonialists, especially by the Communist Party. Famously, as the pieds-noirs arrived in Marseille throughout 1962, they were greeted by the words "The pieds-noirs to the sea!" ("Les pieds noirs à la mer!"), as painted by the Communist longshoremen (dockers) of the Port of Marseille on the mole at the entrance of the harbor. Communist posters showing a brutal pied-noir whipping Arab workers were also a frequent sight in French cities at the time. In reality, though, the vast majority of Algeria's European and Jewish population was lower middle-class or poorer, with less than 5% of the pieds-noir population belonging to the economic elite of major merchants and land-owners. Their rejection by the French Left meant that pied-noirs quickly became the strongest element within the Far Right in France. Despite this lack of initial acceptance, the major economic boom that France experienced in the 1960's allowed the pied-noirs to assimilate rather quickly and easily into their new home. The current logo of the PCF. Note the absence of traditional communist imagery such as the hammer and sickle. ... City motto: Actibus immensis urbs fulget Massiliensis. ... A mole is a massive structure, usually of stone, used as a pier, breakwater, or junction between places separated by water. ...

More recently, the French government has acknowledged the trauma and suffering felt by the pieds-noirs, with frequent ceremonies organized to commemorate their tragedy. Many pieds-noirs have received some compensation from the French government for the loss of their property in post-independence Algeria. The French government did, however, cap the amount of compensation, with the result that many pieds-noirs have never received full compensation for what they lost. In any case, the feeling among the majority of the exiles is that money could not compensate for their lost lives. It is not uncommon to hear of pieds-noirs requesting that, after death and cremation, their ashes be strewn on the Mediterranean Sea, in the hope that the currents will wash them up on Algerian shores. Satellite image The Mediterranean Sea is a part of the Atlantic Ocean almost completely enclosed by land, on the north by Europe, on the south by Africa, and on the east by Asia. ...

Symbolically, the pieds-noirs were allowed in the 1990s to use the old codes of their départements in French Algeria for official purposes. Until recently, when filing papers, or obtaining social security numbers, they had to list number 99, the code for people born in foreign countries. Many pieds-noirs found this insulting because they were born in Algerian départements that were considered, by the French state, to be an integral part of France (unlike other colonial areas.) Thus, on official documentation, they can now use the numbers 91, 92, and 93, the codes for the three old départements of Algeria. Other oddities still remain. For instance, since driving licenses in France are delivered by the prefect of the département for life, hundreds of thousands of pieds-noirs in France still carry a driving license with the stamp of one of the former départements of French Algeria on it, although these départements do not exist anymore.

Famous Pied-Noirs

• Louis Althusser, Marxist philosopher
• Albert Camus, author
• Annie Fratellini,circus clown
• Marlène Jobert, actress and author
• Alphonse Juin, Marshal of France
• Emmanuel Roblès, author
• Yves Saint-Laurent, couturier
• Enrico Macias, singer

... Albert Camus Albert Camus (pronounced Kam-oo)(November 7, 1913 – January 4, 1960) was a French author and philosopher and one of the principal luminaries (with Jean-Paul Sartre) of existentialism. ... Annie Fratellini (b. ... Marlène Jobert (born November 4, 1943) is an actress and author. ... Alphonse Juin (1888—1967) was a Marshal of France. ... The Marshal of France (maréchal de France) was one of the Great Officers of the Crown of France. ... Emmanuel Roblès, (born May 4, 1914 in Oran, Algeria, died February 22, 1995 in Boulogne (Hauts-de-Seine), was a Algerian-French author. ... The Yves Saint Laurent boutique on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills, California. ... Enrico Macias (born Gaston Ghrenassia December 11, 1938) is an Algerian-born Jewish singer, who sings primarily in French. ...

See also

• Jews in Algeria
• List of Communes in French Algeria