This Strange Eventful History

The French occupation of Algeria, part of its broader colonial project in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean, began with the French invasion of Algeria in 1830. Under the guise of “civilizing” the portion of the world that is now referred to as the Global South, France (as well as other colonial powers) exploited vast territories for their resources and for political gain. Prior to the French invasion, Algeria was part of the Ottoman Empire’s large network of semi-autonomous though centrally governed states. Long a base for piracy in the Mediterranean, Algeria was seen as a problem by various European powers, and by the time France invaded, it had been the site of numerous conflicts. The local population, indigenous Muslims, endured myriad difficulties during the years of French colonial occupation. Widespread population decline resulted from war, disease, and starvation, and many local communities were displaced by the massive influx of European immigrants who flocked to North Africa during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

The term pieds-noirs (which translates to “black feet”) denotes the group of people of French and European descent who were born in North Africa during the French occupation. Like the term “Creole” when it’s applied to people in the Caribbean, the term pieds-noirs typically refers to the descendants of European immigrants (born in the colonies) rather than immigrants themselves. It’s meant to describe white colonial culture in colonized spaces. Culture and identity were complex for the pieds-noirs. Like Messud’s characters in This Strange Eventful History, they occupied an identitarian position that was somewhere between French and Algerian. Because their presence in Algeria was recent and entirely dependent on a forced occupation, they couldn’t quite claim Algerian heritage. They were white, Christian, and European and had no connection to the region’s rich Muslim history. However, like Denise in particular, they also experienced stigma and stereotyping from the French, who saw them as not truly French either. Indeed, the moniker “pieds-noirs” began as a pejorative term lobbied at French Algerians by the native-born French. Despite these cultural and identitarian conflicts, the French Algerians held a privileged position within French Algeria. They had greater economic power, more social capital, and all the freedoms of the colonial (exploiting) class.

Because of the widespread lack of equality and France’s exploitation of Algerian people, land, and resources, an Algerian independence movement formed. By 1954, an armed conflict had begun between the Algerian National Liberation Front and the French Army. Messud describes the lead-up to this conflict, if only obliquely, during the incident in which a vehicle on the streets of Algiers strikes Denise: The vehicle’s driver and passenger are members of the Algerian independence movement, and their act of violence against a French Algerian citizen is part of the broader fight against French rule in Algeria. The French Algerians, for the most part, staunchly supported France, and incidents that pitted Algerians against French Algerians were common during the years of the war. Although most Algerians favored independence, a group of indigenous Muslims called Harkis remained loyal to France and fought alongside the French to maintain colonial rule in Algeria. The long, complex Algerian war led to a civil conflict within the state of Algeria, but by 1962, Algeria won its independence. Algeria’s war for independence was part of a global, anti-colonial movement in which many countries worldwide overthrew their colonial occupiers, and the states that emerged from former colonial territories irreparably altered global geopolitics.