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The Making of Algerian War Veterans in France, 1956-1974

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The Making of Algerian War Veterans in France, 1956-1974 View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Carolina Digital Repository HOME FROM THE DJEBEL: THE MAKING OF ALGERIAN WAR VETERANS IN FRANCE, 1956-1974. ANNDAL NARAYANAN A dissertation submitted to the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy in the History Department. Chapel Hill 2016 Approved by: Donald Reid Konrad Jarausch Lloyd Kramer Wayne Lee Daniel Sherman ©2016 Anndal Narayanan ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ii ABSTRACT Anndal Narayanan: Home from the Djebel: the making of Algerian War veterans in France, 1956-1974. (Under the direction of Donald Reid.) This dissertation examines the return experiences of French veterans of the Algerian War of Independence (1954-1962), focusing on the movement they created and its activism. Service in the Algerian War affected over one million Frenchmen during a period of rapid modernization in France, but these citizens would go unrecognized as veterans by their government for over a decade after the war’s end. Analyzing veterans’ return experiences, memory, and activism helps us understand the political consequences of the Algerian War in postcolonial French society—how the generation of soldiers who fought a “war without a name” brought the war back home. Drawing on state archives, veterans’ association archives, press coverage, and interviews and surveys of veterans, this dissertation finds that long before the French state deigned to recognize them or their war, veterans of Algeria were already politically active, as veterans and as citizens—both to promote their group interests, and to reshape French society based on lessons they drew from the war. Using perspectives of political history, military history, and memory, this dissertation presents a case study of how decolonization affected former colonizers, and the long-term consequences of sending citizens to fight in a controversial and unconventional war with changing war aims. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS For the moral and material aid I received toward this project, I owe many thanks. My research was made possible by a Pre-dissertation Reasearch Fellowship from the Council for European Studies, a Mowry and Clein Dissertation Fellowship, and a Fulbright U.S. Student Fellowship, and my writing was supported by a Doris G. Quinn Dissertation Completion Fellowship in 2015. My sincere gratitude to Raphaëlle Branche, whose 2007 article inspired this dissertation, and who generously helped orient my research in its earliest stage. Further thanks for kindly inviting me to her graduate Algerian War seminar during my research trip to France, for which she served as my institutional sponsor. To the energetic veterans who helped me organize interviews, and sometimes sheltered and fed me—Michel Mazuret, Hubert Bornens, Henri Chemin, François Porteu de la Morandière, and Serge Drouot—as well as to the veterans I interviewed in Vannes, Annecy, and Paris: thank you for your profound generosity and openness. I hope you will understand the good-faith effort I made to honor your experiences and your points of view. Thank you to the staff at the UNC and FNACA headquarters for your kindness and help: Marité Gaudefroy, Marité Massé, Éric Euzen, Dorothée Abegg. Thank you to the archivists at the BNF and the BDIC who helped me find wonderful documents. Thank you to the dear friends who encouraged my persistence and brightened my stays in Paris: Thomas Roman, Jérôme Buisson, Bernard Zirnheld, Jules Gasté, and of iv course Aviva Cashmira, who taught me so much including the “rule of three” when communicating with French bureaucrats. To my adviser, Don Reid, thank you for realizing how important this topic was months before I could see that, and giving me the support and freedom to make this dissertation thoroughly my own. I am very lucky indeed to have been your student, and I aspire to be a teacher after your model. To my mother, thank you for the love of history and the written word that you instilled in me, and for teaching me the importance of honoring veterans. To my father, thank you for your support of my academic career from the start. Hopefully now you will understand just what it was I was doing these past years. To Ben, thank you for your unflagging belief in me and my project. I could not have done this without you. v TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS......................................................................................viii INTRODUCTION...............................................................................................................1 Topic and rationale..................................................................................................1 