FRENCH COLONIALISM IN NORTH AFRICAIn contrast to the Russian Empire, the area of North Africa colonized by
France was much smaller in size. The historical background of the area was
also of a very diVerent nature. From the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries
most of North Africa formed part of the Ottoman Empire. As discussed
earlier in the book, however, the territory under Ottoman rule became
increasingly eroded by the European imperial powers. In the early nineteenth
century the Ottoman provinces in Tunisia and Algeria (see map 5) would
not—unlike Greece—gain independence from Turkey. Neither would they
obtain the degree of autonomy obtained by Iraq and Egypt (the latter only
until it was ‘temporarily’ placed under British military occupation) (Chapters
5 and 6), although, given the geographical distance to Turkey, they enjoyed a
certain degree of self-government. Throughout the nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries the whole of North Africa fell under European expan-
sionism, to begin with directed by France, and then also by Italy and Spain. In
1830 France occupied the coastal region of Algeria, naming it as such in 1837
(Oulebsir 2004: 9n). A policy of total assimilation was pursued for a time,
leading in 1848 10 to the declaration of Algeria as an integral part of France
(Ivanov 1989: 507). This policy would come to a halt soon after, during the
earliest period of Napoleon III’s second Empire (1851–70). 11 France’s defeat
by Germany in 1870 plunged the country into a deep crisis. It created an urge
for self-assertion and assertion in the world by strengthening their power on
the international scene (Baumgart 1982: 56–8). France expanded her colonies
to include areas in Asia, Africa—in addition to North Africa, western and
equatorial Africa—and parts of America and the PaciWc. This growth of
empire was accompanied by a transformation in the imperial policy with an
enlargement of the privileges of the colonists. In Algeria this move came after
the unsuccessful uprisings of the 1860s and early 1870s, when colonists’ rights
were given priority as against those of the ‘subjects’. The ‘subjects’, as the
colonized would be termed from that time, were governed by a separate rule,
the so-called ‘native code’, a situation that lasted until 1936 (Ivanov 1989:
512–13). Expansion in North Africa would not stop in Algeria. After the
treaty of Bardo, Tunisia became a French protectorate in 1881 whereas
10 Despite this declaration being made in 1848, up until 1857 France continued to expand her
dominion to the whole of the north of Algeria. Oulebsir (2004: 10) points out that one of the
ways in which the French colonizers pursued their attempt to assimilate local populations was
the installation of visible clocks in the main towns.
11 However, Nadia Oulebsir (2004: ch. 3) seems to provide a diVerent picture about the eVect
of Napoleon III in Algeria.
Russian Empire and French North Africa 263