@ -185,7 +185,7 @@ a reserve of 568,817 hectares in 1871\footnote{Figure borrowed from A. NOUSCHI,
This sequestration was accompanied by the deportation of the Hashem from this plain in the arid steppe of the Hodna, and the raising of an extraordinary war contribution of 27,452,000 F or, putting entire populations at the mercy of usurious loans.
This dispossession benefits, from this phase, the concentration of land capital, by the intervention of bank credit for the benefit of the most solvent, then by the major concessions dedicated to latifundiary under-exploitation:
20,000 ha. to the Société Genevoise, near Setif from 1853; 100,000 to the Algerian Generale in 1865, in the middle of the “Arab Kingdom” against a loan of 100 million F. gold.
It has destructured and impoverished rural society, putting it at the mercy of imposed “purchases” in the future, even though even before the sequestration of 1871, more than 500,000 hectares were taken from it by colonization, 96% by the colonial state.
It has destructured and impoverished rural society, putting it at the mercy of imposed “purchases” in the future, even though even before the sequestration of 1871, more than 500,000 hectares were taken from it by colonization, 96\% by the colonial state.
It has also nationalized or communalized areas of the same order.
@ -194,12 +194,12 @@ It has also nationalized or communalized areas of the same order.
The whole period of colonial possession is indeed for the country, as Dj. Sari pointed out about the famine of 1867-1868, a “demographic disaster” \footnote{SARI (Djilali), \emph{Le désastre démographique}(the demographic disaster), Algiers, 1982.}.
This was compounded by the loss of life in combat, during the massacres, the destruction, looting and taking committed on a piecemeal basis, as well as the dispossession and living conditions imposed on all Algerians by the system.
If we can debate the number of inhabitants (5 million) to which Sari estimates the population in 1830, the minimum of 3 million for non-Saharan Algeria alone, 6% of whom are urban, is no longer disputed \footnote{Cf. YACONO (X.), Can we evaluate the population of Algeria on the eve of the conquest, in \emph{Revue Africaine}, 1954, and PRENANT (A.) in LACOSTE, NOUSCHI, PRENANT, \emph{op. cit.}.}.
If we can debate the number of inhabitants (5 million) to which Sari estimates the population in 1830, the minimum of 3 million for non-Saharan Algeria alone, 6\% of whom are urban, is no longer disputed \footnote{Cf. YACONO (X.), Can we evaluate the population of Algeria on the eve of the conquest, in \emph{Revue Africaine}, 1954, and PRENANT (A.) in LACOSTE, NOUSCHI, PRENANT, \emph{op. cit.}.}.
The enumeration of 1845, from which Kabylies and Aurès escaped, and those of 1851 (three years after the deadly famine of 1848) and 1856, which can still only estimate the population of Greater Kabylia, give respectively 2,028,000, 2,324,000 and 2,302,000.
In 1853, Carette's more reliable estimate attributed to the tribes (excluding the cities) 2,670,410 inhabitants, or in all, more than 2.8 million, after 23 years of occupation and war.
This is a figure very close to that of 1861 (2,732,851), following the murderous campaign of Kabylia.
That is to say the shortfall on the evolution that would have occurred outside this context, which can be estimated, in thirty years, between half a million and a million lives lost.
However, in the same space, there were only 2,653,000 souls and, in 1871, 2,125,052, down 80,000 and then 527,000, at annual rates of -0.58%, during a period that included the repression of the insurrection of 1863-1864, then by 4.37% during the years of famine and epidemics of 1867-1868, this implies an average mortality rate of more than 8% per year.
However, in the same space, there were only 2,653,000 souls and, in 1871, 2,125,052, down 80,000 and then 527,000, at annual rates of -0.58\%, during a period that included the repression of the insurrection of 1863-1864, then by 4.37\% during the years of famine and epidemics of 1867-1868, this implies an average mortality rate of more than 8\% per year.
On this basis, we can make the minimum hypothesis of an excess mortality that has hit, in forty years, between 1.2 and 1.7 million souls, half of the number of 1830, one in five of the Algerian Muslims who lived in the period.
This excess mortality is obviously linked in part to the massacres, the addition of which figures “by tens of thousands the losses ... of the civilian population” \footnote{Cf. A.PRENANT in LACOSTE, NOUSCHI, PRENANT, \emph{op. cit.}, p. 321.}.
@ -224,7 +224,7 @@ And Napoleon III himself announced one to two years in advance that of colonial
The fact that exports persisted—especially wheat produced by the settlers,” in 1866 and 1867, despite the need to import flour in 1867— shows how scarcity encouraged people to take advantage of rising prices at the expense of matmura reserves.
Cereal harvests fell rapidly, more markedly for barley than for wheat, from 20 million quintals to 11.3, then 10.8, then 8, then 4.4, from 1863 to 1867, before rising (but to just 10.3) in 1868.