Chronology..............................................................................................................7 Historiography.........................................................................................................7 Sources...................................................................................................................12 Methods..................................................................................................................17 Theory....................................................................................................................21 Chapter Summaries and Argument........................................................................24 CHAPTER 1: THE GENERATION OF THE DJEBEL: AN EXPERIENTIAL HISTORY OF CONSCRIPTS IN ALGERIA AND THEIR RETURN............................26 CHAPTER 2: ‘READY TO FIGHT’: VETERANS OF ALGERIA WAGE A WAR OF WORDS AND MEMORY IN FRANCE.........................................89 CHAPTER 3: LESSONS FROM THE MOUNTAINS: THE FOUNDERS OF THE ALGERIAN WAR VETERANS’ MOVEMENT.............................................129 CHAPTER 4: RIGHTS VERSUS DUTY: ORGANIZING CITIZENS IN ALGERIAN WAR VETERANS’ ASSOCIATIONS..............................164 CHAPTER 5: THE BATTLE IN THE METROPOLE: VETERANS’ ASSOCIATION POLITICS DURING THE WAR.................................194 CHAPTER 6: ELITE SPOKESMEN AND MASS ACTION: THE SECOND “DAYS OF MAY” AND THE STRUGGLE FOR VETERANS’ RECOGNITION..............................................................................221 vi CONCLUSION................................................................................................................283 APPENDIX A: QUESTIONNAIRE SENT TO FNACA MEMBERS (ENGLISH TRANSLATION)....................................................................290 APPENDIX B: QUESTIONNAIRE SENT TO FNACA MEMBERS (FRENCH ORIGINAL)..............................................................................292 APPENDIX C: QUESTIONNAIRE SENT TO UNC/AFN MEMBERS (ENGLISH TRANSLATION)....................................................................294 APPENDIX D: QUESTIONNAIRE SENT TO UNC/AFN MEMBERS (FRENCH ORIGINAL)..............................................................................295 APPENDIX E: BREAKDOWN OF QUESTIONNAIRES BY CATEGORIES..........................................................................................................296 APPENDIX F: BREAKDOWN OF INTERVIEWS BY CATEGORIES..........................................................................................................298 BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................299 vii TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS AAA: Association des anciens d’Algérie: Association of Veterans of Algeria. ACUF: Association des combattants de l’Union française: Association of Veterans of the French Union. AGMG: Association générale des mutilés de guerre: General Association of Disabled Veterans. ALN: Armée de libération nationale: Army of National Liberation. ANAA: Association nationale des anciens d’Algérie: National Association of Veterans of Algeria. ARAC: Association républicaine des anciens combattants: Republican Association of Veterans. CAANAC: Comité d’action des associations nationales d’anciens combattants: Action Committee of National Veterans’ Associations. CN-CATM: Confédération nationale des combattants en Algérie, Tunisie et Maroc: National Confederation of Veterans of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. CNL: Comité nationale de liaison: National Liaison Committee. FLN: Front de libération nationale: National Liberation Front. FN: Front nationale: National Front. FNACA: Fédération nationale des anciens combattants en Algérie, Maroc et Tunisie: National Federation of Veterans of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. FNAF: Front national pour l’Algérie française: National Front for French Algeria. FNC: Front national des combattants: National Front of Veterans. FNCPG-CATM: Fédération nationale des combattants prisonniers de guerre- combattants d’Algérie, Tunisie, et Maroc: National Federation of Prisoners of War, and Veterans of Algeria, Tunisia, and Morocco. GPRA: Gouvernement provisoire de la république algérienne: Provisional Government of the Algerian Republic. viii GRM: Groupement des rappelés et maintenus: Grouping of Reservists and Soldiers Deployed Beyond the Legal Limit. OAS: Organisation armée secrète: Secret Armed Organization. ONACVG: Office nationale des anciens combattants et victimes de guerre: National Office of Veterans and War Victims. PCF: Parti communiste français: French Communist Party. PPF: Parti populaire français: French Popular Party. RPF: Rassemblement du peuple français: Rally of the French People. UCC-TAM: Union confédérée
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