# From Figures to Flows: Planning Labor Emigration at the Emergence of a Modern Algerian Statistical State
(1950s–1970s)

Baptiste Mollard

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► To cite this version:

Baptiste Mollard. From Figures to Flows: Planning Labor Emigration at the Emergence of a Modern Algerian Statistical State (1950s–1970s). International Labor and Working-Class History, 2025, 108, pp.306-325. 10.1017/s0147547925100136. hal-05474625

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SPECIAL FEATURE

# From Figures to Flows: Planning Labor Emigration at the Emergence of a Modern Algerian Statistical State (1950s–1970s)

Baptiste Mollard¹,² ID

¹Centre de Recherches Sociologiques sur le Droit et les Institutions Pénales, Université Versailles St Quentin en Yvelines, Guyacourt, France and ²Institut Convergences Migrations, Aubervilliers, France
Email: baptiste.mollard@cesdip.fr

## Abstract

This article examines the construction of statistics on labor emigration to France and the attempt of the Algerian state to integrate this emigration into development planning after independence. It draws on extensive primary sources in France, Algeria, and Switzerland, including colonial records, the ministries and offices of independent Algeria, international organizations and academic studies. To trace colonial legacies, it first considers the colonial expertise of the 1950s before turning to the Algerian emigration planning projects in the 1960s. Extending the work of James Scott and Timothy Mitchell, it argues that Algerian planners both recognized the biases embedded in colonial representations of migration, and sought to develop a form of statistical modernity that was critical and reflexive. They engaged in careful assessments of available data while simultaneously valuing it as a tool for action. In particular, critiques and reflections within the Algerian Ministry of Labor on the 1969 emigration planning model point to the need for a nuanced understanding of statistical modernity. Rather than perpetuating a colonial gaze on society, the introduction of this model primarily sought to address the limited informational capacities of the independent state. Demographic statistics thus became the main instrument for regulating emigration, but they were valued out of pragmatism rather than ideology. Given the limitations of other socio-economic indicators, such as unemployment rate, population statistics were among the few reliable sources available to allocate exit permits fairly across the regions of origin of prospective emigrants.

**Keywords:** Algeria; North Africa; decolonization; colonial legacy; labor emigration; statistics; state planning; regionalism

## Introduction

At the dawn of independences in Africa and Asia, the quantification of societies was integral to modern state programs, understood here as transformative programs
oriented toward measurable social progress that was presumed to benefit the pop-
ulation.¹ This kind of public intervention was made possible through statistics,
which, despite their partial and exclusionary representations, made societies “legible.”²
Drawing on the approach of James Scott and Timothy Mitchell, this paper adopts a
critical look on what can be described as statistical modernity in Algeria during the
late French colonial period and early independence. I seek to identify biases and blind
spots in successive conceptualizations of labor emigration from Algeria to France, as
well as discrepancies between the declared objectives of state programs and their actual
achievements. To do so, I take a broad chronological sweep, highlighting the conti-
nuities, without overstating them, between the academic knowledge on emigration
produced in 1950s colonial Algeria and the 1969 Algerian Ministry of Labor’s plan-
ning model. In this way, I document a specific aspect of the emergence of development
as a project and a frame of reference for newly independent states.³

Focusing on Algeria as a country of departure, this paper argues that the issuance of
exit permits to male emigrants functioned as an indirect form of resource distribution.
This mechanism was in line with North African socialist experiments in social justice
and social protection in the 1960s.⁴ The 1969 turning point in emigration planning
specifically addressed regionalism and regional inequalities, which Algerian officials,
like their Libyan, Moroccan, and Tunisian counterparts, saw as colonial legacies and
actively sought to counter.⁵ A leading role in this effort was played by the Algerian
Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, despite the fact that it was often described as “the
domain of the Kabyles.”⁶ This search for a more regional-balanced emigration planning
was made more delicate by the inertia of emigration, structured around village net-
works, as well as by the historically positive portrayal of Kabyle workers by colonial
authorities.⁷ Kabylia, a mountainous region east of Algiers, provided half of the emi-
grants to France after 1962.⁸ Emigration to France increased from 250,000 to 500,000
between 1954 and 1965, and reached 900,000 in 1976. It gradually spread to other
regions including the Aurès, the Highlands, and the Oases.⁹ Part of this diversification
resulted from the government's decision to encourage it through statistical planning,
which continued until the state regulation of labor emigration ceased in September
1973.

I first review the evolutionist and regionalist biases of knowledge production about emigration to France during the 1950s. In late colonial Algeria, scientific reports pre-supposed a single, universal path toward social development. They portrayed Kabylia as ahead on this trajectory, and felt that emigration from this region should there-fore be encouraged; more generally, these sources wrongly interpreted the departure of Algerians as a direct consequence of population growth. I then examine how the Algerian Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs promoted emigration as an object of national development policy in the mid-1960s, drawing on sources including the first national seminar on emigration in 1966, the first census, also in 1966, ministry doc-umentation, and the doctoral thesis of the deputy director of emigration from 1965 to 1971. Finally, I examine the statistical data used to plan emigration, and analyze the Algerian state's limited information capacities. I show that some Algerian officials were aware of these limitations and sought to cope with them. From their perspective, the emphasis on demography in the planning model did not reflect a colonial Malthusian view, which treated population growth solely as a problem; instead, it reflected the
desire of policymakers to dissociate emigration from its old regional dynamics, in the absence of an agreed upon way of measuring unemployment.

## Emigration through the lens of a nascent colonial statistical apparatus

Before independence, the statistical apparatus developed very unevenly in Algeria, depending on the population being studied.¹⁰ Its foundation in the division between “Europeans” and “Muslims” produced a hierarchical, compartmentalized system of knowledge organized by race, religion, and place of residence.¹¹ In the hinterland, the colonial state had only a vague picture of the population through civil registries and identity documents. It relied on a loose administrative network, in contrast to the “nodal points of colonial authority” in the coastal cities and district capitals.¹²

This dualism strongly affected the accuracy and quality of data, which thus was difficult to use as a basis for action. After 1945, the administrative category of “French Muslims” continued to reflect an essentialist perception of Algerians by civil servants of the General Government of Algeria (GGA). Like colonial experts in this period, their preoccupation with customs, so-called Muslim psychology, and colonial demographics hindered the emergence of a vision of society stratified by occupation, class, or socioeconomic resources.¹³

Such culturalist representations were also present in the sociology of emigration, particularly in Algeria, where emigrants were categorized by geographic origin and presumed work abilities. In the 1950s, emigration to France remained poorly understood—a paradox given its scale and longevity: Algeria was the only French colony experiencing a massive emigration to the metropole, which had begun in the late nineteenth century. Sociological and statistical knowledge both reinforced and institutionalized ignorance by generating supposedly objective representations of the workforce, a recurring pattern in colonial contexts.¹⁴ Aligned with modernization theory, these accounts framed migration to France as a positive step in the “evolution” of Algerians toward Western civilization and the market economy.