The harvests of the settlers, subject to the same climatic hazards, certainly fall by 60%, but those of the Algerians fall by 80%, from 18 to 3.9 million quintals.
The harvests of the settlers, subject to the same climatic hazards, certainly fall by 60\%, but those of the Algerians fall by 80\%, from 18 to 3.9 million quintals.
At the same time, the area sown fell from 2,450,000 hectares to 2.3, then 2.1 and then 2 million hectares in 1866 and 1867 and fell to 1.4 million hectares the following year, climatically favourable:
the lack of arms, due to the loss of life caused by famine and cholera, will render vain in 1868 the good climatic conditions and will prolong the crisis.
@ -236,7 +236,7 @@ This report, which “estimates the number of victims at more than 300,000”, i
The human effects of the first disaster cannot be assessed, due to the lack of data on indigenous demographic movements; we can measure those of the second in the civil status of the cities, only to hold one.
Sari provides \footnote{SARI (Dj.) \emph{op. cit.} Cit.} a whole series of mortality evolution curves in Medea, Miliana, Mostaganem, Oran, Tlemcen, Mascara, Constantine, during the 1860s, which often show (in Oran, Constantine) a negative natural movement over the entire period, only exacerbated from 1866 to 1868;
sometimes (in Tlemcen) appeared in 1865, return accentuated in 1867 and especially 1868, and persistent, less marked, until 1870. The effects of winters are very marked.
In Miliana, if the balance sheet is, narrowly, negative for the Europeans (but not for the Jews), in 1867 and 1868 it is much more so for the Muslims of the commune, except in 1865 and 1870, with, in 1867 and 1868, 485 deaths then 354 deaths per 3,000 inhabitants (16.2 then 11.8%!) and a growth deficit of 379 then 281 individuals.
In Miliana, if the balance sheet is, narrowly, negative for the Europeans (but not for the Jews), in 1867 and 1868 it is much more so for the Muslims of the commune, except in 1865 and 1870, with, in 1867 and 1868, 485 deaths then 354 deaths per 3,000 inhabitants (16.2 then 11.8\%!) and a growth deficit of 379 then 281 individuals.
The mark of a rural excess mortality at least as serious can be read in the inscription (usually insignificant) of 107 and then 486 unknown and external to the commune who came to take refuge and die there, these two years.
@ -246,21 +246,21 @@ The mark of a rural excess mortality at least as serious can be read in the insc
If the colonial conquest entails, for Algeria, the integration into structures of colonial exploitation in the subjection to a minority of newcomers supposed to represent France, this mutation is not for all that to the advantage of the French people.
During these forty-one years, public expenditure on the French treasury must meet both the costs of the war, the civil expenditure accruing to the metropolitan ministries (religion, justice, public education, finance), and those intended to make up the Algerian deficit.
Over the whole period, the total real participation of the French State in civil expenditure amounted to 192 million gold francs \footnote{General Statistics of Algeria (1865-66) pp. 110-111, and (1866-72), pp. 212-213. The evolution is provided by the T.E.F. (1830-37, 1838, 1839, 1840-41, 1842-43, 1844-45, 1846-49, 1850-52, 1853-58, 1859-61, 1862, 1863-64).} (about 2.7 billion currently) of which 37% (71 million) devoted to filling the deficit of the Algerian budget.
Over the whole period, the total real participation of the French State in civil expenditure amounted to 192 million gold francs \footnote{General Statistics of Algeria (1865-66) pp. 110-111, and (1866-72), pp. 212-213. The evolution is provided by the T.E.F. (1830-37, 1838, 1839, 1840-41, 1842-43, 1844-45, 1846-49, 1850-52, 1853-58, 1859-61, 1862, 1863-64).} (about 2.7 billion currently) of which 37\% (71 million) devoted to filling the deficit of the Algerian budget.
However, this deficit has not tended to be reduced, both because of the tax facilities granted to colonial companies and the growing crushing of the Algerian tax base by looting, destruction, transfers of property, abuses of “Arab taxes” and sanctions taken to impose them on an impoverished people to the point of not being able to pay.
The metropolitan contribution intended to fill it, equal to 45% of local resources in 1836 (2.5 million gold), amounted to 59% of these resources (3.15 million) in 1839, 54% (8.5 million) in 1841 and 101% (12.86 million) in 1844.
In 1863 it accounted for 11% (2,316,000 gold francs) of the forecasts of civil expenditure alone— a quarter of total expenditure — unproductive expenditure devoted solely to administration.
The metropolitan contribution intended to fill it, equal to 45\% of local resources in 1836 (2.5 million gold), amounted to 59\% of these resources (3.15 million) in 1839, 54\% (8.5 million) in 1841 and 101\% (12.86 million) in 1844.
