#历史开讲 #
In June 1943, France established the National Liberation Committee in Algiers, chaired alternately by Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud. The council saw the Vichy regime as an illegal and ineffective regime, and they prepared for the unification and liberation of France.
Algerian War of Independence and the Dilemma of Jewish National Identity
It was in this declaration that the French National Liberation Committee declared null and void all discriminatory decrees containing the status of Jews, effectively repealing the anti-Jewish decrees promulgated here by the Vichy regime. Although anti-Jewish laws were repealed, the damage inflicted on Algerian Jews by the Vichy regime was indelible for a while.
In June 1944, the Council became the provisional government of the French Republic and moved from Algiers to Paris. In October 1946, the French Fourth Republic was established. During these two years, the Vichy regime collapsed, the French Constitution was drafted and implemented, and the Provisional Government led France during World War II and Reconstruction.
In order to stabilize the mood of the colonial people and cope with the growing trend of national independence, the French Constituent Assembly approved the Ramingaillé Act on 25 April 1946, which granted full citizenship to all nationals of the French colonies. After the decree was issued, it was again restricted by the Constitution of the Fourth Republic. This is mainly reflected in the fact that the number of representatives of the colony is not commensurate with the proportion of the population.
Jews acquired French citizenship in 1870, and non-French European settlers could do so under France's 1889 Naturalization Act, and it was not until after World War II that legal French citizenship was extended to Muslims under the Organic Act of 1947. In both world wars, Muslims and European Algerians fought for France, and although they gained some rights, they were far from what they envisioned.
From the emergence of Algerian nationalism at the end of the 19th century to the establishment of the Algerian National Liberation Front in 1954, Algerian national independence consciousness awakened and anti-colonial sentiment soared. The Sétief and Gelmar massacres in 1945 cast a shadow over relations between France and Algeria.
On May 8, 1945, Muslims marched in Settif to celebrate victory in World War II, and local French gendarmes tried to seize banners attacking colonial rule, leading to clashes between the two sides. The colonial police then suppressed small-scale peaceful protests in Algeria and retaliated against Muslim civilians who attacked French colonial settlers.
The massacre may have been a colonial decision for France, but the damage to Algerian Muslims was permanent, especially those who served in the French army. In November 1954, members of the National Liberation Front initiated a conflict, which is considered the starting point of the Algerian War of Independence.
The choice to start the uprising on Halloween is no accident. It has been argued that the police are least vigilant when such an important holiday is celebrated by a staunch Catholic aristocracy, and that the choice of such a date would have the greatest publicity impact, for a people who, like Algerians, love symbolism as much as the Algerians, still have the memory of Settif etched in their minds.
At the beginning of the Algerian War, the FNL called on Jews to join them and promised to grant Jewish citizenship after Algeria's independence. In the eyes of the National Liberation Front, Jews should side with Muslims and oppose France. It is precisely because the FNL considers Algerian Jews to be the people of our country that we hope that the leaders of the Jewish community will contribute to building a free and fraternal Algeria.
For the benefit of the entire Jewish community, they should condemn the dying French colonial regime. The reaction of Algerian Jews to the FNL was divided into two factions, a small number of whom had provided financial support to the FNL, but for the majority of Jews, the Constantine massacre was a bitter memory of the ongoing Jewish-Muslim conflict. Out of loyalty to France, most of the liberated Algerian Jews sided with France.
The May crisis of 1958 led to the collapse of the French Fourth Republic and the establishment of the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle. When Charles de Gaulle visited Algeria in June, he delivered a speech in Algiers with the keyword "I understand you", which he hoped would keep the Algerian people.
De Gaulle proposed the Constantine Plan in October 1958, which promised to revive Algeria's economy and significantly increase the representation of Muslims in the French National Assembly as part of Algeria's full integration into France. At the same time, he appealed directly to the FNL for a ceasefire. However, with the flourishing of anti-colonialism and the spread of Islamism, Algeria's will to fight for independence did not change.
The Zionist movement in Algeria is probably the least colorful and least dynamic movement in North Africa, as the local Jewish community has strong assimilationist tendencies. By the time the Algerian war broke out, Zionism could be said to have succeeded, and the State of Israel had established itself and gained a foothold in the Middle East.
Many French-educated Jews responded by actively integrating into European society in the face of anti-Semitism. After repeated tugging, France and Algeria signed the Evian Agreement in 1962, the two sides formally ceasefired, and then through a referendum in Algeria, the overwhelming majority voted for independence, and de Gaulle had to declare Algeria an independent country.
After Algeria's independence, in 1963, Algeria adopted the Nationality Act, which regulated the acquisition of Algerian nationality: citizenship for those whose father or grandfather was a Muslim, and naturalization for those who had participated in the war of independence. This effectively strips non-Muslims of their citizenship.
The blow of the law to Algerian Jews was obvious, the number of emigration of Jews increased sharply, and although the emigration of Algerian Jews began very early, such a large-scale exodus occurred in the sixties of the twentieth century. Most of them chose to emigrate to France, and it was only after 1967 that the number of immigrants to Israel increased significantly.
For the Algerian Jewish community, the war did bring them a great crisis. The first is that they must choose sides, not be left alone; Secondly, citizenship is of great significance to Jews, a vehicle for integration, emancipation, and even social advancement, but it conflicts with Arab culture.
As events unfolded, the Algerian National Liberation Front began to denounce those who had kept themselves out of the conflict and called on people to fight for a united Algeria. The Suez Canal incident, which took place in the mid-50s, undoubtedly heightened fears of a war of independence.
Algerian Jews had grown greatly in the land, being both French and Arab Jews, and the intricacies of their identities meant that they could not shy away from the question of patriotism and loyalty to whom they were loyal during the War of Independence.