ABSTRACT
Like Its neighbours Morocco and Tunisia. Algeria experienced French colonial rule and settler colonisation. Algeria was the first Maghreb country conquered by France. and the last to receive its independence. Colonial rule began in 1830 and endured until 1962. (l) some 132 years during the last seven of which the country was plunged into a bitter war of liberation as the Algerian nationalists fought the French army for their independence. Algeria was ruled as an integral part of France. and by 1954 the European set1iers numbered 1.042.000 or 11 per cent at the total population. They acquired over a quarter of the cultivated land mainly in the moister more fertile areas situated along the Mediterranean coast which were developed to produce cash crops (vines. soft wheat. citrus fruits. olives. tobacco and market garden products) for export to markets in metropolitan France. About four-fifths of the European residents lived in towns where they were mostly administrators. bankers. technicians. traders. professional men and skilled workers. though some had lesser jobs. and their influence was far in excess of their numbers. Their concentration was greatest in the big cities with Algiers. the capital and major port. containing over one third of all Europeans. The dualistic shaping of the economy with regard to agriculture. industry. mining and trade to serve the interests of Hie metropOlitan power was accompanied by the pOlarisation of political. social and economic power. The settlers exercised power and enjoyed privileges and high incomes: the Algerian majority suffered loss of status. subservience and poverty. Few Algerians received any education or technical training. and few Algerian workers participated in industry or other non-agricultural activities. The country claimed only two Algerian engineers on the eve of independence. The vast majority of Algerians eked out a meagre existence on the land on small. fragmented holdings occupying the less productive land. Distinct from the modern European agricultural sector with its different techniques and structures of production. the traditional Algerian sector was nevertheless strongly influenced by it. providing a convenient source of cheap labour for the settler estates. After 1930. and particularly after the Second World War.