In 1863 it accounted for 11\% (2,316,000 gold francs) of the forecasts of civil expenditure alone— a quarter of total expenditure — unproductive expenditure devoted solely to administration.
However, these expenses represented little cost compared to military expenses, entirely covered by the French budget of the war:
in 1839, the appropriations of the military health service and engineering alone (6,893,038 gold francs) equalled 80% of the total civilian budget, and in 1863, the year of respite from the fighting, as the previous one, the total forecast of army expenditure reached 62,067,553 gold francs (nearly one billion today).
in 1839, the appropriations of the military health service and engineering alone (6,893,038 gold francs) equalled 80\% of the total civilian budget, and in 1863, the year of respite from the fighting, as the previous one, the total forecast of army expenditure reached 62,067,553 gold francs (nearly one billion today).
The profits went to colonial enterprises, primarily financial and commercial, without enriching or equipping Algeria other than to install colonization and drain its production.
The installation of a system of exchange of raw products of colonization, then agricultural for more than 40% of their value, — cereals exported even in 1867, against the import of very little flour! \footnote{Cf. SARI (Dj.), \emph{op. cit.}, pp. 188-191 and pp. 208-209.} - against elaborate imports, created, at the same time as these profits, a permanent deficit, of the order of 40 to 50 million fr.-or (between 20 and 50 % of exports) by increasing exports from less than 10 million in 1850 to 108 in 1864 and 165 in 1872 and imports from 50 to 130 and then 206 million \footnote{PRENANT (A.), La dépendance de l'Algerie et les finances françaises, In Économie et Politique(economy and politics), Nov. 1956, pp. 42-51.}.
The installation of a system of exchange of raw products of colonization, then agricultural for more than 40\% of their value, — cereals exported even in 1867, against the import of very little flour! \footnote{Cf. SARI (Dj.), \emph{op. cit.}, pp. 188-191 and pp. 208-209.} - against elaborate imports, created, at the same time as these profits, a permanent deficit, of the order of 40 to 50 million fr.-or (between 20 and 50 \% of exports) by increasing exports from less than 10 million in 1850 to 108 in 1864 and 165 in 1872 and imports from 50 to 130 and then 206 million \footnote{PRENANT (A.), La dépendance de l'Algerie et les finances françaises, In Économie et Politique(economy and politics), Nov. 1956, pp. 42-51.}.
It was also this deficit that was offset by the contribution of public funds.
The human losses, especially affecting the working class who were unable to pay the replacements they provided in the era of seven-year military service, exceeded 200,000 deaths during these forty years.
The war retained at least until 1871 more than 70,000 metropolitan soldiers each year (73,188 out of 80,862 to the total number in 1844, 70,611 out of 83,870 in 1859, relatively calm years) and many more during offensives and uprisings (in 1835-1836, 1840-1842, 1845-1846) where they were well over 100,000, one for every 30 Algerians, including women and children.
It was the same in 1857, 1863-1865, and even in 1871, before the uprising, when the German army invaded France.
Of these numbers, deaths in ambulances and hospitals, 125,000, or more than 3,000 per year (4%), are approaching, in a population of young adults physically “fit”, twice the average rate of civilian deaths at the time.
For a rate of 1% of the workforce in the quiet years (thus in 1861-1863), or 2% (in 1852-1853), we reach 4% in 1847, 5% in 1838, 10% in 1832-1833 or in 1836-1837, 14% (9,587) and 12% (7,802) in 1840 and 1841, at the beginning of the war against 'Abd el-Qader, and as much in 1851 and 1857 during the Kabylie campaigns, in 1859 and 1871.
Of these numbers, deaths in ambulances and hospitals, 125,000, or more than 3,000 per year (4\%), are approaching, in a population of young adults physically “fit”, twice the average rate of civilian deaths at the time.
For a rate of 1\% of the workforce in the quiet years (thus in 1861-1863), or 2\% (in 1852-1853), we reach 4\% in 1847, 5\% in 1838, 10\% in 1832-1833 or in 1836-1837, 14\% (9,587) and 12\% (7,802) in 1840 and 1841, at the beginning of the war against 'Abd el-Qader, and as much in 1851 and 1857 during the Kabylie campaigns, in 1859 and 1871.
This means that more than 100,000 of these dead were direct victims of the war.
The number of killed in battle, when it is mentioned (254 at the Macta in 1835, “hundreds” at the Tafna in 1836, more than 1,000 in 1837 during the two assaults against Constantine, 108 in Mitidja on November 21, 1839, 332 at the Mouzaïa pass on May 12 and June 15, 1840, 400 at Sidi Brahim in 1845, the entire Beauprêtre column in 1864) was often superior, rarely less than half that of the wounded.