## Limited knowledge on emigration

There are several practical reasons for the inaccuracy of colonial statistics on emigration. First of all, the movements of “French Muslims from Algeria” between metropolitan France and the colony were recorded by four different administrative bodies between 1936 and 1955, each with its own measurement conventions.¹⁵ Moreover, these surveys were suspended during the Second World War. They also suffer from a general methodological bias inherent in estimating migration on the basis of counts of arrivals and departures between France and Algeria, which was the most common method.¹⁶

These blind spots resulted in the dissemination of a wide range of figures on emigration. In 1949, the French Ministry of the Interior counted 194,800 Algerians in metropolitan France, while the Office national d'immigration (attached to the Ministry of Labor) put the figure at 170,000, and the Office de l'Algérie (representing the GGA in Paris) put it at 250,000. Researchers at the University of Algiers also disagreed: Jean-Jacques Rager's dissertation cites the “administrative figure” of 180,000, whereas Luc
<figure><img src="image_4.png" /><figcaption>Document 1. Guide de l'action sociale au bénéfice des Nord-Africains, [1954] (ANOM/9333/81).</figcaption></figure>

Muracciole estimated it to be between 250,000 and 300,000.17 According to specialists, emigration remained “at the edge of our knowledge,”18 which left the field open to many stereotypes about “Muslims” and “Algerians.” Although thousands of Algerians travelled to Tunisia and Morocco every year,19 the idea of an uncontrollable invasive movement, directed exclusively toward France continued to spread (Document 1). This was probably due to the fact that Algerians, as colonial French citizens, could no longer be blocked from entering metropolitan France after 1947. The resulting rise in emigration coincided with elite anxieties about the “alarming demographic pressure in Algeria,” at a time when the nationalist movement was gaining momentum.20
The field of research that can be called “North African sociology” was deeply shaped by the colonial situation.²¹ Through renewed terms and concepts, it nevertheless extended the paternalistic anthropological discourse of the 1930s on the inferiority of colonized peoples and the “duty of the conqueror.”²² Experts in the service of the General Government explicitly denied the link between emigration and colonization; rather, they regarded emigration as a consequence of health improvements and population growth supposedly brought about by French rule.²³ Most of their studies therefore attributed Algerian emigration primarily to demographic growth, which was considered the decisive factor.

This reductionist view, characteristic of the 1950s, paradoxically stemmed from an awareness of the limitations of the available population statistics. In 1955, Jacques Breil, an administrator at the Institut national de la statistique et des études économiques (INSEE) with ten years of experience in Algeria, acknowledged the progress of recent decades, but condemned the census data on the “Muslim population” as deeply biased.²⁴ Moreover, an average census district in Algeria could contain twice as many inhabitants as its equivalent in mainland France.²⁵ The situation was also very serious in small communes and remote districts (*communes mixtes*, inhabited by Algerians), where a single enumerator was often responsible for counting several thousand inhabitants.

## A narrow regionalist and evolutionist interpretation

For qualitative records, specialists had to rely on essentialist and imprecise reports provided by commune-level administrators. By doing so, they perpetuated common regionalist and evolutionist interpretations of emigration. In his 1953 survey, for instance, Robert Montagne distinguished between the “highly organized” Kabyle emigration—supposedly limited to married men—and that of other regions, where it was presumed that the formerly nomadic but recently settled inhabitants acted in a “gregarious” fashion (Table 1).²⁶ Jean-Jacques Rager repeated the same prejudices, noting the “change in customs,” as well as in demography, that could result from the “acceleration of emigration”:

> Clothing is becoming more Westernized, the old superstitions [such as] the “sleeping child” [i.e., pregnancies lasting more than nine months] are disappearing. Often, too, the authority of the old family father is undermined, the idea that schooling is necessary is gaining ground, the doctor is replacing the *marabout* [local religious figure], and forced marriage is on the decline. But [emigration] does not lead to a reduction in the number of births.²⁷

Rager did not shy away from a regionalist reading (Document 2), but he also developed a comprehensive approach to macroeconomic metrics. On the basis of figures from post offices and local authorities, he estimated remittances from emigrants to their Algerian families at almost 35 billion francs annually, which, according to him, supported two million people.²⁸ Neglecting family emigration, Rager reinforced the idea that labor emigration constituted a source of subsistence for Algeria. His studies, often cited by the GGA, carried strong political implications. As early as 1953, Maxime Champ, head of the Direction du travail (the Labor Department)
<table><caption>**Table 1.** Emigration by area</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Duration</th><th>Historical depth</th><th>Estimates</th><th>Candidates</th><th>Sociological profile</th><th>Behavior</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Greater Kabylia</td><td>"temporary"</td><td>"old"</td><td>60,000</td><td>"married men," some teenagers</td><td>Some unemployed people, "diversified and adapted"</td><td>"collective"</td></tr><tr><td>Lesser Kabylia, Aurès, Nédromah, Mazouna</td><td></td><td></td><td>90,000</td><td>"a few families"</td><td>many unemployed people</td><td></td></tr><tr><td>Highlands, Algiers</td><td>"sometimes seasonal"</td><td>"recent," 1935</td><td>60,000, "fast progression"</td><td>"high proportion of singles, few families"</td><td>40-50 percent unemployment, "young and unsuited"</td><td>"gregarious"</td></tr><tr><td>Eastern border area</td><td>"sometimes permanent"</td><td>-</td><td>10,000</td><td>"single people"</td><td>-</td><td>"isolated departures"</td></tr><tr><td>Urban areas, large cities, settlement centres</td><td>"permanent"</td><td>"new"</td><td>20,000, "increasing"</td><td>"sometimes massive departures of families"</td><td>-</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

*Source:* Made by the author, from Robert Montagne, Étude sociologique de la migration des travailleurs musulmans d'Algérie en Métropole (Paris: Ministre de l'Intérieur, Direction des affaires algériennes, 1954).
<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>**Document 2.** Map of emigration regions in 1949.</figcaption></figure>

*Source:* Jean-Jacques Rager, *L'émigration en France des Musulmans d'Algérie* (Algiers: Service d'information du Cabinet du GGA, 1956), 27.

in the GGA, deemed it dangerous to intervene in a “natural phenomenon that would break down the framework within which we sought to limit it.”²⁹ Many members of the Algerian Assembly (the colony's parliament) also saw this “emigration of hunger” as the result of a population surplus and argued for a laissez-faire approach.³⁰

In fact, colonial officials were ambivalent about emigration, viewing it as a nuisance, but also as the lesser evil in the face of threats to the colonial order. At the same time, they timidly framed the underemployment of Algerians as a public issue requiring action. For instance, debates in the Algerian Assembly from November 24 to 26 1954, after the uprising, recommended opening up work sites, or *chantiers de chômage*,³¹ which had previously been used to slow down emigration from certain rural regions. Most local authorities, however, did not implement such measures.

