1956: The Algerian Question

Peace talks were initially possible by both parties. In 1956, the “Algerian Question” was to be debated at the UN, and Guy Mollet, Prime Minister of France, attempted peace talks in early September of 1956. These peace talks ultimately broke down because the FLN and French army sought to act as violently as possible in order to prevent peaceful negotiations from taking place. For instance, during the Battle of Philippeville on August 20, 1959, the FLN sent groups of commandos to the European quarter of Philippeville .
“Shortly before noon on 20 August four groups of fifteen to twenty FLN commandos each, accompanied by local Muslims went from house to house in the European quarter of the village. Thirty-seven European civilians were killed,
In the movie, we follow Ali la Pointe as he carries out an assassination on a police officer. In fact, Ali la Pointe assassinated Amedee Froger, the Mayor of Boufarik on December 28, 1956. The next day, a bomb was detonated in the cemetery where Froger was to be buried. The movie also depicts Ali la Pointe murdering an EMS worker and a doctor, taking control of an ambulance and going on a murder spree. Moreover, there are several scenes of FLN women dressing as Pied-Noir (to subvert racist stereotypes) to enter security checkpoints in the European quarter of Algeria to set bombs, killing hundreds of civilians. While these violent tactics may have eventually led to Algerian Independence in July of 1962, the viewer is forced to contemplate the ungrievable lives that Ali la Pointe and FLN leadership chose to sacrifice. The Pied-Noir citizens were killed to create ethnic divisions without a thought to their shared humanity. The FLN leadership must have seen the success of violence in Indochina and other colonies and decided that nonviolence was not even worth
France denied Muslim Algerians basic liberties granted to the Pied-Noir living in Algeria. The FLN saw an opportunity to create divisions among the French and Algerians by killing the Pied-Noir and French police officers. Grievances combined with increased nationalism following Woodrow Wilson’s 14 Points in 1918 led to a desire by leadership to escalate conflict in the region. Both sides are guilty of necropolitics. The FLN killed civilians ritualistically for the purpose of created zones of death to divide Algeria along ethnic cleavages. Bombings created ruins in the Casbah and outlying region, further emphasizing these zones of death. Likewise, the French military attempted to dominate the previously-colonized Algerians through violence and mass execution. In the pursuit of political interests, both parties gave up the humanity of the victims. Unnamed Muslims killed in the Casbah, whose graves were the rubble of blown-up homes. Civilian Pied-Noir, blown up at nightclubs and cafés, killed merely as an example to the French government of FLN rule over Algeria. While I cannot debate hypotheticals, I can imagine an alternate universe in which France extends equal rights to Algerian citizens and addresses the grievances of the people. However, violent and nationalistic tendencies indicate that the FLN was not willing to allow Algeria to stay part of France. Moreover, France was not willing to easily give up Algeria after