@ -308,13 +308,13 @@ Supporting these theses is only possible by amalgamating reality within broad ca
This is to neglect the observation, in 1955, by the very official “Maspétiol commission”, of the impossibility of increasing the tax burden on the indigenous masses.
In reality, demography owes to a French contribution of hygiene only vaccinations (as much ignored in France as in Algeria in 1830!), here applied late in the face of contagions insensitive to the distinctions between natives and settlers.
The number of doctors, including civil servants, from 1,033 in 1939, still 1,074 in 1943, amounted to only 1,356 in 1945, 1,449 in 1949, 1,629 in 1952 (242 hospitallers), including 916 in Algiers and Oran (one per 900 inhabitants, 64% European), and 713 for the rest of the country (one per 11,000 inhabitants, to 95% Muslims).
The number of doctors, including civil servants, from 1,033 in 1939, still 1,074 in 1943, amounted to only 1,356 in 1945, 1,449 in 1949, 1,629 in 1952 (242 hospitallers), including 916 in Algiers and Oran (one per 900 inhabitants, 64\% European), and 713 for the rest of the country (one per 11,000 inhabitants, to 95\% Muslims).
While J. Marseille asserts that “a subsistence minimum (is) relatively maintained for a large majority of the population”, the years 1941-1942 and 1945-1946 find, in the middle of a period of “economic equilibrium” (because of it?) a demography close to that of the years of famine 1867-1868.
If the general statistics mask it because of under-reporting (in particular of child deaths), urban civil states denounce it, as three quarters of a century earlier:
at Setif \footnote{PRENANT (A.) Settlement factors of a city in inland Algeria: Setif, In \emph{Annales de Géographie}, Paris, 1953, pp. 434-451.}, in 1942, the mortality rate (4.88%), almost double the already high minimum rate of 1932, 1936, 1948, exceeded the birth rate, in 1945 it equalled it (at 3.9%) despite still undeclared child deaths, with marked peaks in winter and late summer and, in 1945, in the “lean season”, from March to May.
In Sidi bel-'Abbes \footnote{Id. Questions of urban structure in three suburbs of Sisi-Bel-Abbès. In \emph{Bulletin de l'Association de Géographes Français}, 1956, pp. 62-75.}, according to the declarations, the mortality rate, 4.77% in 1941, 5.32% in 1942, 4.8% in 1945, exceeded in those years that of the birth rate (3.77%, then 4%, then 4.27%), leaving a natural increase deficit of \footnote{\emph{Ibid.}, p. 68.}, 326 and then 135 individuals;
it compensated for it to the nearest 115 in 1948, with 4.57% against 5.08, between usual rates still of 2.52% in 1951 and 3.72% in 1943, double, despite the youth of the population, those of the settlers of the time.
The same was true in marginal precarious neighbourhoods, such as the Sénéclauze “subdivision”, where the mortality rate remained at 2.8% in 1951, mainly due to the death rate of less than one year per 1,000 births and where life expectancy at birth did not exceed 17 years.
at Setif \footnote{PRENANT (A.) Settlement factors of a city in inland Algeria: Setif, In \emph{Annales de Géographie}, Paris, 1953, pp. 434-451.}, in 1942, the mortality rate (4.88\%), almost double the already high minimum rate of 1932, 1936, 1948, exceeded the birth rate, in 1945 it equalled it (at 3.9\%) despite still undeclared child deaths, with marked peaks in winter and late summer and, in 1945, in the “lean season”, from March to May.
In Sidi bel-'Abbes \footnote{Id. Questions of urban structure in three suburbs of Sisi-Bel-Abbès. In \emph{Bulletin de l'Association de Géographes Français}, 1956, pp. 62-75.}, according to the declarations, the mortality rate, 4.77\% in 1941, 5.32\% in 1942, 4.8\% in 1945, exceeded in those years that of the birth rate (3.77\%, then 4\%, then 4.27\%), leaving a natural increase deficit of \footnote{\emph{Ibid.}, p. 68.}, 326 and then 135 individuals;
it compensated for it to the nearest 115 in 1948, with 4.57\% against 5.08, between usual rates still of 2.52\% in 1951 and 3.72\% in 1943, double, despite the youth of the population, those of the settlers of the time.
The same was true in marginal precarious neighbourhoods, such as the Sénéclauze “subdivision”, where the mortality rate remained at 2.8\% in 1951, mainly due to the death rate of less than one year per 1,000 births and where life expectancy at birth did not exceed 17 years.
This was also the case in the peri-urban areas of Tlemcen, Miliana and Nedroma, for example \footnote{Statements of Civil Status, and Diplomas of Higher Studies of H. Delannoy (Annex) and M.-A. Thumelin-Prenant (1956).}.
