The Algerian war. It is only in 1999 that the French National Assembly voted to recognize it, after years during which it has been referred to as an “operation of restoring order”, whereas on the Algerian side it was referred as a “war of independence”, even as “a revolution”. Two peoples, two stances: French people for a ‘French Algeria', and Algerian people for an ‘Algerian Algeria'. Or at least this is the basic analysis that some uninformed people have done. However, things were far from being so simple and if it is true that a large majority of Algerian people claimed for the Independence of Algeria, some were willing that Algeria stay a part of France, or simply were unwilling to take part into the struggle. The main reason for this was that they wanted to be a part of the French society, as the Harkis who fought on the promise they would be able to go to France and have the French citizenship after the end of the fights. It seems that this people were willing to become members of the French society, a society still very appealing to them for its better conditions of living, its luxury and so and so forth … But could integration into the French society of this period really be possible? I will try to demonstrate that in the Post World War Two Europe, integration was something illusory, and will give the reasons for this.
[...] Lakhdar is one such person, one of this numerous émigrés from North Africa come to France to help in the reconstruction of the nation after the war, in a time when immigration was little regulated and even encouraged, as it was perceived as a solution to the labor shortage, as explained by William I. Hitchcock in The Struggle for Europe, p These immigrants were, almost 90% of them, young men looking for a better future in the nation that had colonized their countries tens of years before, and most of them left behind a family in their country. [...]
[...] But this cry is also the one of the people of Algiers who are confronted in every day life with discrimination and racism. If things were going more or less correctly for years in Algiers, things worsened a lot after the attacks launched against military installations and people, public utilities, and other symbols of the French regime, and above all, the bomb attacks planted by women in public places like the ones of September which occurred in a popular café, in a dancing place, and at the main Air France office. [...]
[...] According to Ann Hornaday, in an article published on January greatness of The Battle of Algiers lies in its ability to embrace moral ambiguity without succumbing to The same can be said about Living in Paradise as Bourlem Guerdjou pays attention not only to depicting only an Algerian émigré population suffering because of the French Government, but also in showing how the community itself was divided, with the character of Lakhdar who is kind of marginalized within his own community for showing too much willingness to achieve a complete integration. [...]
[...] sad and violent times”, when “martyrdom burst into their daily lives, became, on occasions, an obsession and, it seemed to them, a characteristic of a particular group attitude, and it gave the days, the events and the thoughts of this time their specific coloring. Visions of blood, of explosions, violence and terror went with them always” (p. 73). Here the text refers to a young French couple, Jérôme and Sylvie, but every person living in France at this time could have felt the same. [...]
[...] On the other hand, the second film takes place in a shantytown in Nanterre in the suburb of Paris a few years later, and tells the story of Lakhdar (played by Roschdy Zem), an Algerian émigré who, after living alone for a long time, decides to bring his family over, realizing only too late that it may be a while before they are able to live in the paradise they were supposed to find in France. Hence, with these two films we have numerous visions of the same event: on one side we have the point of view of these people of French origins living in Algiers (among them the ones who will become Pieds Noirs at the end of the war), as well as the view of the French authorities, represented by the military. [...]
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