Pied-noir
| Total population | |
|---|---|
| Formerly 1.4 million (13% of population) | |
| Regions with significant populations | |
| Algiers, Oran, Constantine | |
| Languages | |
| French, Spanish, Occitan, Catalan | |
| Religion | |
| Mainly Roman Catholicism, Judaism · Protestantism |
Pied-Noir (French pronunciation: [pjenwaʁ], Black-Foot), plural Pieds-Noirs, is a term referring to Christian and Jewish people whose families had migrated from all parts of the Mediterranean to French Algeria, the French protectorate in Morocco, or the French protectorate of Tunisia, where many had lived for several generations, and who were expelled at the end of French rule in North Africa between 1956 and 1962. The term usually includes the North African Jews, who had been living there for many centuries but were awarded French citizenship by the 1870 Crémieux Decree. More specifically, the term "pied-noir" is used for those of European ancestry who "returned" to mainland France as soon as Algeria gained independence, or in the months following.
From the French invasion on 18 June 1830 until its independence, Algeria was administratively part of France and its European population was simply called Algerians or colons (colonists), whereas the Muslim people of Algeria were called Arabs, Muslims or Indigenous.
The term "pied-noir" began to be commonly used shortly before the end of the Algerian War in 1962. As of the last census in Algeria, taken on 1 June 1960, there were 1,050,000 non-Muslim civilians (mostly Catholic, but including 130,000 Algerian Jews) in Algeria, 10 percent of the total population.
During the Algerian War the Pieds-Noirs overwhelmingly supported colonial French rule in Algeria and were opposed to Algerian nationalist groups such as the Front de libération nationale (English: National Liberation Front) (FLN) and Mouvement national algérien (English: Algerian National Movement) (MNA). The roots of the conflict reside in political and economic inequalities perceived as an "alienation" from the French rule as well as a demand for a leading position for the Berber, Arab, and Islamic cultures and rules existing before the French conquest. The conflict contributed to the fall of the French Fourth Republic and the mass exodus of Algerian Europeans and Jews to France.
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