Algeria (Modern Standard Arabic: الجزائر al-Jazāʼir, Algerian Arabic and Berber: Dzayer, ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ, French: Algérie), officially known as The People's Democratic Republic of Algeria (Arabic: الجمهورية الجزائرية الديمقراطية الشعبية al-Jumhūriyya al-Jazā'iriyya ad-Dimuqrāṭiyya aš-Šaʿbiyya), is the largest country in Africa. Even though the country adopts Modern Standard Arabic Language as an official language, is a part of the Arab League, and mostly speaks an Arabic variety (albeit one that is incomprehensible to Arabic speakers from The Middle East), it is frequently not considered Arab. This is Serious Business, so we'll say no more.
Like the rest of North Africa, ethnic Berbers have been living in Algeria since the Iron Age. The first major state in the region was a Berber kingdom called Numidia, centered in Cirta (modern-day Constantine), which rose in the late 1st millennium BCE. Numidia was a client state to the Romans, and before them Carthage. After its fall, its eastern half was integrated to the Roman province of Africa, while its western half was taken by Mauretania, a fellow Roman client state. This western half later became a separate Roman province, Mauretania Caesarensis, after its capital city Caesarea (modern-day Cherchell). The region gradually distanced itself from Rome as the latter lost power from the 3rd century onward, something exacerbated by the the Vandal invasions in the 6th century.
After the Arab invasion in the 8th century, the region hosted several Arab-Berber kingdoms which fought for supremacy over North Africa. Some were foreign (the Zirids, Almoravids) while others were homegrown (Hammadids). During this period, the only dynasty which covered all of present-day Algeria was the Almohads. By the time the Ottoman Turks arrived in early 16th century, local rule had mostly vanished, with Spain effectively controlling the Mediterranean coast of Algeria from a fortress in the city of Aligiers.
The brothers Oruç and Hayreddin Barbarossa, Ottoman corsairs born in Greece, conquered Algiers in 1516 and turned it into their home base, founding the Regency or Deylicate of Algiers, a branch of the Ottoman empire semi-autonomously ruled by a Dey. Oruç died soon in battle, but Hayreddin turned Algiers into a prosperous base of the Barbarous Barbary Bandits, local corsairs in Ottoman service, becoming a bane of Christian nations for the next centuries. Although it was not as big and developed as its neighboring privateer state of Tunisia, the rocky, well-defended city of Algiers protected it much better, which served it well every time the navies of the Christian world came calling — the Spanish, French, Dutch, English, and Danish all attacked or bombarded it multiple times, only managing to force their way into peace treaties in the best case. Even when western naval superiority made it impossible to face them directly, Algerians continued privateering with small, quick vessels difficult to catch. This only changed in 1830, when Algeria was invaded and conquered by France, bringing the end of the Regency.
Uniquely among its African colonies, France legally integrated it; in other words, the French didn't see Algeria as a colony, but rather a region of France that "just happened" to be located overseas. During 132 years of French rule, thousands of ethnic Spaniards, Italians, and French settled along the coast and became known as the pieds-noirs (pyeh-nwahr) or 'black-feet'. Though the majority were not French by ethnicity, 'French' identity at the time was very much defined by cultural identity. This was reflected in the two tiers of citizenship in French North Africa: French, and French-Muslim. The latter were French subjects rather than citizens. Algerian natives could only gain full French citizenship if they renounced Islam, something very few were willing to do. Notably a similar requirement was not imposed on Algerian Jews, who in 1870 were granted unconditional French citizenship by the Crémieux Decree. While the option to become French citizens was intended to promote assimilation into French culture, it had the opposite effect by declaring that French culture and Islam were incompatible. Even though in the 20th century these restrictions were loosened (in 1919, Algerian veterans of World War I along with their parents could become fully "French" without renouncing Islam, as could their parents, those who married a French citizen and those who were employed by the French Army or government), but the majority of the population were still mere "subjects" who had no voting rights. In World War II, after the fall of the Vichy regime and restoration of the French Republic, movements were made to extend citizenship to all Algerians, but it was far too late and marred by rampant continued discrimination against the "French-Muslim" population. By the time Algeria achieved independence, the pied-noirs numbered 1 million, forming 10% of the country's population.
The last 7 years of French Algeria, from 1955 to 1962, were marred by the Algerian War. This was not a Colonial War, though it was been portrayed that way subsequently, but a Civil War and perhaps the greatest existential dilemma of France's twentieth century. France's fundamentally self-contradictory status as a Democratic Empire, controlling liberator, and selfish benefactor had never been so apparent - and its human cost so high.
