Footprints of pieds-noirs reach deep into France
PERPIGNAN, France: In the courtyard of an ancient convent here, the Wall of the Disappeared lists the names of about 2,700 "pieds-noirs" - black feet, as the white French colonists in Algeria were called.
Pieds-noirs - the term's origins are obscure, but perhaps had something to do with black boots - emigrated to Algeria mostly from Spain, Italy, Germany, Malta and other European countries, often as laborers and farmers. They became French citizens during the 130-odd years that the nation was under French rule.
Then, during the chaotic weeks and months after France, under Charles de Gaulle, ended its colonial war with Algerian nationalists in March 1962, more than a million pieds-noirs fled to cities like this one. Others who stayed were massacred in places like Oran. Still others disappeared....
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Pieds-noirs - the term's origins are obscure, but perhaps had something to do with black boots - emigrated to Algeria mostly from Spain, Italy, Germany, Malta and other European countries, often as laborers and farmers. They became French citizens during the 130-odd years that the nation was under French rule.
Then, during the chaotic weeks and months after France, under Charles de Gaulle, ended its colonial war with Algerian nationalists in March 1962, more than a million pieds-noirs fled to cities like this one. Others who stayed were massacred in places like Oran. Still others disappeared....
From Marseille to Montpellier, museums about colonialism and the pieds-noirs, encouraged by nostalgic and militant pieds-noirs like Scotto, have been proposed or are soon to open, to the consternation of many French who feel that the pied-noir story, told by some of its more right-wing partisans, is incendiary and not one anyone needs to hear now.