Exile and the Politics of Return and Liberation: Algerian Colonial Workers and Anti-Colonialism in France During the Interwar Period

摘要

This article examines the emergence of Algerian nationalism among migrants in France in the interwar period and its transfer and development in Algeria from the second half of the 1930s onwards. It discusses the creation of the Étoile nord-africaine (ENA) and its successor, the Parti du Peuple algérien (PPA, 1937–9), and the development of Algerian nationalism in the interwar period. The political actions and discourse that informed the Algerian nationalists’ return to Algeria were marked by a number of tensions that this article also seeks to explore. The temporary or permanent return of many Muslim migrants and militants to Algeria was central to the development of nationalism in the colonial territory, spreading the nationalist message in rural and urban colonial areas. Algerian migrants fostered the eventual liberation of their homeland through political mobilization and a nationalist discourse informed by calls for equality and freedom, and underpinned by invocation of the past.