Poor health services and poor rural areas exacerbated these imbalances, even if under-reporting seemed to make them areas of well-being.
In 1947, 1948, 1949 had died at less than a year 245, then 195, then 201 children out of 1,000 born in the prefectures and sub-prefectures of the country \footnote{Statistical Yearbook of Algeria, Algiers, 1948-49, 1950, 1951.}.
@ -323,21 +323,21 @@ One wonders how much of the difference between the 276,000 Muslim children decla
Similarly, schooling affected very few Muslim school-age children, mostly male and especially urban:
in 1951-1952, 168,940 boys in primary classes and 56,796 girls— 16 per cent of schoolchildren, or 25 per cent and 8.8 per cent of each sex, compared with 10 per cent in 1940.
However, according to Rozet \footnote{ROZET, \emph{op. cit.}, vol. II, p.75.}, in 1830, “almost all men knew how to read, write, count” and “there were (in Algiers) a hundred schools... where children were taught to read and write the Qur'an, and sometimes a little calculation.”
All the more so, at the end of the colonial period, segregation only exceptionally allowed “Muslim” children access to kindergarten, secondary education (one for every five Europeans), and even complementary courses, where there were 5,567, including 1,625 girls, 0.6% of their age group, compared to 10,111 colonials; At university, at the time of independence, they would be only 5% of students.
All the more so, at the end of the colonial period, segregation only exceptionally allowed “Muslim” children access to kindergarten, secondary education (one for every five Europeans), and even complementary courses, where there were 5,567, including 1,625 girls, 0.6\% of their age group, compared to 10,111 colonials; At university, at the time of independence, they would be only 5\% of students.
As for the technical infrastructures, they were only commensurate with the requirements of colonization and capital. There was of course in 1830 no kilometer of rail in Algeria, — neither in France.
But the 4,372 kilometers, single-track, often narrow-gauge, set up from the 1860s, represented, for four times the surface and a fifth of the population of France only one-fifteenth of the metropolitan railways, based on the colonial minority alone and a tenth of the colonized, in equivalent numbers.
They responded, in their traffic as in their route, only to the need to drain export products to the ports, by linking Morocco and Tunisia by Oran, Algiers, Bône (Annaba) through the colonized plains, and leading to these ports, to Nemours (Ghazaouet), Bougie (Bejaïa) and Philippeville (Skikda), zinc from Zellidja, alfa of the routes of Crampel (Ras-el-Mâ), from Bechar (Kenadza) with coal, and from Djelfa, dates from Touggourt and Biskra, phosphates and iron from Kouif and Ouenza.
All the unprofitable branches from Tlemcen to Beni-Saf, towards Arzew and Mostaganem, even the wheats from Tiaret, especially in the Eastern High Plains between Meskiana, Khenchela and Tebessa, had already been deposited.
On a network with loose meshes, traced (like the Bechar rail for strategic reasons) private road traffic replaced, with 43,078 trucks in 1951, 40% of a car fleet whose 56,391 passenger cars corresponded to the French service rate (1 for 40 souls) only, again for the million Europeans and one Algerian in ten.
On a network with loose meshes, traced (like the Bechar rail for strategic reasons) private road traffic replaced, with 43,078 trucks in 1951, 40\% of a car fleet whose 56,391 passenger cars corresponded to the French service rate (1 for 40 souls) only, again for the million Europeans and one Algerian in ten.
3. Gifts? Yes, not to Algeria, but to Capital.
What remains true in the thesis of J. Marseille is the constancy of deficits, except for certain years from one world war to another.
But these are public deficits, and they do not have their origin in spending of general interest, let alone social carried out “for Algeria”.
As we have seen, the “state of equilibrium” linked to the “satisfactory situation of public finances” from 1914 to 1945 is in no way accompanied by “a relatively maintained subsistence minimum for a large majority of the population” \footnote{MARSEILLE (J.), op. cit., p. 140.} which, before 1941-1942 and 1945, experienced urban mortality rates exceeding 4% from 1911 to 1929, 4.5% from 1917 to 1922 and in 1927-1929 and even 5% in 1920-1922.
As we have seen, the “state of equilibrium” linked to the “satisfactory situation of public finances” from 1914 to 1945 is in no way accompanied by “a relatively maintained subsistence minimum for a large majority of the population” \footnote{MARSEILLE (J.), op. cit., p. 140.} which, before 1941-1942 and 1945, experienced urban mortality rates exceeding 4\% from 1911 to 1929, 4.5\% from 1917 to 1922 and in 1927-1929 and even 5\% in 1920-1922.
These rates are linked to malnutrition and lack of care and demographic deficit factors.
This is because, as A. Nouschi notes, only “5 to 10% of the natives (are) inserted in the commercial movement” and that, as Marseille acknowledges \footnote{\emph{Id., ibid.}, p. 72.}, the difference with the price paid to the producer matters a lot.