At the beginning of the war of independence (1954–1962), unemployment and emigration were still perceived by colonial rulers as two sides of the same problem, namely, the explosive population growth. Algerian nationalists were outraged by these views. According to Moustapha Ferroukhi, a member of the Algerian Assembly, the “colonial regime” remained the “main cause of emigration” due to “racism as the basis for wage-setting” and discriminatory labor legislation.³² Going against mainstream opinions, he directly linked emigration to unemployment. He denounced the official count of 110,000 unemployed people in 1950 as a gross underestimate, and criticized the lack of action from the colonial authorities.³³
Although these misconceptions persisted until the end of French rule, colonial expertise on emigration informed only one initiative, the creation of the Office algérien de la main-d'œuvre (OFAMO) in December 1955. Set up in a modernizing spirit, the Office was assigned the tasks of “collecting and classifying all information concerning workforce needs” in Algeria and especially France, and “organizing the movement and relocation of workers.”³⁴ This project was hampered, however, by the slowness of administrative services, coupled with increased police controls on emigrating workers, leading to the Office ceasing activities in 1956, and subsequently being dissolved. Emigration continued to be peripheral in the Constantine Plan of 1958.³⁵ It was not until the 1960s that the independent state established a large-scale project for monitoring emigration.

## Planning emigration

Algerian independence in 1962 was immediately followed by an economic depression and persistently high unemployment, with more than two million people out of work. Following early post-independence experience, Houari Boumediene's presidency, beginning in 1965, further cemented development as a national priority, fostering the emergence of a statist, populist, and socialist imaginary.³⁶ State intervention increasingly relied on statistics, enabling informed action and reinforcing the perception of such intervention as modern. As new leaders took the measure (in the strict sense of the word) of socio-economic phenomena, emigration gradually came to be perceived as a means of regulating employment and ensuring a certain level of well-being for the population.

## The calculability of emigration

As early as October 1962, Bachir Boumaza, the Algerian minister of labor, announced the creation of the Office national de la main-d'œuvre (ONAMO) to “combat underemployment” and record the regional distribution of unemployed people.³⁷ In addition to controlling emigration, the decree of November 29, 1962 officially establishing the Office assigned it the responsibility of developing a modern statistical state: the decree recommended “centralizing all statistical information from the various competent departments or bodies,” “promoting a rational policy for the placement of workers” and “studying the important problem of worker emigration.”³⁸

The emigration statistics collected by ONAMO initially received little attention from the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs (MTAS). In 1964, a first Franco-Algerian agreement on labor migration was signed, drastically limiting emigration opportunities. A few months after, the *Revue algérienne du travail*, published by the MTAS, devoted four pages to emigration statistics. Men applying for permission to leave for France were all counted as “national workers,” without further distinction.³⁹ Three years later, ONAMO’s role remained limited to this accounting function.⁴⁰ This was to be expected within the bilateral framework in force, which systematically gave the final say on the number of Algerian candidates entering its territory to the French state. However, the space allocated to migration figures in the MTAS periodical increased considerably, with forty pages devoted them in its 1967 volume, including numerous
graphs and tables, providing a clearer picture by place of departure and destination, and by the age, family situation, education, qualifications, and health of the applicants. The authors also reflected critically on the limitations of the available data.⁴¹

As the prospect of a new Franco-Algerian agreement approached, governmental discussions began about the criteria for selecting candidates for labor emigration. These discussions were led by Abdelkader Belkhodja, who joined the MTAS in 1965 and participated in several Franco-Algerian meetings as deputy director of emigration. Building on his work as a social adviser for the French municipality of Gennevilliers (1952–1965), he took charge of the census of emigrants and the study of migration.⁴² Due to internal conflicts and staff shortages, he became the sole official responsible for this dossier until 1969. Four years were enough for him to lay the foundations for the systematic planning of emigration.

The National Seminar on Emigration, held in Algiers from August 8 to 13, 1966, gave Belkhodja the opportunity to present his views to the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), the sole political party, and to the Amicale des Algériens en Europe (AAE), whose mission was to maintain political and cultural ties with emigrants. As the sole representative of the MTAS, Belkhodja played a leading role in the seminar, along with Mohamed Laïd Debzi, the president of the Algerian Association for Demographic, Economic, and Social Research (AARDES), a research center attached to the Ministry of Finance and Planning.⁴³ Belkhodja and Debzi, both authors of sociological articles on the family, demography, and emigration, together formed the preparatory committee.⁴⁴ Their introductory report led the chair of the seminar, FLN member Habib Djafari, and the participants to recognize that the nature of migration was “essentially demographic” and that understanding it better would require systematic study.⁴⁵

During the seminar, Debzi and Belkhodja bridged the political and academic spheres. They promoted conceptual frameworks from the social sciences as a possible basis for future emigration policy. The summary report of the seminar, which was voted on by all participants, was particularly ambitious and interventionist on this point. Using a Third-Worldist rhetoric, it recommended planning emigration as a way of “contribut[ing] to the reduction of unemployment” (estimated at one million) and “solv[ing] the problems of hunger.” It also situated the issue of emigration in relation to broader macroeconomic and social considerations. The report noted that remittances from workers abroad (estimated at one billion dinars per year) constituted “a source of income for a very large rural population,” slowing the “exodus to the cities” and at the same time stabilizing the “balance of payments” with the outside world. It concluded by stressing that “the imperatives of organized and planned development mean that emigration must be considered an economic necessity for some time to come.”⁴⁶

From a long-term perspective, this seminar advanced a conception of emigration as a phenomenon the state could quantify, predict, and regulate. It imbued emigration with what the political scientist Timothy Mitchell calls a “character of calculability”—that is, viewing facts through the lens of a scientific ideal of precision and univocality, which tends to “transform the world into an arithmetical problem, … [fixed] in a mathematical formula.”⁴⁷ The same dynamic underpinned the 1969 emigration plan.
Emigration in the development equation

Although rarely mentioned, it is plausible that some Algerian officials were reluctant to encourage large-scale emigration partly because they feared that the very social phenomenon of emigration abroad could give rise to a political opposition beyond their control.⁴⁸ Things changed following the seminar of 1966, when planners regarded emigration as a catalyst for development, and instituting an emigration policy as an act of sovereignty. In 1968, an article in the *Revue algérienne du travail* argued that male labor emigration could, despite the social disruption it caused, relieve unemployment. With pragmatism, its author recommended a necessary, but temporary, form of “exile”:

> Our demographic situation, its evolution and the pace of our economic growth condemn us to tolerate the emigration of some of our nationals to other countries for some time to come. Under no circumstances should [it] be considered a constant in our employment policy. It is a fact that we have inherited from the colonial past; our objective is to gradually absorb this emigration and then to create the necessary conditions to allow our expatriate brothers to return to their homeland.⁴⁹

Drawing on statistics and social sciences, the late 1960s planners of emigration carefully scrutinized the selection of workers departing for France. Under the authority of the Ministry of Labor, they sought to apply their own planning process, similarly to the Ministry of Finance and Planning in other economic sectors. An exceptional opportunity was presented by the signing of a new Franco-Algerian agreement in October 1968, which put the MTAS in charge of organizing the emigration of 35,000 workers annually for the next three years—double the average of the 16,000 authorizations per year from 1964 to 1968.⁵⁰ This new level of authorized emigration led MTAS officials to consider 1969 as the true beginning of a national emigration policy.⁵¹

