Most Algerian colons were not ethnically French at all.

Evidence

But still the European immigrants arrived in their various waves. There were the unemployed and unwanted from the revolution of 1848, who hardly formed the best material for breaking the stern soil of Algeria; after 1871 (when immigration first began on a large scale) there came industrious and efficient Alsatians, refugees from the provinces forfeited to a triumphant Prussia. There came Spaniards, Italians and Maltese in their thousands; so much so that by 1917 only one in five of the non-Muslim population was said to be of French origin. As Anatole France muttered angrily: “We have despoiled, pursued and hunted down the Arabs in order to populate Algeria with Italians and Spaniards.” — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 88

Categorization

• XREF: This undermines any ethnicity-based French claim to Algeria — a crucial fact for understanding both pied-noir identity and the war. — connects to: By 1917 only one in five Algerian Europeans was of true French descent — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 152; By 1917 only a fifth of Algeria’s non-Muslim settlers were French-born.; Colonial Algeria contained three distinct peoples speaking different languages — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 159 (+2 more)
• QUESTION: How did a mostly non-French settler class come to identify so fiercely as French defenders against the FLN?

Related

• By 1917 only a fifth of Algeria’s non-Muslim settlers were French-born. (similarity 0.94)
• By 1917 only one in five Algerian Europeans was of true French descent (similarity 0.93)
• Most French Algerian settlers were actually Spanish and Italian immigrants. (similarity 0.90)
• French settlers never exceeded thirteen percent of Algeria’s population (similarity 0.89)
• Algerians credited France’s Algerian achievements as benefiting French settlers, not natives. (similarity 0.85)
• Colonial Algeria contained three distinct peoples speaking different languages (similarity 0.84)
• Algeria split between Europeanised coast and Muslim-populated mountain interior (similarity 0.83)
• The French state classified settlers and harkis unequally to erase Algeria’s Frenchness. (similarity 0.83)
• Three-quarters of Algerian Jews were Arabized natives who considered themselves Algerians (similarity 0.82)
• Pieds noirs actually wanted economic privilege, not formal French Algeria (similarity 0.82)
• Europeans were only one-third of Algiers’ 900,000 population yet dominated its cityscape (similarity 0.81)
• The European settler minority is the central obstacle to ending the Algerian war (similarity 0.81)
• Algeria’s European settlers feared expulsion more than anything else (similarity 0.81)
• Algerians fighting for France outnumbered those fighting for independence (similarity 0.81)
• Pieds noirs faced Europe while Muslim Algerians faced inland Africa (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Colonial Algeria contained three distinct peoples speaking different languages #expands (0.60) — Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Algeria 1954-1962, 159