This is because, as A. Nouschi notes, only “5 to 10\% of the natives (are) inserted in the commercial movement” and that, as Marseille acknowledges \footnote{\emph{Id., ibid.}, p. 72.}, the difference with the price paid to the producer matters a lot.
In fact, government spending is the result of low private investment, and the assistance provided to it to make profits.
J.Marseille writes it himself, when he shows \footnote{\emph{Id., ibid.}, p. 237.}, in 1927, the “(French) winegrowers exasperated by wine imports from Algeria (subject) to infinitely lower tax charges”, subsidized, paying the gasoline of tractors five times less, and that he recalls the absence of social insurance.
The quote he makes of Giscard d'Estaing taking up H. de Molinari in 1898, according to which “Algeria had already cost more than 4 billion (and) claims every year from 20 to 30 million from the metropolis to cover its budget” underlines the permanence of the imbalance between these public investments and the weakness of the private effort to withdraw its profits:
@ -347,17 +347,17 @@ Algeria is no less, for this author, with Indochina, one of the two areas of “
In truth, these “good deals” were made at the expense of the Algerian people, and for the benefit of a very small minority of colonial owners and the large French capitalist companies, first mining or commercial.
The clearest is the transfer of land, from the Warnier law (1873) carried out more by forced transactions (for debts, mortgages etc.) than by official attributions, often for the benefit of absentee urban businessmen.
In the 1950s, this transfer left in the hands of 20,000 owners, 2,700,000 hectares, a third (the best) of the country's arable land, half to a tenth of them.
99% of Algerian owners share the remaining two-thirds and are thus reduced either to insufficient exploitation or to daily work, possibly complementary. This is the major factor in the rural exodus.
99\% of Algerian owners share the remaining two-thirds and are thus reduced either to insufficient exploitation or to daily work, possibly complementary. This is the major factor in the rural exodus.
In the years preceding the Second World War and in those that followed it, the very slowdown in production and the difficulties due to the crisis and then the war led to a decrease in French exports and, consequently, a reduction or disappearance of the Algerian balance deficit.
However, this deficit, already present and increased, as we have seen, from 28 to 90 million gold francs from 1863 to 1873, rose from 34 to 78 billion francs in current terms from 1950 to 1954, toward France, but also, increasingly, toward other countries.
From 1950 to 1953 the metropolitan budget paid Algeria 286 billion francs (about 40 billion francs today), of which, according to the Maspétiol commission \footnote{The data of the report of the study group on financial relations between France and Algeria (1955) are largely put to use in these paragraphs which attempt to summarize A. PRENANT, Art. Cit. in \emph{Économie et Politique}, Nov. 1956.}, in 1953 “50%... seem to be considered as providing aid to Algeria.”
Thus, in 1953, out of 93 billion, 62 billion related to operating expenditure, two-thirds military, investment credits (35.7 billion) used, for 6 billion, to repay previous loans, and for 27 billion, to subsidize, by 6% of expenditure, colonial enterprises or by 27%, to lend them.
From 1950 to 1953 the metropolitan budget paid Algeria 286 billion francs (about 40 billion francs today), of which, according to the Maspétiol commission \footnote{The data of the report of the study group on financial relations between France and Algeria (1955) are largely put to use in these paragraphs which attempt to summarize A. PRENANT, Art. Cit. in \emph{Économie et Politique}, Nov. 1956.}, in 1953 “50\%... seem to be considered as providing aid to Algeria.”
Thus, in 1953, out of 93 billion, 62 billion related to operating expenditure, two-thirds military, investment credits (35.7 billion) used, for 6 billion, to repay previous loans, and for 27 billion, to subsidize, by 6\% of expenditure, colonial enterprises or by 27\%, to lend them.
However, they benefited from “advantages already granted in tax matters” the importance of which the Maspétiol report stressed.
The tax burden rate, from 33% in France, fell for them to 19% (16.4% in metallurgy against 28.4% ; 16.2% in texties against 26.2%);
in the face of taxes on property income and agricultural profits further reduced from 6% of the budget in 1949 to 1.8% in 1953, taxes on wages were doubled, income tax left at constant rates, indirect taxes increased.
It was to prolong the constant tendency to “make the poor pay” since the time, a century earlier, when Muslims, from 1863 to 1872, had provided in “Arab tax” and war contributions, 28% of the Algerian budget, against 2.8% to the beneficiaries of colonization or that, in 1890, when “Arab taxes” provided 3/4 of direct contributions (15% of budgetary resources) when settlers were still exempt from property tax.
