ABSTRACT
The historical relationship between France and Algeria is contentious and complex. During the colonial period, France assimilated Algeria as three departments in 1848. Although administratively integrated, Algeria was a colony ruled by governor-generals, European settlers (colons/pieds-noirs), and their metropolitan allies. Exploited Muslims suffered tangible and intangible upheavals. Nationalism emerged in the 1920s leading to a brutal War of Liberation and independence. Initially post-colonial France and Algeria needed the other as each country defined or redefined national identity – an imagination or re-imagination of nationhood – an ontological praxis with, however, epistemological consequences, notably, the suppression of memory and history. When the past was periodically evoked, relations suffered but never severed. Despite recurrent "psychodramas" both countries also pursued strategic conciliation. From the Algerian nationalists' perspective, France's perpetuated presence qualified independence and necessitated "post-colonial decolonization" promising confrontation along with cooperation and conciliation.
