French aid inadvertently funded Muslim businesses that undercut European settlers
Evidence
As if this were not enough, Tricot found a new threat to the European community in the form of economic competition; which, no doubt unintentionally and with the best of motives, French aid schemes bracketed under the Constantine Plan may have played their part in fomenting. As an example of what was happening, Tricot recalls being struck by the fate of two old French spinsters in the rural centre of Lafayette (in Kabylia) whose small general store had long held a monopoly; now Muslims had set up an identical one (probably financed by French Constantine Plan funds), which was solidly patronised by other Muslims, leaving the two old ladies deprived of custom and confronted with bankruptcy. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 1454
Categorization
- XREF: Shows the Algerian counter-economy eroding settler privilege from within — a permutation of the wider struggle against colonial domination. — connects to: French Constantine Plan aid inadvertently created Muslim economic competition that threatened pieds noirs; French aid unintentionally accelerated Muslim economic competition against pieds noirs.