Maghrebis in Marseille: North African Immigration and French Social Welfare in the Late Colonial and Postcolonial Eras
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Maghrebis in Marseille: North African Immigration and French Social Welfare in the Late Colonial and Postcolonial Eras by Dustin Alan Harris A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto © Copyright by Dustin Harris 2018 Abstract Maghrebis in Marseille: North African Immigration and French Social Welfare in the Late Colonial and Postcolonial Eras Dustin Alan Harris Doctor of Philosophy Department of History University of Toronto 2018 This dissertation examines how French officials, welfare specialists, and social service providers in the city of Marseille responded to North African immigration during the period roughly between 1945 and 1975. It traces the origins of the project they launched in late colonial Marseille, initially under the auspices of a specialized welfare network for Muslim North African clients, to “integrate” Muslims from the Maghreb region of North African (Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia) into French society, and follows this project as it continued into the postcolonial era. The central goal of this integrationist project, conducted through services such as welcome centres, professional job training courses, socio-educative family assistance programs, and social housing, was to guide Maghrebis to replace their supposedly inferior and backward customs and habits with the “Western” ways of living followed by France’s majority ethnic population. Using a wide array of research material from several archives in France, including government documents, official reports and correspondence, and the records of Marseille welfare specialists and social service providers, this dissertation compares the ideas, strategies, and practices that informed the project to integrate Muslim North Africans in Marseille during the late colonial era and decolonization to those that shaped this project after decolonization. Special focus in this comparison is given to unpacking the complex issues of continuity and change related to ii the attitudes and actions of welfare specialists and providers in areas such as shantytown clearance, social housing development, and family and youth integration. Attention is also given to the lived experiences of the city’s North African immigrant population, including how the Muslim North African clients of integrationist action sociale initiatives viewed, responded to, and even shaped the kinds of social aid they received. What an examination of these issues shows is that, throughout the period in question, French officials, welfare specialists, and social service providers in Marseille remained fixated on the presence of Maghrebis as a “problem” that required their special attention and assistance. iii Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the guidance and support of too many people to count. I only hope this acknowledgements section in some way adequately articulates the immense gratitude I feel for all of the people mentioned. My journey to completing this project began with a short email to my eventual supervisor, Eric Jennings, asking if he was interested in supervising a dissertation on immigration and social housing in France after 1945. I am very grateful that Eric saw some potential in both me and this project, and would like to thank him for the countless hours he spent providing invaluable advice and feedback. My approach to this project and my development as a researcher, scholar, and teacher owes much to his guidance and expertise. I am grateful to Doris Bergen and Jens Hanssen, who served on my comprehensive examinations and dissertation committees, for their support, and for pushing me to think in new ways about my project. I would also like to thank Paul Cohen and Sean Mills for joining the dissertation committee at the end, and for posing valuable questions at the final oral examination. My sincere gratitude goes also to Amelia Lyons, my external examiner, for the feedback and direction she offered at the final oral examination, which will be invaluable moving forward as I look to turn this project into multiple articles and an eventual manuscript. At various stages of my graduate studies, I received important advice and guidance from a number of other people. I would like to extend my appreciation to my M.A. supervisor, Roxanne Panchasi, for encouraging me to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto. Thank you to Jack Veugelers for agreeing to supervise a directed readings course on Algeria and France in my first semester as a Ph.D. student. Our one-on-one conversations about a countless number of topics helped shape my approach to research and teaching in invaluable ways. Thanks are due also to iv Minayo Nasiali and Elise Franklin for offering extremely useful feedback on various aspects of my dissertation. While conducting research for this project in France, I received significant help from the staff at all of the archives I visited. I would especially like to thank Véronique Raguseo at the Archives départementales des Bouches-du-Rhône for fielding my constant requests for more research material, and Valérie Hugonnard at the Institut d’Histoire du Temps Present for working so quickly on such short notice to get me access to the Archives Monique Hérvo. Research for this project would not have been possible without fellowships and research grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the University of Toronto’s Centre for the Study of France and the Francophone World, and the University of Toronto’s School of Graduate Studies. Various scholarships from the University of Toronto’s Department of History, as well as the Vivienne Poy Chancellor’s Fellowship in the Humanities and Social Sciences, also provided the financial support needed to research and write this project in a timely fashion. During my time at the University of Toronto, I was also fortunate to rely on the support of a long list of friends and family. To my fellow travellers on the graduate studies journey, namely Véronique Church-Duplessis, Susie Colbourn, Stephanie Corazza, Laurie Drake, Marc-André Dufour, Bret Edwards, Will Fysh, Stacy Hushion, Brett Lintott, Benji Lukas, Jonathan McQuarrie, Mike Savage, David Stiles, Erica Toffoli, Caleb Wellum, Gavin Wiens, and Mike Wilcox, thank you for your constant encouragement over the years. Some of you read parts of this project and offered much needed feedback. For that I am grateful. All of you in one way or another inspired me to keep working away at this project. For that I am even more grateful. To all of the members of the Wednesday night hockey crew, the Brockton Rockets men’s hockey team, and the Time Bandits softball team, thank you for providing me with a much needed distraction and, when I v needed it, the opportunity to hit something. To Wyatt, Sergio, James, Ian, Joey, Hayley, Wendy, and Dave, thank you for letting me ramble on about my work, sports, comics, and politics over board games, email, and text. To the entire Harris clan, especially my mother Belinda, thank you for always being there to lend an ear and for always providing your love and encouragement. Finally, none of this would have been possible without Shaahreyna Bohme. You have stood by me now through three theses (can you imagine?), reading almost everything I have written, listening to almost every lecture I have given, providing much needed encouragement, and picking me up when I have been down. I would not have survived graduate school without you, and so I dedicate this dissertation to you. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments........................................................................................................................ iv Table of Contents ........................................................................................................................ vii List of Tables ............................................................................................................................. viii List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. ix Abbreviations ................................................................................................................................ x Introduction ................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 An Essential Site of Action Sociale: The Formation of a Specialized Welfare Network for Maghrebis in Marseille........................................................................................... 23 Chapter 2 Narrowing the Integrationist Gaze: Social Welfare for Maghrebis in Marseille during Decolonization ................................................................................................................. 76 Chapter 3 A “Capital of Hope and Disappointments”: Re-Housing les familles musulmanes mal-logées after Decolonization .......................................................................... 127 Chapter 4 Action Familiale in Postcolonial Marseille .............................................................. 181 Chapter 5 The Centre d’Accueil Nord-Africain de Marseille: Social Welfare and the problème des jeunes musulmans ............................................................................................... 229 Conclusion ...............................................................................................................................