Ironically, it was this theoretically inclusive - and in practice, patronising and self-centred - mindset that caused France's left-wing to back heavy-handed repression of Algerian autonomy movements. It was unthinkable for France to just give up part of her country to secessionists, or so they said. Things quickly became rather violent, and the French military soon became involved in huge numbers. Half a million troops, many of them conscripts and with 150,000 French Muslim volunteers (Harkis) among them, were used for Quadrillage duty. Stationed in a series of garrisons right across the countryside they formed close ties with the locals and policed their districts. Some 2000 specialised military governors associated with the garrisons were given extraordinary powers to start and oversee programs contributing to economic growth and public education, though in practice they were perpetually short of funds and their main duty was overseeing the deportation of the rural population from areas sympathetic to the insurgency into more secure areas. Some 2 million French Muslims - a fifth of the entire region's population - were forced out of their villages and into state housing during the war. The other part of the French strategy was the use of mobile forces, including paratroops and fire-support (mostly artillery and airpower), for Search & Destroy duties. They would cordon off regions and use their superior numbers and firepower to kill all the rebels within. In areas where the insurgency sprang up again they would get the garrisons to deport the rural population to deny the rebels shelter, supplies, and conscripts before sweeping the area again until it was truly cleared.
The French military strategy worked, but at a price; the left-wing became increasingly disenchanted and eventually outright horrified with the actual conduct of the war, particularly the use of torture - which was supposedly only used at the 'transit camps' and in 'situations of urgent need' on people who they were sure had valuable knowledge, but in practice tended to be done on many if not most ordinary rebels, rebel sympathisers, suspected rebel sympathisers, and people who just happened to live in the same general area as the former three types ('let's pull all her nails out and drown her just in case she knows something important that we don't and feels like telling us', and so on).
Unlike The Vietnam War, the Algerian War proved impossible to ignore as the revenge-killings, brutal gang-rapes and disembowlement of women and even pregnant women, extortion for funds, and bombings spread to mainland France through the French Muslim community and eventually the Pied-Noir community as well. The war also exposed the deep divisions within French Society and evoked the worst aspects of the Vichy regime and Nazi occupation - French Resistance members who had been tortured were called upon to torture FLN revolutionaries in turn. Vichy-era authority figures like Maurice Papon were called upon to organise and execute the brutal repression of dissent in North Africa and even Metropolitan France itself.note
As their support for the war faded, the French right-wing turned on the country's moderates and left-wing for what it saw as their betrayal of France. Whereas the left-wing became increasingly disgusted with the cruelty and brutality it would need to use if it wanted to keep holding onto North Africa, the right continued to see it as being totally justified and argued that leaving North Africa would be a betrayal of the French People (and the Pied-Noirs in particular). Not only did Pied-Noir paramilitary groups begin their own terrorist campaign in mainland France, but part of the military (operating out of North Africa) attempted the 'Four Generals' Coup' to turn France into a military dictatorship and 'win' the war in Algeria through the adoption of the most brutal methods possible. The coup was foiled, but it brought General Charles de Gaulle into the political spotlight. He announced that there would be a referendum on the future of French North Africa and tried to arrange a ceasefire in the meantime. In the referendum the French Muslims overwhelmingly voted for independence and the Pieds-Noirs for continued union with France, with a result of 90% of the electorate being in favour of independence. France bowed to the will of French North Africa and soon granted it its independence as the new country of 'Algeria'.
The independent Algerian government then used its contacts with paramilitary groups to spread the message that the Pieds-Noirs had a choice: "Suitcase or Coffin". In the ensuing panic the Pieds-Noirs left almost all of their property behind, intact, in their haste to leave the country before the government-sanctioned militias started butchering them in earnest (as opposed to 'intermittently', which had been going on for six years by that point). A million Pieds-Noirs fled to metropolitan France and those who remained - including the overwhelming majority of all the Harkis who had ever served with the French Army - were slaughtered in numerous and often quite horrible ways.note
As the pieds-noirs left, Algeria collapsed into civil violence that never quite became a proper Civil War because the whole country basically shattered once the Pieds-Noirs and Harkis were gone. This changed when the country got its act together by the 1990s, only for a real Civil War to get going with the rise of the GIA (Groupe Islamique Armé, "Armed Islamic Group"), the radical military wing of the FIS (Front Islamique du Salut, "Islamic Salvation Front"), an Islamist political party whose 1992 election victory was annulled by a military coup, causing its supporters to rebel against the government in a decade-long war which only ended when the army proposed an amnesty plan. Ex-independence fighter Abdelaziz Bouteflika was elected president in 1999 and presided over the reconstruction of Algeria.
