French rule in Algeria steadily degraded its administrators relative to the governed population

Evidence

The institution of the commune mixte contained many of the elements of what, by the mid-twentieth century, was most unsatisfactory about French rule in Algeria. It was, in fact, an adaptation in modern dress of Père Bugeaud’s Bureaux Arabes, which had worked well enough in the early days, but it was simply not equipped to cope with either the advanced technical problems of the twentieth century or its vastly expanded Muslim populations. It is revealing that, whereas in 1922 there were 300 European administrators for the communes mixtes for three million Muslims governed by them, by 1954 the ratio had shifted to 257 for four and a half million. At Arris, for instance, the epicentre of the 1954 revolt in the Aurès, one administrator and two assistants were in charge of 60,000 dispersed over a wide and inaccessible area. The fault lay, to a large extent, with French policy which — possibly out of fear of releasing a genie from the bottle — had consistently shied away from creating an indigenous administrative corps. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 93 (#expands, via linked claim)

Analysing the various degrees of disdain in Algeria, a pied noir journalist, Albert-Paul Lentin, observed how “the Frenchman despises the Spaniard, who despises the Italian, who despises the Maltese, who despises the Jew; all in turn despising the Arab.” In the Second World War, Pétain’s anti-Semitic regime repealed the Crémieux Decrees, and Jewish teachers and children alike were summarily flung out of European schools; the whole community was menaced with deportation to Nazi camps. Yet during all this time (so several Algerian Jews averred to the author), there was barely a breath of anti-Semitism from any Muslim quarter. By the 1950s the Algerian Jews were tugged in several directions; the least privileged tended still to identify themselves with the Muslims rather than the pieds noirs, and many were members of the Communist Party, while the wealthiest had developed distinctly Parisian orientations. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 171 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: French colonial administration was concentrated in Algiers while vast regions were under-administered; French rule thinned administrators per Muslim while refusing to create indigenous officials — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 93; Algerian hierarchy ranked contempt downward from French to Arab — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 171 (+7 more)

Related

• French rule thinned administrators per Muslim while refusing to create indigenous officials (similarity 0.93)
• French colonial administration was concentrated in Algiers while vast regions were under-administered (similarity 0.89)
• Lack of reliable chieftains drove the French to direct canton-based administration (similarity 0.88)
• Algerian hierarchy ranked contempt downward from French to Arab (similarity 0.83)
• Europeans were only one-third of Algiers’ 900,000 population yet dominated its cityscape (similarity 0.81)
• Algeria lacked the established governing structures that Tunisia and Morocco enjoyed (similarity 0.81)
• Colonial Algeria’s local rule fused military and civilian power. (similarity 0.80)
• Corruption grew in step with the ruler-ruled gulf, deepening Algerian resentment (similarity 0.79)
• Loyal Muslim caids were alienated by France’s abolition of their system (similarity 0.79)
• French metropolitan democracy attenuated, while colonial Algeria criminalized, dissent against empire. (similarity 0.79)
• Algeria’s departmental status split it from the rest of the Maghreb administratively. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• French rule thinned administrators per Muslim while refusing to create indigenous officials #expands (0.90) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 93
• French colonial administration was concentrated in Algiers while vast regions were under-administered #expands (0.75)
• Algerian hierarchy ranked contempt downward from French to Arab #expands (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 171