Before 1969, the usual method for distributing emigration permits had provoked tensions. A single labor inspector, the head of the Labor and Employment Department in MTAS, set the number of emigrants allocated to each region.⁵² In 1969, Abdelkader Belkhodja, the deputy director of emigration, objected, and proposed instead to distribute exit permits according to a formula which he later detailed in his 1975 doctoral dissertation. He retrospectively defends this planning by arguing that remittances should benefit “underprivileged regions” and stimulate economic activity in them.⁵³ Moreover, diversifying the regions of origin would “mitigate the disadvantages of emigration” and make it “easier to absorb” when the time will come to reintegrate “the mass of Algerian workers currently abroad.” Ultimately, Belkhodja argued that workers should use migration as a training opportunity, especially if they came from the industrializing south, where the workforce was less skilled.⁵⁴

Belkhodja proposed “three objective criteria” that should determine a region’s priority for emigration: (1) its population, (2) the number of “residents absent abroad” (RAE) recorded in the 1966 census, and (3) the number of emigration applications recorded in employment agencies. By the end of 1969, the distribution method was based on these variables. To ensure a fair allocation of emigration permits, Belkhodja assigned each variable a different coefficient:
1) In Belkhodja's view, "Unemployment and underemployment" were problems "common" to all regions, whereas "demographic pressure," the first variable, was not. It was therefore "undoubtedly the factor which, par excellence, legitimizes a migratory movement." He assigned it a coefficient of 3.

2) The second variable is characteristic of "regions traditionally deprived in terms of resources and employment." Because of underreporting in rural areas, Belkhodja assigned it a coefficient of only 2.

3) The applications for exit permits (i.e., workers' cards) submitted between 1964 and 1969 formed the last variable. They were not very representative, since employment agencies considered it pointless—rightly, according to Belkhodja—to register people who had no chance of seeing their application succeed. A coefficient of 1 was assigned to this variable.⁵⁵

Following Belkhodja's formula, the MTAS then distributed 35,000 workers' cards, valid for a departure to France. The hierarchy of variables suggests an equation something like the following (where *x* denotes the number of permits allocated to a given locality):

$$x = 36,000 * \frac{3 \frac{\text{local population}}{\text{national population}} + 2 \frac{\text{local RAE}}{\text{national RAE}} + \frac{\text{local applications}}{\text{national applications}}}{6}$$

The available sources allow us to observe the distribution pattern at the regional level of the *wilayas* (Table 2). As a result of application of the above equation, the *wilayas* that received high quotas relative to their population were primarily those that had strong migratory flows and a high number of applications. This was particularly true for Tizi-Ouzou, Sétif, and Constantine. Conversely, the *wilayas* with the lowest quotas were in the south—the so-called “disadvantaged” regions (*déshéritées*), which had not experienced significant emigration, such as Ouargla, Saïda, and Saoura (Bechar) (Map 1).

These results seem to go against what might be expected from following Belkhodja's recommendations. An explanation consistent with available sources is that regions with an early history of emigration might have been even more overrepresented before 1969. Besides, as we will see now, it seems that Belkhodja's formula was used in ways that do not entirely align with his arguments. Indeed, the formula had the advantage of generating an automated distribution based on stable indicators, which likely helped foster consensus among both local and national administrative actors.

## The allocation of departures and its demographic focus

A questionable aspect of Belkhodja's argumentation is its emphasis on population, which determined half of the number of exit permits allocated to each region. Did this reflect the view, widespread at the time, that a high birth rate hindered development?⁵⁶ Notwithstanding Belkhodja's opinions on the Algerian birth rate, or the debate on contraception and family planning, my survey reveals that these ideas had little impact on the allocation process. Rather, it is likely that the Ministry of Labor accepted the focus on population in the 1969 formula because of the lack of alternative indicators and the low level of confidence in local employment statistics.
<table><caption>**Table 2.** Distribution of emigration permits among the 15 wilayas, 1969</caption><thead><tr><th></th><th>Local quotas (A)</th><th>Share of emigration permits (B)</th><th>Share of national population (C)</th><th>Share of RAE (D)</th><th>q (B/C)</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Saïda</td><td>400</td><td>1.1%</td><td>2%</td><td>1.5%</td><td>0.6</td></tr><tr><td>Saoura</td><td>400</td><td>1.1%</td><td>1.7%</td><td>1.1%</td><td>0.6</td></tr><tr><td>Tiaret</td><td>650</td><td>1.8%</td><td>3%</td><td>2.5%</td><td>0.6</td></tr><tr><td>Ouargla</td><td>1,000</td><td>2.8%</td><td>4.2%</td><td>5.8%</td><td>0.7</td></tr><tr><td>Médéa</td><td>1,750</td><td>4.9%</td><td>7.2%</td><td>6.6%</td><td>0.7</td></tr><tr><td>Oran</td><td>2,400</td><td>6.7%</td><td>7.9%</td><td>8.5%</td><td>0.8</td></tr><tr><td>El Asnam</td><td>1,850</td><td>5.1%</td><td>6.5%</td><td>5.9%</td><td>0.8</td></tr><tr><td>Alger</td><td>4,000</td><td>11.1%</td><td>13.6%</td><td>19.6%</td><td>0.8</td></tr><tr><td>Mostaganem</td><td>2,000</td><td>5.6%</td><td>6.4%</td><td>4.6%</td><td>0.9</td></tr><tr><td>Batna</td><td>2,100</td><td>5.8%</td><td>6.3%</td><td>5.5%</td><td>0.9</td></tr><tr><td>Annaba</td><td>3,000</td><td>8.3%</td><td>7.9%</td><td>5.9%</td><td>1.1</td></tr><tr><td>Tlemcen</td><td>1,450</td><td>4.0%</td><td>3.7%</td><td>3%</td><td>1.1</td></tr><tr><td>Constantine</td><td>5,400</td><td>15%</td><td>12.5%</td><td>10.9%</td><td>1.2</td></tr><tr><td>Sétif</td><td>5,400</td><td>15%</td><td>10.2%</td><td>9.9%</td><td>1.5</td></tr><tr><td>Tizi-Ouzou</td><td>4,200</td><td>11.7%</td><td>6.9%</td><td>8.6%</td><td>1.7</td></tr><tr><td>Total</td><td>36,000</td><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

Source: Made by the author, based on MTAS, Rapport: L'emigration algérienne; and Commissariat national au recensement de la population, Données rapides sur la population algérienne (April 1967).

Legend: this table puts the quota allotted to the different wilayas (B) into perspective. The quotient (q) shows the changes induced by the equation with respect to a hypothetical distribution based on the census population alone. With q = B/C, it measures the impact of variables 2 (RAE) and 3 (applications for emigration permits). It shows the difference compared to a situation where B = C and q = 1.

For example, the quota allocated to the wilaya of Tizi-Ouzou is 1.7 times higher than that which would be allocated if it were determined solely on the basis of its population (q). The quota allocated to the wilaya of Saïda is 0.6 times less than it would be if only its population (q) were taken into account.