The civil war, which killed over 150,000 people, traumatized the Algerians from rising up against the government for a long time. Suffice to say, they chose stability over freedom, which was why for the next twenty years, the country saw no large-scale protests, even during the height of The Arab Spring and even as Bouteflika became increasingly autocratic. This changed in 2019, however, when the people had enough and conducted weeks of peaceful protests that led to Bouteflika's resignation. The next election in December 2019 saw ex-Prime Minister Abdelmadjid Tebboune ascending as president, but because the army holds significant sway over the new order, the election was boycotted by more than half of the population.
Algeria is a major exporter of oil and gas, particularly to Italy and France (and even more so since since Western Europe cut off such importations from Russia due to the invasion of Ukraine). The country has planned to diversify its economy away from oil, on which it is still dependent; when oil prices fell in 2014, it took a big hit on government expenditure and put pressure on the increased state subsidy the government implemented to defuse the Arab Spring (and eventually resulted in the deposition of the Bouteflika government). State control continues to be pervasive, hampering foreign investment. The impact of the Algerian civil war means that unlike its neighbors Morocco and Tunisia, Algeria's tourism sector is relatively undeveloped and contributes little-to-nothing to the GDP.
More than four-fifths of the country's land area is part of the Sahara, supporting less than 10% of total population. The other is concentrated in the Mediterranean coastal strip bordered to the south by the Atlas Mountains. Despite its relative narrowness, the strip is complex in topography and vibrant in life. The Atlas in Algeria consist of two distinct ranges in the west: the Tell and the Saharan Atlases. The former is closer to the coast, while the latter is higher but drier. Between the ranges is a dry plateau called Hautes Plaines. The ranges merge near the city of Batna to form the Aurès range, which extends into Tunisia. In general, the eastern coast is more rugged than the west, although it still cannot compare with the ranges located deep in the Sahara, which have the country's highest peak, Mount Tahat.
It's also the former home of the French Foreign Legion.
See Algerian Media for media from there, and Arab Mythology, Kabyle Mythology, and Tuareg Mythology for local myths.
Famous Algerians and Algerian diaspora include:
- Jean Amrouche, a pioneer of French language Algerian literature.
- Boualem Sansal, writer whose main subjects include the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the country. His books have been banned there since 2006 for criticizing the powers that be.
- Sofia Boutella, dancer and actress.
- Shirine Boutella, actress (based in France).
- Muay Thai champion and actor Dali Benssalah (French-Algerian).
- Mohammed Dib, probably the country's most prolific writer.
- Director Claude Zidi was born in France from an Algerian father and a Pied-Noir mother.
- Raï singer Cheb Mami.
- The father of actor Samy Naceri was from Western Algeria. Naceri played a World War II soldier from the French colony of Algeria in 2006's Days of Glory.
- Lyna Khoudri, an actress who moved to France with her family during the Civil War in The '90s.
- French actress Isabelle Adjani is half-Algerian on her father's side.
- Italian director Luca Guadagnino is half-Algerian on his mother's side.
- French actor and comedian Patrick Timsit (his parents were Berber Jews). Moved to France at the onset of the Algerian War.
- French actor Jacques Villeret was half-Kabyle on his father's side.
- The parents of French comedian and actor Ramzy Bedia were Algerian immigrants.
- Legendary Association Football player Zinedine Zidane was born in France to Algerian parents.
Famous pieds-noirs include:
- Albert Camus. The country is the setting of his first novel The Stranger. In Anglophone translation, this is probably the most famous work that touches on the Algerian conflict.
- Philosopher Jacques Derrida.
- Writer Albertine Sarrazin.
- Voice actor Alain Dorval, best known as the French voice of Sylvester Stallone.
- Fashion designer Yves Saint-Laurent.
- Sculptor Paul Belmondo (father of Jean-Paul Belmondo).
- Actor Roger Hanin.
- Actress Marlène Jobert.
- Actor and director Daniel Auteuil.
- Actor, director, screenwriter and comedian Alain Chabat.
- Actor and comedian Didier Bourdon, of Les Inconnus fame.
- Actor Jean-Claude Brialy.
