I am a PiedNoir, white african from algeria. We had been there since 1840, of course big colonialists, family of fishermen. If you want to see and maybe learn the other side, go to our website : www.algerie-francaise.org and click on "english documents" which are really french docus translated in english. Look at the pics and see what the FLN really did not only against us but also against their own people. Also you have the massacre in Oran on 5th July 62, from algerian sources more than 15,000 (Out of 200,000) PiedNoirs were butchered in 6 hours. Also the sac of Bab-el-Oued by the french army and the massacre of 26 march62 in Isly street, 82 killed 200 wounded, these "glorious " actions from the french army against us the PNs.
As for Benjamin Stora, he is just an over rated scribbler who pretend to be an historian. His analisys is always put in question by others.
As for the harkis, the real number, this from secret french gov reports, is close to 80,000 butchered after independance. For PNs the figure from march to august 62 is 25,000 out of 1 million.
We can't even get justice, nor for us nor for our harkis friends. So all left to us is to scream the truth and as usual fight alone against the world, but this we are well used to do.
As I am a revisionist, I apply this to all history, including the algerian war.
One last note for those who do not know us: I, as well as a lot of PN, have no hate toward the arabs; the FLN terrorist yes no problem, I find one I run him over. But for myself like many other PNs we owe our life to arab friends. During the Oran massacre some arab got killed trying to protect their PN friends, somem went into the brothels, the camps to get their PN friends out.
Arriba Bab-el-Oued Vive l'OAS
Come on people, enough with the French bashing. Despite the French government's on current international issues, at least they don't cower to "shame on us!" leftie educationists on the home front.
So freakin what if a few towel heads got mistreated by the French colonial government? The Arabs from that region had been raiding Europeans and taking slaves (yes, that word: slaves! Around a _million_) for too long anyway. They pretty much deserved it.
Why should the French degrade 100+ year history of French Algeria just to appease a pack of rabid Arabs? Arabs, whose own versions of history, say absolutely nothing about how terrible they themselves and fellow co-religionist Muslims have been throughout the centuries. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
Do you guys, as Americans, want to see your schools teaching how "terrible" it was that the southwest states were won from Mexico? Aren't you yourselves sick enough yet of having to celebrate everyone else's cultures except for the white American culture that actually made America great in the first place? Well after you've answered those questions the way I expect you would, perhaps consider that the French feel similarly about their own country.