## A demographic reading of emigration?

Belkhodja argued in his 1975 dissertation that emigration was due to “demographic growth out of all proportion to the existing productive apparatus.”⁵⁷ Moreover, his political engagements suggest that he was sensitive to the efforts of policymakers to “one day create more jobs than births.”⁵⁸ In April 1966, in particular, he became involved in a debate on demographic planning. With Debzi and a group of civil servants and health professionals, he issued a memorandum for decisionmakers entitled “The Imperatives of Family Planning in Algeria.” As the first national census was drawing to a close, the document likened Algeria’s rate of natural increase to a “demographic cauldron.”⁵⁹ It reiterated the need for family planning, citing initiatives in other Muslim countries such as Pakistan, Tunisia, Turkey, and Egypt.⁶⁰

Belkhodja’s views on Algerian demography, nonetheless, bore little relation to emigration planning. Like many senior civil servants at the time, the deputy director may have personally favored the emigration of married men for its limiting effect on births.⁶¹ However, none of the MTAS documentation mentions these considerations,
<figure><img src="image_6.png" /><figcaption>Map 1. Distribution of emigration permits among the 15 wilayas, 1969. Made by the author.</figcaption></figure>

and the 1969 emigration planning did not take population dynamics into account. On the contrary, the success of this planning model lay in the use of stable population figures to justify an allocation of resources that helped defuse tensions between Algeria's different regions.

After the war, divisions among nationalists often mirrored geographical divisions. Various institutions, including the army, sought to ensure equal representation of regional FLN networks, which did not all have the same reputation for commitment.⁶² The promotion of so-called “disadvantaged” regions also regularly featured on the national agenda. Aurès and Kabylia, the areas most devastated by the war, were the first beneficiaries of the “special programs” begun in 1965.⁶³ A few years later, the number of regions benefiting from these programs expanded, as special councils of ministers met with local officials to develop plans addressing regional economic and infrastructural inequalities.⁶⁴

This aid was linked to decentralization, promoted by the 1967 Municipal Code and the 1969 Wilaya Code, both of which introduced local elections. From 1967 onwards, the annual conferences of the 676 presidents of the Communal People's Assemblies (*Assemblées populaires communales*, the Algerian republic's equivalent to mayors) were an important channel for expressing social demands. As in other Arab states, these conferences encouraged a vision of development sidelining class identities;⁶⁵ however, they also provided a forum to voice grievances to the government, the most prominent of which was unemployment, sparking a political debate about emigration. During the conference held from February 5 to 8, 1968, the presidents from the *wilaya* of Tiaret noted the “unfavorable natural conditions” and the “scarce water resources” they
<table><thead><tr><th></th><th>1970</th><th>1971</th><th>1972</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Unmet demands</td><td>161,660</td><td>139,162</td><td>154,886</td></tr><tr><td>Batna</td><td>2,789</td><td>4,170</td><td>2,921</td></tr><tr><td>Médéa</td><td>5,564</td><td>9,043</td><td>6,869</td></tr><tr><td>El Asnam</td><td>6,378</td><td>7,925</td><td>4,651</td></tr><tr><td>Alger</td><td>20,852</td><td>14,344</td><td>12,771</td></tr><tr><td>Ouargla</td><td>25,228</td><td>16,996</td><td>53,301</td></tr><tr><td>Oran</td><td>31,794</td><td>35,346</td><td>27,709</td></tr></tbody></table>

**Document 3.** Unmet individual demands for employment in different manpower agencies and at the national level, 1970–1972.

Source: MTAS, “Etude sommaire,” 1973; see endnote no. 68.

faced, and requested that a share of emigration permits be reserved for “disadvantaged regions.”⁶⁶

In this context, Belkhodja’s formula for distributing emigration permits likely met the demands of the communal leaders, demands that were firmly anchored in the political evolution of Algeria post-independence. The introduction of the formula was part of a broader national effort to promote regional equity. It bore little resemblance to the previous territorial turn in French development planning in 1958, which sought to tackle the issue of uneven spatial development between France and its Algerian departments.⁶⁷

## The administrative and statistical capacity of the Algerian state

If we now turn to the MTAS agents, it appears that the use of a population-based allocation formula probably helped overcome fragmented data, as well as a low level of confidence in local statistics. Indeed, figures for underemployment were too heterogeneous to accurately capture socio-economic realities. For example, some municipalities counted the “indigent” rather than the unemployed, while other local institutions did not.⁶⁸ Even at the *wilaya* level alone, the number of registered job-seekers varied considerably, even among those with comparable populations (see Ouargla, Médéa, Batna, and El Asnam in *Document 3*). Moreover, the variations recorded between 1970 and 1972 could not be explained solely by unemployment dynamics. While the national unemployment rate steadily increased, the measured fluctuations necessarily reflected measurement inconsistencies.

A focus on MTAS documentation further shows that its agents deeply objected to the highly fragmented state of unemployment data few after the introduction of the 1969 planning model. For instance, a 1973 study accused *wilayas* of falsifying data to secure additional funding. It cited as evidence the fact that their 1972 survey recorded 616,687 unemployed individuals—four times higher than the Ministry’s figure.⁶⁹ Meanwhile, authors of the *Revue algérienne du travail* continued to use the 1966 census estimate of unemployment as a reference point. Unlike other figures, this estimate of 870,000 counted as unemployed any (young) man over the age of 14 who had previously held a “gainful occupation.”⁷⁰

The absence of a commonly accepted statistical indicator of employment and unemployment emerged as an issue within the MTAS. Mohamed Nabi, the director of the
training division, lamented this as early as 1971. In the ministerial periodical, he strongly rejected “blaming the birthrate,” that is, endorsing the view that the “ever-increasing” population was responsible for unemployment. He therefore called for the strengthening of data collection and for a “more comprehensive and accurate periodic analysis of all data, in particular statistical information on employment, unemployment, and underemployment, which is essential for action by … public authorities.”⁷¹ In another report, the Employment Department also regretted the “lack of harmonization of methodologies and statistical information” from one ministry to another—which was probably unavoidable, given the many actors involved at different stages of economic planning.⁷²

What matters here is that MTAS officials took a critical and reflexive view of the limited statistical capacities of the Algerian state, which were directly linked to the legitimacy of the different services producing figures.⁷³ Few officials asserted themselves as strongly as those in charge of the 1966 census. For this census, 25,000 agents were mobilized, and nearly two years were devoted to preparations for it and to the subsequent data processing. For Abdelaziz Bouisri, director of the National Population Census Office, this operation, a titanic one for a young state at the end of a seven-year decolonization conflict, achieved one essential objective: establishing a record of human losses and displacements and determining the official population of each locality. The further collection of socio-economic statistics inevitably took a back seat to this fundamental task, which was crucial for allocating resources and jobs to the departments and municipalities, as well as addressing high-priority administrative tasks.⁷⁴

