Archiving the Algerian War: Propaganda and the Archives

Abstract

Algeria’s struggle for independence from France’s colonial grasp resulted in a lengthy and bloody conflict, all the while creating a war of images and words on and off the battlefield. Forms of propaganda and persuasion pervaded the colonial sphere during this conflict, generating a psychological war in France and Algeria alongside the physical one raging through the Algerian territory. This article examines the military archives from the Algerian war in official archives to look at the war through the lens of propaganda, mainly through tracts. The relevance of this research is underscored by former French President, François Hollande’s public discourse in Hollande 2016 advocating for the opening of Algerian War archives to the public and prioritizing their digitization. However, only recently has access to these military archives become available and declassified for the general public, and are only accessible on-site as very few have been digitized. This article provides insight into these archival sources to shed light on the role, distribution, and analysis of psychological warfare during the Algerian War.

Publication Title

Contemporary French and Francophone Studies

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