Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

colonies to man the factories. This migration cast North Africans as outcasts in their France, while pied-noirs
experienced struggles when moving from Algeria to France.
Prejudices against North African Immigrants and the Effects on Post-War Algeria
Many of the initial immigrants who came to France to work were single men or husbands trying to
make money to provide support for their families in Africa. While working in France, some men were able
to enroll in French classes to learn to read and write. In the 1998 documentary Immigrant Memories, Yamina
Benguigui interviewed many North Africans and Europeans to build a description of immigrant life in the
1940s and 1950s, which clearly demonstrated the divide between French citizens and immigrants. A
general sense of xenophobia seemed to take hold in France with the influx of North African immigrants, and
it was apparent in many of the factories and classrooms where immigrants worked and studied (Stora
Transfert 7). In one classroom in 1966, a Moroccan man speaks to the instructor who calls him Algerian.
The student corrects the instructor who shrugs, telling him that it’s all the same thing; the French citizens
and government had internalized prejudices against the Algerians with whom they were at war, taking away
immigrants’ individuality and equating them all to what they perceived as blood-thirsty, righteous, Muslim
Arabs from Algeria. This view is supplemented by an interview with François Ceyrac, Chairman to the
Confederation to French Industry, who claims not only that Algeria is France, implying that the Algerians
should have felt French at heart, but goes on to further dehumanize them by essentially identifying them as
French property (Immigrant Memories). Another Tunisian immigrant became quickly enamored with the
French culture and was overwhelmed to be so fortunate to study in France and to work; he expressed his
deepest sorrows that he was still only viewed as an object by the French car company, Renault, and that he
was constantly called “Mohamud,” despite his dissociation with Islam (Immigrant Memories). He, like other
immigrants working for meager wages, had no choice but to continue working to send home whatever
pittance possible to his family.
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