Finally, the role assigned to population data in emigration planning illustrates broader trends in the Algerian statistical state. It shows that demographic data was a key factor in allocating resources among regional services. It also highlights the general priority given in the early decade of independence to the collection of basic information on population. The second variable in the formula proposed by Belkhodja for the allocation of emigration permits, the number of residents absent abroad (RAE), also derived from the 1966 census. For the Division of Emigration and Labor Movement, figures for RAEs provided only an imperfect measure of labor emigration, as they took into account only male emigrants who still visited their Algerian homes and sent letters to their families, but it recognized the temporary necessity of relying on such figures. In 1971, its agents noted their intention to “supplement the available information with a view to the next four-year plan,” scheduled for 1974.⁷⁵

## Conclusion

Between the mid-1960s and the early 1970s, emigration policy in Algeria became closely tied to a developmentalist framework. As the state increasingly developed instruments for measuring social phenomena, coordinating civil servants, and regulating planning, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs carved out its role in this process and promoted its own vision of emigration planning without direct oversight from the Ministry of Finance and Planning or influence from foreign expertise. From 1969 onward, the allocation of exit permits to France was determined by a formula that distributed them among local employment agencies. The examination of the figures
raises questions about whether this attempt at regional diversification was effective. It nevertheless illustrates significant autonomy in both conceptualization and practice, and the determination to exert state control over emigration flows that could not be easily aligned with the official industrializing objectives in state planning.⁷⁶

More broadly, this paper seeks to show that development policies in postcolonial contexts relied on “complex, contingent initiatives” that were “conceptualized and engaged with by a variety of … people,” and were not always “fundamentally derivative of Western ideas and practices.”⁷⁷ It also advocates for a nuanced understanding of statistical modernity, which recognizes the ability of actors to engage with it through reflexive and critical practices. Algeria’s 1969 emigration planning formula focused on demography in much the same way as late colonial experts did when explaining emigration. This apparent continuity, however, does not imply that colonial legacies dominated the construction of a modern Algerian statistical state. Although the designer of this formula was deeply engaged in debates on Algerian demography and committed to its study, many of his colleagues remained wary of treating demography as the sole guide in emigration planning. The model succeeded primarily because it enabled a more equitable allocation of emigration permits across regions than before, despite the absence of reliable unemployment statistics.

**Acknowledgements.** My sincere thanks go to the two anonymous reviewers, as well as Chikouna Cissé, Annick Lacroix, Laure Piguet, Lea Renard, Ian Drummond, and Sylvain Blanchon. AI (ChatGPT and DeepL) was carefully used to improve style and expressions in English.

## Notes

<footnote n="1">1. See Christophe Bonneuil, “Development as Experiment: Science and State Building in Late Colonial and Postcolonial Africa, 1930–1970,” *Osiris* 15 (2000): 258–81.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2. See James C. Scott, *Seeing like a State* (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999); Timothy Mitchell, *Rule of Experts: Egypt, Techno-Politics, Modernity* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002).</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3. See Frederick Cooper, *International Development and the Social Sciences: Essays on the History and Politics of Knowledge* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997), 84; Sudipta Kaviraj, *The Imaginary Institution of India: Politics and Ideas* (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), 223.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">4. See Omnia El Shakry, *The Great Social Laboratory: Subjects of Knowledge in Colonial and Postcolonial Egypt* (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007), 198; Max Ajl, “Farmers, Fellaga, and Frenchmen: National Liberation and Post-Colonial Development in Tunisia” (PhD diss., Cornell University, 2019), 384.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">5. See Luis Martinez, *State in North Africa: After the Arab Uprisings* (New York: Oxford University Press, 2020).</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6. Mohamed Saïd Mazouzi, *J'ai vécu le pire et le meilleur* (Algiers: Casbah, 2015), 278. Mazouzi was the Algerian minister of labor from 1968 to 1977.</footnote>

<footnote n="7">7. See Abdelmalek Sayad, “Aux origines de l’émigration kabyle ou montagnarde,” *Hommes & Migrations* 1179, no. 1 (1994): 6–11.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">8. In the 1930s, 70 percent of emigrants came from Kabylia; see Karima Dirèche, *Histoire de l’émigration kabyle en France au XXe siècle* (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1997), 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="9">9. For an introduction to Algerian immigration in France, see Emmanuel Blanchard, *Histoire de l’immigration algérienne en France* (Paris: La Découverte, 2018).</footnote>

<footnote n="10">10. See Kamel Kateb, “La gestion statistique des populations dans l’empire colonial français: Le cas de l’Algérie, 1830–1960,” *Histoire & Mesure* 13, no. 1 (1998): 77–111.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">11. See Muriam Haleh Davis, *Markets of Civilization: Islam and Racial Capitalism in Algeria* (Durham: Duke University Press, 2022), 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="12">12. Frederick Cooper, *Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History* (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 48.</footnote>
13. This fits with the rise of the landless peasant (fellah) in the 1930s, and with the vague use of the concept of “segmentary society”: see Kamel Kateb, Européens, “indigènes” et Juifs en Algérie (1830–1962): Représentations et réalités des populations (Paris: INED, 2001); René Gallissot, “Au Maghreb: Sociétés segmentaires et violence politique; Critique des interprétations par la segmentarité; Rapports d’exploitation et reproduction sociale,” Cahiers de la Méditerranée 3, no. 1 (1978): 33–59; Jeanne Favret, “La segmentarité au Maghreb,” L’homme 6, no. 2 (1966): 105–11.

14. See the Introduction to this special issue.

15. The Service de santé maritime (Maritime Health Service) replaced the Direction générale de la sécurité (General Security Division) in 1938. It did not count people who returned to Algeria. The Service des mouvements de main-d'oeuvre (Labor Movement Service) took over the monopoly on this counting in 1948; it produced much lower figures; see Luc Muracciole, *Lémigration algérienne: Aspects économiques, sociaux et juridiques* (Algiers: Ferraris, 1950), 31. It began to distinguish between women and children on one hand and men on the other only in 1955; see Jean-Jacques Rager, *Lémigration en France des Musulmans d'Algérie* (Algiers: Service d'information du Cabinet du GGA, 1956), 38. In 1955, responsibility for statistics on emigration was handed over to the Air, Rail, and Border Police (under the Ministry of the Interior). After 1958, these figures were published in the quarterly *Bulletin de statistique Générale*, thereby contributing to harmonize them.

16. The figures might count a single individual's comings and goings several times; see Omar Carlier, “Pour une histoire quantitative de l’émigration algérienne en France à l’entre-deux-guerres,” *Histoire sociale de l’Algérie études, sources et documents* 6 (1983): 59. An alternative are the Interior Ministry “censuses” (in fact, police investigations); see Emmanuel Blanchard, “Encadrer des ‘citoyens diminués’: La police des Algériens en région parisienne (1944–1962)” (PhD diss., Bourgogne University, 2008), 312.

17. Abd El-Ghani [pseudonym of Moustapha Ferroukhi], *Le problème algérien de l’émigration en France* (Paris: Cahiers algériens, 1951), 14.