- Singer, actor and poker player/commentator Patrick Bruel was born in Oran from Sephardi Jewish parents.
- Controversial French intellectual Bernard-Henri Lévy was born in Beni Saf, near Oran.
- Voice actress Odile Schmitt.
Works set in Algeria
While the nation is mostly ignored in Anglophone media (Morocco is largely preferred by them, either as itself or as shooting location for anywhere in The Middle East, due to the Ouarzazate studios being the largest and best equipped in Northern Africa), it maintains a reasonable place in French media, partly because of the colonial history between the two countries and the resulting sizeable Algerian diaspora in France. There's a lot of co-productions between the two countries.
- One rare Anglophone exception is Algiers (1938), starring Charles Boyer as a doomed French jewel thief hiding out in the native quarter of the capital.
- The Day of the Jackal, where Charles de Gaulle allowing Algeria to gain its independence is the impetus for the plot to assassinate him that takes up the story (which happened in Real Life).
- The French movie L'été de tous les chagrins is set in Algeria in 1961, in a time when the French colonists who view the country as their birthright are slowly, reluctantly, beginning to realise everything is coming to an end, the world they knew is over, and their only option is to escape to a country - France - where they have never actually lived. Set against the background of a civil war, terrorist attacks and brutal French repression of the natives, a boy of eleven on the cusp of puberty has bittersweet experiences, which he reflects wistfully on, later in life, contemplating the place of his birth and his early formative experiences.
- The Italian film The Battle of Algiers, produced in cooperation with the Algerian government, is probably the best-known film about this topic.
- Cossacks: European Wars has 16th century Algiers as a playable nation as well as a campaign for it in the Expansion Pack The Art of War.
- Days of Glory, an Algerian-French coproduction war film about local men enlisting in the Free French Forces during World War II.
- In Gladiator, when Maximus is made a gladiator, his first arena fight happens in the Roman province of Mauretania Caesariensis, in Zucchabar (present-day Miliana, about 100 km South-West from Algiers).
- Le Grand Carnaval, set in 1942 during Operation Torch (the Allied landings near Oran). The French pieds-noirs and natives don't exactly live in harmony and there are signs of independence movements to come.
- In Kaamelott: First Installment, there are flashbacks of King Arthur's youth when he trained in a Roman Legion in Mauretania Caesariensis.
- In Kung Fu Zohra, the eponymous woman is Algerian, meets her future husband in the country and follows him to France.
- The Last Queen, set in 1516 around the Ottoman capture of Algiers.
- Of Gods and Men, about the Trappist monks of Tibhirine who were massacred in 1996 during the Civil War.
- Outside the Law, an Algerian-French coproduction (by the same team as Days of Glory) about the Algerian war for independence that makes an interesting comparison to The Battle of Algiers.
- The Sheik (1919 novel and 1921 film) is set in Biskra.
- In his autobiography War in a Stringbag, Royal Navy pilot Charles Lamb details how he flew "insertion missions" out of Malta, to land Free French agents and Arab nationalist leaders into Algeria, so as to destabilise a French government there that had clearly aligned itself with both Vichy France and the Axis. (it had opened its ports to resupply convoys for the Italian and German armies in Africa, for instance, despite Algeria being nominally neutral). Even in 1942, Lamb speculated that the Arab leaders Britain was covertly nurturing might well end up fighting a civil war to kick the French out of Algeria, and whether providing arms for them to fight with was a good idea in the long term. Charles Lamb, after his plane crashed in Algeria, was captured by the Vichy French and tortured by them, eventually being sent to an internment camp in the deep Sahara for captured British personnel (in breach of international law) that was only one step up from being a concentration camp. Here, he was able to observe the interplay between the French military personnel and their Algerian native soldiers, conceding if this was typical of French Algeria as a whole, the natives might well have genuine grievances.
The Algerian flag
The Algerian national anthem
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- Capital and largest city: Algiers (Arabic: الجزائر al-Jazāʾir, Berber: ⴷⵣⴰⵢⴻⵔ Dzayer, French: Alger)
- Population: 44,700,000
- Area: 2,381,741 sq km (919,595 sq mi) (10th)
- Government: Unitary semi-presidential constitutional republic
- Currency: Algerian dinar (دج) (DZD)
- ISO-3166-1 Code: DZ
- Country calling code: 213
- Highest point: Mount Tahat (3003 m/9,852 ft)
- Lowest point: Chott Melrhir (−40 m/−131 ft)