In the Algerian GDP of 1953, the share of profits was 47% (239 billion francs current), that of wages only 34% (160 billion), and the proportion of accumulated capital reinvested on the spot, 52%:
The tax burden rate, from 33\% in France, fell for them to 19\% (16.4\% in metallurgy against 28.4\% ; 16.2\% in texties against 26.2\%);
in the face of taxes on property income and agricultural profits further reduced from 6\% of the budget in 1949 to 1.8\% in 1953, taxes on wages were doubled, income tax left at constant rates, indirect taxes increased.
It was to prolong the constant tendency to “make the poor pay” since the time, a century earlier, when Muslims, from 1863 to 1872, had provided in “Arab tax” and war contributions, 28\% of the Algerian budget, against 2.8\% to the beneficiaries of colonization or that, in 1890, when “Arab taxes” provided 3/4 of direct contributions (15\% of budgetary resources) when settlers were still exempt from property tax.
In the Algerian GDP of 1953, the share of profits was 47\% (239 billion francs current), that of wages only 34\% (160 billion), and the proportion of accumulated capital reinvested on the spot, 52\%:
the repatriation of the rest (46 billion that year) and the amount of the trade deficit represented the exodus of capital offset by public funds.
@ -396,7 +396,7 @@ The number of Algerian deaths from the war of independence is uncertain.
Even if it is probably between the million and a half affirmed by the F.L.N. and the 330,000 to which the official French counts reduce it, anxious not to count the corpses of the mass graves that are discovered from time to time.
Disagreements between the results of the 1954, 1960 and 1966 counts and the natural increase balances allowed by the declarations must be read in view of the accentuation of the under-reporting of births and deaths.
This is evident for births, the rate of which from 1950 to 1955 was constantly between 4.2 and 4.4 per cent and rose to almost 5 per cent after 1962.
It exists all the more so for deaths whose reported number, during these eight years, rises, above the 115,000 of 1954 as of 1963, up to 140,000 to 154,000 after 1956, i.e. an annual excess mortality of 0.4 to 0.5% (already more than the official French figure).
It exists all the more so for deaths whose reported number, during these eight years, rises, above the 115,000 of 1954 as of 1963, up to 140,000 to 154,000 after 1956, i.e. an annual excess mortality of 0.4 to 0.5\% (already more than the official French figure).
The 1960 count also found 168,000 fewer inhabitants than would result from the reported natural increase, while emigration to France had become scarcer, and the 1966 census another deficit of 160,000, mainly due to the years 1960-1962, if only because of the return of refugees in 1963-1964.
We can thus consider as likely the loss of at least 600,000 Algerian human lives, not counting the French killed, due to the obstinacy of French colonial capital, especially after the discoveries of Saharan hydrocarbons, to keep Algeria.
This is much more than just the victims of the fighting.
@ -428,10 +428,10 @@ From the launch, in 1959, of the “Constantine Plan”, the expenses related to
This new orientation is based on the observation, affirmed by the Ministry of Algeria in 1958, that “the natural limits of agriculture lead to the recognition that industry must be the main basis for expansion” \footnote{Quoted, \emph{id., ibid.}}.
First of all, it leads to the acceleration of the search for and production of hydrocarbons.
Thus the Gaullist regime created the public company E.L.F./Algérie, and in 1958-1859 only, 188 billion (old) were invested, which allowed in two years the exploitation of deposits that could produce 20 million tons annually.
Outside this field, it essentially leads, with few exceptions (Berliet, Michelin), to public investment by national companies (Renault), but above all to the first massive capital expenditure by the State, which had increased, between 1950 and 1955, only from 14 to 25 billion \footnote{PRENANT (A.), \emph{art. cit.}, 1956, p. 44.} (from 27 to 18% of the civil public funds transferred).
Outside this field, it essentially leads, with few exceptions (Berliet, Michelin), to public investment by national companies (Renault), but above all to the first massive capital expenditure by the State, which had increased, between 1950 and 1955, only from 14 to 25 billion \footnote{PRENANT (A.), \emph{art. cit.}, 1956, p. 44.} (from 27 to 18\% of the civil public funds transferred).
These expenses reinforce the strategic densification of the road network by the military, multiply emergency or other “cities” (which “welcome” Algerian families displaced from 7 to 8 people in “housing” of one to two rooms);
above all, they act as substantial support for private investors.
Faced with the stated objective of increasing, by creating 875,000 non-agricultural jobs, the standard of living by 5%, and the official appeal to “industrialists (that) Algeria (their) offers (in addition to this expected expansion of the market) an aid to the establishment of (their) companies” \footnote{Cité in MARSEILLE (J.), p. 146.} provided by the French budget, “all the reports noted evasions of savings” \footnote{\emph{Ibid.}, p. 147.}.
