page_title: Pied-Noir
section_title: Algerian War
hierarchical_section_title: Pied-Noir / History / Algerian War and exodus / Algerian War
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Carte des principaux attentats FLN, attentats contre-terroristes et opérations répressives avant et pendant la bataille d'Alger.
context_page_description: The Pieds-Noirs are the people of French and other European origin who were born in Algeria during the period of French rule from 1830 to 1962, the vast majority of whom departed for mainland France as soon as Algeria gained independence, or in the months following. Depending on context, the definition can also include the Algerian Jews,
  who had been granted French nationality by the Crémieux Decree.
  From the French invasion on 18 June 1830 until its independence, Algeria was administratively part of France, and its European population were simply called Algerians or colons, whereas the Muslim people of Algeria were called Arabs, Muslims or Indigenous. The term "pied-noir" began to be commonly used shortly before the end of the Algerian War in 1962. As of the last census in French-ruled Algeria, taken on 1 June 1960, there were 1,050,000 non-Muslim civilians in Algeria, 10 per cent of the population.
  During the Algerian War, the Pieds-Noirs overwhelmingly supported colonial French rule in Algeria and were opposed to Algerian nationalist groups such as the Front de libération nationale and Mouvement national algérien.
context_section_description: For more than a century France maintained colonial rule in Algerian territory. This allowed exceptions to republican law, including Sharia laws applied by Islamic customary courts to Muslim women which gave women certain rights to property and inheritance that they did not have under French law. Discontent among the Muslim Algerians grew after the World Wars, in which the Algerians sustained many casualties. Algerian nationalists began efforts aimed at furthering equality by listing complaints in the Manifesto of the Algerian People, which requested equal representation under the state and access to citizenship, but no equality for all citizens to preserve Islamic precepts. The French response was to grant citizenship to 60,000 "meritorious" Muslims. During a reform effort in 1947, the French created a bicameral legislature with one house for the French citizens and another for the Muslims; but gave a European's vote equal seven times more weight than a Muslim's vote. Paramilitary groups such as the National Liberation Front (Front de Libération nationale, FLN) appeared, claiming an Arab-Islamic brotherhood and state. This led to the outbreak of a war for independence, the Algerian War, in 1954.
  From the first armed operations of November 1954, Pied-Noir civilians had always been targets for the FLN, either by assassination; bombing bars and cinemas; mass massacres; torture; and rapes in farms.
  At the onset of the war, the Pieds-Noirs believed the French military would be able to overcome opposition. In May 1958 a demonstration for French Algeria, led by Pieds-Noirs but including many Muslims, occupied an Algerian government building.  Plots to overthrow the Fourth Republic, some including metropolitan French politicians and generals, had been swirling in Algeria for some time. General Jacques Massu controlled the riot by forming a 'Committee of Public Safety' demanding that his acquaintance Charles de Gaulle be named president of the French Fourth Republic, to prevent the "abandonment of Algeria". This eventually led to the fall of the Republic. In response, the French Parliament voted 329 to 224 to place de Gaulle in power. Once de Gaulle assumed leadership, he attempted peace by visiting Algeria within three days of his appointment, proclaiming "French Algeria!"; but in September 1959 he planned a referendum for Algerian self-determination that passed overwhelmingly. Many French political and military leaders in Algeria viewed this as a betrayal and formed the Organisation armée secrète (OAS) that had much support among Pieds-Noirs. This paramilitary group began attacking officials representing de Gaulle's authority, Muslims, and de Gaulle himself. The OAS was also accused of murders and bombings which nullified any remaining reconciliation opportunities between the communities, while Pieds-Noirs themselves never believed such reconciliation possible as their community was targeted from the start.
  The opposition culminated in the Algiers putsch of 1961, led by retired generals. After its failure, on 18 March 1962, de Gaulle and the FLN signed a cease-fire agreement, the Évian Accords, and held a referendum. In July, Algerians voted 5,975,581 to 16,534 to become independent from France.
  This triggered a massacre of Pieds-Noirs in Oran by a suburban Muslim population. European people were shot, raped, lynched and brought to Petit-Lac slaughterhouse where they were tortured and executed.
caption: Algiers: Muslim quarters (green), European quarters (brown), terrorist attacks
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