18. Louis Chevalier, *Le problème démographique nord-africain* (Paris: PUF, 1947), 155.

19. See Mimoun Aziza, “Colonisation et migration au Maghreb (1830–1962): Les flux migratoires entre le Maroc et l’Algérie à l’époque coloniale,” in *Migrants juifs et musulmans au Maghreb (XVe-XXe siècle)*, ed. Frédéric Abécassis et al. (Rabat: Centre Jacques-Berque, 2012), 151–66; Jamel Haggui, *Les Algériens en Tunisie de 1871 à 1962: Du communautarisme au nationalisme* (Tunis: Éditions Sahar, 2020).

20. See Ouanassa Siari Tengour, “1945–1962: Vers l’indépendance,” in *Histoire de l’Algérie à la période coloniale*, ed. Abderrahmane Bouchène et al. (Algiers: Barzakh; Paris: La Découverte, 2014), 469. Administrators in Tizi-Ouzou lamented, in a way steeped in clichés, the “natural selection” which used to help regulate the growth of families; in Tirman, they find demography “distressing”: see Service des liaisons nord-africaines, *L’Algérie du demi-siècle vue par les autorités locales* (Algiers: Gouvernement général d’Algérie, 1954), 55 and 56.

21. See Georges Balandier, “La situation coloniale: Approche théorique,” *Cahiers internationaux de sociologie* 11 (1951): 44–79. In referring here to “North African sociology,” I mean primarily studies of emigration conducted in Algeria (Muracciole, Montagne, Rager and Breil, quoted below). This takes us away from George Steinmetz, who considered classical French sociologists’ engagement with colonialism in *The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire* (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2023). My choice is justified, as French classical sociology on emigration, especially Sayad’s, dates to the mid-1970s.

22. Nedjma Abdelfettah, “‘Science coloniale’ et modalités d’encadrement de l’immigration algérienne à Paris (1917–1952),” *Bulletin d’histoire du temps présent* 83 (2004): 104.

23. Luc Muracciole refuses to accuse “colonization of being the cause of emigration” (*Lémigration algérienne*, 89). For Louis Chevalier, demographic growth provided “an embarrassing justification, much more than a condemnation” (*Le problème démographique nord-africain*, 119).

24. Breil recalls that, until 1886, tribes were counted by listing tents and *douars* (villages). Until 1948, family register and “douar fraction sheets” were used for “Muslim settlements of less than 1,000 inhabitants,” instead of the individual sheets and family registers used elsewhere. Once these forms and questionnaires were standardized, a shortage of agents prevented a census on a fixed day; see *Rapport du haut comité consultatif de la population et de la famille*, vol. 2, *La population en Algérie* (Paris: Documentation française, 1957).

25. In 1948, the two averages stood at 400 and 200 inhabitants, respectively; “Etude sur le recensement général de la population du 31 Octobre 1948”, *Documents algériens* 24 (1949): 6.
26. For the administrators' reports Montagne drew on, see "Circulaires et instructions," 9333/81, Archives Nationales d'Outre-Mer [hereafter: ANOM], Aix-en-Provence. On Montagne as a still very conservative modernizing late colonial figure, see James McDougall, « Rule of Experts? Governing Modernisation in Late Colonial French Africa », in *France's Modernising Mission: Citizenship, Welfare and the Ends of Empire*, ed. by Ed Naylor (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 87-108.

27. Jean-Jacques Rager, "L'emigration en France des Musulmans d'Algérie," *Documents algériens* 49 (1956): 60. Rager preferred "the Kabyle from the schooled regions ... capable of adapting to industrial work and the Western way of life," more than "less evolved" candidates (48).

28. Ibid, 48.

29. *Journal officiel de l'Algérie* [hereafter: JOA], *Débats parlementaires*, 28 January 1953, 206.

30. See JOA: *Débats parlementaires*, 15 December 1951, 1132.

31. The expression appears several times over the seventy-five pages of transcripts; see JOA: *Débats parlementaires*, 24 November 1954, 1079.

32. See Abd El-Ghani [pseudonym of Ferroukhi], *Le problème algérien de l'emigration en France*, 37.

33. Since Algerians rarely used these services, the figure mostly likely fell far short of the reality. In 1960, less than 4 percent of unemployed said they found a job through public agencies. See Pierre Bourdieu, "La hantise du chômage chez l'ouvrier algérien: Prolétariat et système colonial," *Sociologie du travail* 4, no. 4 (1962): 317.

34. Decision to create an Algerian Manpower Office, JOA, 14 December 1955, 1060.

35. This was in spite of the fact that labor emigration and the remittances that resulted constituted a pillar of late colonial economy, alongside wine and hydrocarbons; see Mahmoud Ourabah, *Premiers pas: Souvenirs autour d'un projet de développement de l'Algérie, 1963-1980*, L'Harmattan (Paris, 2012), 50. The Constantine Plan limited itself to counting emigration as a means of providing employment; it did not seek to plan or encourage it.

36. Isabelle Werenfels, *Managing Instability in Algeria: Elites and Political Change since 1995* (Routledge, 2007), 37.

37. Statement of 23 October 1962 by the Algerian Minister of Labor, 29QO/92, Centre des archives diplomatiques [hereafter: CAD], La Courneuve.

38. *Journal officiel de la République algérienne démocratique et populaire* [JORADP] 30 (November 1962), 76.

39. *Revue algérienne du travail* 0 (1964): 6. Copies of the *Revue* are in the Bibliothèque Frantz Fanon [hereafter: BFF], Algiers.

40. According to Maurice A. Diderich, a Belgian development worker with the MTAS; see Diderich, *Rapport au gouvernement de l'Algérie sur l'administration du travail (confidentiel)* (Geneva: International Labour Organization [hereafter: ILO], 1969), 7 and 23.

41. See *Revue algérienne du travail* 3 (1967): 53. Since some offices closed registration for emigration when they were too busy, the authors recommended, for instance, that migrant applications and "migratory pressure" should be considered as separate phenomena.

42. See Diderich, *Rapport au gouvernement*, 9.

43. Aïssa Kadri traces the history of this association in "Pierre Bourdieu," *Tumultes* 58/59, no. 1 (2022): 139-64.

44. See Abdelkader Belkhodja and Jeanne Belkhodja, "Les Africains du Nord à Gennevilliers," *Études sociales nord-africaines* 97 (1963): 11-143; Robert Descloitres and Laïd Debzi, "Système de parenté et structures familiales en Algérie," *Annuaire de l'Afrique du Nord* (1963): 23-59.

45. Direction centrale de l'Amicale des Algériens en Europe, *L'emigration algérienne: Problèmes et perspectives; 1er séminaire national sur l'emigration algérienne*, Alger, 8-15 août 1966 (Paris: Secrétariat exécutif du FLN, 1966), 17.

46. Direction centrale de l'Amicale des Algériens en Europe, *L'emigration algérienne*, 126.

47. Mitchell, *Rule of Experts*, 80.

48. A powerful Algerian opposition to the FLN was organized in France during the war of independance, see Linda Amiri, *La Fédération de France du FLN, acteur majeur de la guerre d'indépendance* (Paris: La Découverte, 2014).