Faced with the stated objective of increasing, by creating 875,000 non-agricultural jobs, the standard of living by 5\%, and the official appeal to “industrialists (that) Algeria (their) offers (in addition to this expected expansion of the market) an aid to the establishment of (their) companies” \footnote{Cité in MARSEILLE (J.), p. 146.} provided by the French budget, “all the reports noted evasions of savings” \footnote{\emph{Ibid.}, p. 147.}.
Public investment has therefore played well, at this time to compensate for the lack of private financing and nevertheless allow the formation of profits for the most part repatriated.
Mendès-France declaring, on April 11, 1961: “Algeria costs us (...) more than it brings us” \footnote{In a press conference quoted by J. TOUCHARD, Le Gaullisme, 1940-1969, Paris, Seuil 1978, taken up by MARSEILLE (J.), \emph{ibid.,} p. 373.} silenced these returns to private capital.
The fact remains that, for the first time in the history of colonization, probably in the illusion of retaining its use, the French colonial capitalist state created in Algeria, and bequeathed to it in 1962 with independence, a productive equipment, although conceived exclusively as integrated into the needs of French capitalism.
@ -440,16 +440,16 @@ The fact remains that, for the first time in the history of colonization, probab
\section{1980-1998. Towards structural adjustment through Islamist terrorism}
It is a productive apparatus created for Algerian national needs, offering four times more jobs than before independence and on the way to a largely integrated structure, which the opening to the “market” neutralizes from 1978-1980 before sterilizing and eroding it, again destructuring Algerian society.
During the previous eighteen years, during which Algeria had hardly remained linked to international capitalism except by the exchange of 95 to 98% of its hydrocarbons for imports, mainly of equipment (for more than a third) and (for all that) of raw materials and semi-finished products, the production of energy (and above all electricity) had been multiplied by 7.
During the previous eighteen years, during which Algeria had hardly remained linked to international capitalism except by the exchange of 95 to 98\% of its hydrocarbons for imports, mainly of equipment (for more than a third) and (for all that) of raw materials and semi-finished products, the production of energy (and above all electricity) had been multiplied by 7.
Industrial production, especially public production, diversified, had seen its value more than tripled and satisfy for more than half its own demand, that of agriculture, construction and consumers; that of agriculture, despite the decline of the vine with the closure of its subsidized market, had remained constant, but for a population almost doubled and with increased requirements.
Oil exports ($8 billion) accounted for only 15% of GDP, quadrupled since independence, which represented per capita, 2.3 times that of Tunisia, 4 times that of Morocco.
Oil exports (\$8 billion) accounted for only 15\% of GDP, quadrupled since independence, which represented per capita, 2.3 times that of Tunisia, 4 times that of Morocco.
The distribution of creations, planned to rebalance between regions and between rural and urban areas, employment and settlement, implied the acceptance of additional costs increased by the demand for housing and social needs: primary school enrolment increased to 75 per cent (60 per cent for girls), average enrolment to 40 per cent, secondary school to 25 per cent.
It is by giving the classic weapon of colonial control, the debt, contracted to respond by importing to shortages born of increased demand and turn a “non-competitive” production towards a diversification of exports that Algeria has reopened itself to the domination of big capital.
But its recolonization, which is no longer the work of a State, requires its integration, in a subordinate position, into the “new world order”.
The search for an increase in the value of exports through the very expensive valorization of hydrocarbons (the “Valhyd” plan) increased the external debt from 11 to 198 billion dollars from 1978 to 1980.
The tolerance of a parallel market born of shortages affecting in particular the wealthy circles, and thus of a traffic on the dinar eroding its value, all the more accepted as the ruling circles profited from it, confirmed the increased fragmentation of the “Front” in power into antagonistic social classes, by linking it to the bourgeoisie.
Under Chadli's presidency, the slowdown and then the cessation of productive public investment, the successive increases in the ceiling of private capitalizations, the opening (often against mafia commissions) to international capital, the recognition of currency trafficking, the “restructuring” of public enterprises aimed at their profitability often at the expense of production, such as those of the units of the Agrarian Revolution, have only aggravated the dependence on the nascent Algerian capitalism, itself linked to its foreign counterpart.
Having become a “rentier” by ceasing to invest, the State saw its debt increased to $25 billion in 1986 by the first fall in the price of crude oil and its annual service reach and then exceed its trade surplus.
Having become a “rentier” by ceasing to invest, the State saw its debt increased to \$25 billion in 1986 by the first fall in the price of crude oil and its annual service reach and then exceed its trade surplus.
The rescheduling granted in 1994 (until 1998 and 2002) was granted in exchange for the IMF's “conditionalities”: structural adjustment, over the past four years, has confirmed the direction that led to it: openness, devaluation, privatization, liberalization.
The efforts of the “good student” did not even prevent, in the winter of 1998, the macroeconomic “good results” from being cancelled out by the fall in crude oil prices, in the absence of new sources of income.
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