Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

the war. At seven years old, he remembers watching his school burn, and simply states, “All the books were
just smoke! A very sad moment for a little boy.” He recounts his older sister’s fear of walking to college,
being forced to walk over dead bodies frequently (de Montchenu). Grandpa honestly believed that the
Algerians targeted children and civilians in acts of terrorism because by targeting the innocent, they more
strongly challenged the French government, as well as instilled a sense of fear among the pied-noirs (Battle of
Algiers). Still, the French government continued to torture suspected FLN members in an attempt to thwart
the revolution and maintain possession of Algeria. Finally, the war ended with the passing of the Évian
Agreement under Charles de Gaulle in 1962, and the mass evacuation of French citizens began (Stora
Histoire 76-77), but not without the difficulty.
At the end of the war, the Harbor Authority Office in Algiers where Grandpère, my grandfather’s
father, worked for the French government was invaded by Algerian soldiers. The Algerian military lined up
the French workers along a wall and began shooting, one person at a time. When they reached Grandpère,
however, one soldier stopped the shooting, recognizing my great-grandfather as a kind guy to whom he
owed a decent sum of money. According to my family, the Algerian man, laughing, told Grandpère to run
away and get out of the country. Thankful for his life but well aware of what the FLN was capable, my
family fled Algeria immediately. The official policy of the French authorities following the Évian Agreement
was to evacuate the one million French citizens (both pied-noirs and French-Algerians held theoretically
equal status citizenship) from the country, but it was complete chaos attempting to move such a large
population (de Montchenu). All around France, however, the effects and prejudices that developed during
the war still affected the everyday life of immigrants and continues to cause tension in France today.
The Lasting Ramifications of Colonization for North Africans and Pied-noirs
The need for immigrant workers was greatest immediately after World War II and in the 1960s
when the French began to further industrialize. In need of cheap labor, France looked to its North African
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