49. "Les problèmes de l'emploi en Algérie," *Revue algérienne du travail* 4 (1968): 74.

50. See MTAS, sous-direction de l'emigration, *Rapport: L'emigration algérienne de 1964 à 1969; Bilan statistique, tendances, évolution*, February 1971. This publication and other Algerian gray literature can be read at the Centre d'études diocésains [hereafter: CED], Algiers.
51. T. Azzouz (a civil servant in 1970) and Amar Azzouz (Director General of the Office National de la Main-d'œuvre, 1968-late 1970s), interview with the author, Algiers, 22 June 2015; André Rosanvallon (a French development worker who spent time at the MTAS and studied emigration, 1969-1970), interview with the author, Grenoble, 18 October 2018. Larbi Touat, the Director of Employment and Manpower at MTAS in the 1970s, mentions the establishment of an “interregional compensation” mechanism; see Touat, “Créativité économique et plein emploi en Algérie” (PhD diss., Paris Descartes University, 1977), 219. None of them mentions Belkhodja.

52. See Diderich, *Rapport au gouvernement*, 8.

53. Abdelkader Belkhodja, “Lémigration algérienne et ses problèmes” (PhD diss., Panthéon-Sorbonne University, 1975), 81. Belkhodja worked under the supervision of Henri Bartoli, who supervised dozen of dissertations on North African economies between 1975 and 1985.

54. Ibid. One reason for the lower skill level of the workforce in the South was the location of professional training centers, which focused on the construction sector and not on regional needs before 1962; see Missoum Sbih, *Administration publique algérienne* (Paris: Hachette, 1973), 166.

55. All this detailed argument is to be found in Belkhodja, “Lémigration algérienne,” 81.

56. The correspondent for *Le Monde* likened the “400,000 new mouths to feed every year” to a tsunami: See Gérard Viratelle, *L’Algérie algérienne* (Paris: Éditions ouvrières, 1973), 214.

57. Belkhodja, “Lémigration algérienne,” 5.

58. Speech by President Houari Boumediène, in *Annuaire de l'Afrique du Nord* (1972): 389.

59. AARDES, “Les impératifs d’une planification familiale en Algérie” (1966), 46, CED.

60. For its socialist values and its ambition, Tunisia probably was the most inspiring experience, see Jennifer Johnson, “The Origins of Family Planning in Tunisia: Reform, Public Health, and International Aid,” *Bulletin of the History of Medicine* 92, no. 4 (2018): 664–93. The AARDES was also conducting studies on Algerians’ attitudes toward having children. This led to the development of a birth rate policy with the opening of family planning centers (*centres d’éspacement des naissances*) in 1967. See Ali Lakrouf, “La politique algérienne en matière de population: Discours et situation,” *Revue éthanolique et sociale* 16, no. 17 (2014): 1–8; Zahia Ouadah-Bedidi and Jacques Vallin, “Fécondité et politique de limitation des naissances en Algérie: Une histoire paradoxale,” *Documents de travail* no. 186 (INED, 2012), 29.

61. This was the case of Abdelazziz Bouisri, the director of the National Population Census Commission; see “Rapport technique, 1ère partie: Projections de la population totale, de la population active masculine et réflexions sur la population féminine en Algérie (1966-1986),” 1970, UNDP.SF/68-2-a-1-1-FS-2, ILO Archives, Geneva. Planners also agreed to this idea, if we follow Ahmed M. Bahri (statistics section of the Ministry of Finance and Planning) in “Politique et population en Algérie,” *Revue tunisienne des sciences sociales* 17/18 (1969): 80.

62. See Saphia Arezki, *De l'ALN à l'ANP: La construction de l'armée algérienne, 1954-1991* (Algiers: Barzakh, 2018); Amar Mohand-Amer, *La crise du FLN de l'été 1962: Indépendance nationale et enjeux de pouvoir(s)* (Algiers: Frantz Fanon, 2023).

63. “Special programs” consisted basically in the expansion of prefectural services; see Sbih, *Administration publique*, 180. Mohamed Saïd Mazouzi, the *wali* of Tizi Ouzou, counted more than 2,000 villages destroyed in 1966; for him, the special program began in 1969; see Mazouzi, *J'ai vécu le pire*, 261 and 270.

64. In 1967, Tizi Ouzou, an FLN commissioner, saw these “tours” as a means of financing roads, factories, and schools; see Amar Akli Dris, *Vie et mémoires d'un militant* (Algiers: Casbah, 2017), 259.

65. The persistent search for consensus among actors in Algeria, and the priority given to catching up with developing countries rather than addressing internal conflicts, fall under what Nazih N. Ayubi classifies as corporatism in Nazih N. Ayubi’s classification in *Over-Stating the Arab State: Politics and Society in the Middle East* (London: I. B. Tauris, 2005).

66. Report from the presidents of the *wilaya* of Tiaret, *Revue algérienne des sciences juridiques et politiques* 3 (1968): 867. This issue of the *Revue* contains reports from the *wilayas* of Oran and Saoura.

67. See Muriam Haleh Davis, “Algiers and the Algerian Desert: Decolonization and the Regional Question in France, 1958-1962,” *Modern Intellectual History* 20, no. 3 (2023): 912–33.

68. The “expert” seconded to MTAS describes the heterogeneous practices of the twenty-three manpower agencies he visited. For this former French labor inspector, the heterogeneity was primarily in the periods of validity of job applications. See MTAS, “Rapport d’orientation,” 30 August 1967, p. 16, UNDP.SF/68-2-A-1-1-2/J1, ILO.
69. See MTAS, "Etude sommaire sur la situation et l'évolution du sous-emploi et du chômage en Algérie," October 1973, p. 49, CED.

70. Although this definition conceals significant underemployment, this estimate remains quite low; see *Revue algérienne du travail* 13 (1974): 19.

71. *Revue algérienne du travail* 10 (1971): 38.

72. Different ages were used to define the working-age population: 15–64 according to the 1966 census and 18–59 for the State Secretariat for Planning in its report on the 1970–1973 four-year plan. See MTAS, "Évolution des problèmes de l'emploi en Algérie," May 1976, p. 6, CED.

73. This is another point where legibility issues intersect with state legitimacy, as Melissa M. Lee and Nan Zhang conclude in "Legibility and the Informational Foundations of State Capacity," *Journal of Politics* 79, no. 1 (2017): 118–32.

74. See Abdelaziz Bouisri, "Technique, méthode et résultats du recensement de la population algérienne," *Revue tunisienne des sciences sociales* 17/18 (1969): 102.

75. MTAS, *Rapport: Lémigration algérienne de 1964 à 1969* (1971), Introduction, n.p.

76. Claudine Chaulet demonstrated that remittances were a major source of financing for small-scale family farming; see Chaulet, "La terre, les frères et l'argent: Stratégies familiales et production agricole en Algérie depuis 1962" (PhD diss. Université Paris Descartes, 1984).

77. Priya Lal, *African Socialism in Postcolonial Tanzania: Between the Village and the World* (Cambridge University Press, 2015), 13 and 15.