Leclerc suppressed racist propaganda because it destabilized French control

Evidence

In 1830, the country lay nominally under a loose suzerainty of Turkish military rule. Successive generations of French historians have, for fairly obvious reasons, claimed that a state approximating tribal anarchy prevailed. This view is now contested by “neutral” as well as Arab historians. In 1847 de Tocqueville declared to the French National Assembly that “The Muslim society in North Africa was not uncivilised; it only had a backward and imperfect civilisation.” He went on to claim “we have rendered Muslim society much more miserable and much more barbaric than it was before it became acquainted with us”. Even some of the early French conquerors paid tribute to signs of Algeria’s civilisation, however rudimentary, with one general noting in 1834, “nearly all the Arabs can read and write; in each village, there are two schools”. — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 83 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: French republican civilizing policies were fundamentally racist in practice; The politique des races collapsed because village chiefs were French inventions, not African reality; French colonial propaganda falsely depicted pre-conquest Algeria as anarchic — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 83 (+1 more)

Related

• French colonial propaganda falsely depicted pre-conquest Algeria as anarchic (similarity 0.90)
• Propaganda created unrealistic expectations about easily exploiting the African interior (similarity 0.84)
• Pre-conquest Algerian society was ordered, not anarchic, before French rule degraded it (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Fear of extremist propaganda drove colonial surveillance expansion in French West Africa #corroborates (0.55)
• French colonial propaganda falsely depicted pre-conquest Algeria as anarchic #expands (0.40) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 83