The Algerian Partition Plan (1961-)

[ukron]

Alain Peyrefitte, He was a confidant of Charles De Gaulle and had a long career in public service, serving as a diplomat in Germany and Poland.

Peyrefitte is known for his Algerian Partition Plan.

It is November 19, 1961, President Charles de Gaulle receives Alain Peyrefitte at the Elysee Palace regarding his partition plan of Algeria. Alain Peyrefitte enumerates the 4 points of his plan:

1. We gather between Algiers and Oran all the native French, with all the Muslims who are committed to our side and want to stay with us.

2. The rest of Algeria is transferred to all Muslims who prefer to live in an FLN-ran Algeria.

3. There is free access to the Sahara, which must become an autonomous territory free access to both countries.

4. Everything else is negotiable. We can share Algiers, like Berlin or Jerusalem: the Kasbah on one side, Bab-el-Oued on the other, a line of demarcation in the middle.

De Gaulle is not enthusiastic but thinks after careful consideration that the score will be the least bad solutions in the medium and long term. A few weeks later, he made his decision:

1: All supporters of French Algeria (including Muslims who will become full citizens) will be regrouped by force on the territory between Morocco and Algiers, which will remain French with almost all the Sahara. In this area, the local population deemed unfavorable to France will be forcibly displaced east of Algiers.

2: Algiers, its surroundings and all the east coast of the country (about 300km deep) will become an independent state with Algiers as capital. Everything will be done to make this new state as unfriendly as possible vis-à-vis France, or at least impossible to pose a serious threat.

In our world, DeGaulle used such a plan as a means of diplomatic pressure on Algerian diplomats during the Evian agreements in 1962. De Gaulle orders that the plan be prepared in detail in the greatest secrecy, unleashed by surprise early in 1962.  

[lordroel]

Jun 23, 2020 6:41:09 GMT ukron said:

Alain Peyrefitte, He was a confidant of Charles De Gaulle and had a long career in public service, serving as a diplomat in Germany and Poland.

Peyrefitte is known for his Algerian Partition Plan.

It is November 19, 1961, President Charles de Gaulle receives Alain Peyrefitte at the Elysee Palace regarding his partition plan of Algeria. Alain Peyrefitte enumerates the 4 points of his plan:

1. We gather between Algiers and Oran all the native French, with all the Muslims who are committed to our side and want to stay with us.

2. The rest of Algeria is transferred to all Muslims who prefer to live in an FLN-ran Algeria.

3. There is free access to the Sahara, which must become an autonomous territory free access to both countries.

4. Everything else is negotiable. We can share Algiers, like Berlin or Jerusalem: the Kasbah on one side, Bab-el-Oued on the other, a line of demarcation in the middle.

De Gaulle is not enthusiastic but thinks after careful consideration that the score will be the least bad solutions in the medium and long term. A few weeks later, he made his decision:

1: All supporters of French Algeria (including Muslims who will become full citizens) will be regrouped by force on the territory between Morocco and Algiers, which will remain French with almost all the Sahara. In this area, the local population deemed unfavorable to France will be forcibly displaced east of Algiers.

2: Algiers, its surroundings and all the east coast of the country (about 300km deep) will become an independent state with Algiers as capital. Everything will be done to make this new state as unfriendly as possible vis-à-vis France, or at least impossible to pose a serious threat.

In our world, DeGaulle used such a plan as a means of diplomatic pressure on Algerian diplomats during the Evian agreements in 1962. De Gaulle orders that the plan be prepared in detail in the greatest secrecy, unleashed by surprise early in 1962.  

Would this be also part of the plan ukron .

Map I



Map II

[ukron]

Yes, Three plans have been designed in the late50s and early 60s, but it seems that such projects would have been a massive political and social nightmare for France.

[lordroel]

Jun 23, 2020 14:26:07 GMT ukron said:

Yes, Three plans have been designed in the late50s and early 60s, but it seems that such projects would have been a massive political and social nightmare for France.

Doubt the Algerians will be happy, i bet the French will need to keep a strong garrison there.

[stevep]

Jun 23, 2020 14:42:18 GMT lordroel said:

Jun 23, 2020 14:26:07 GMT ukron said:

Yes, Three plans have been designed in the late50s and early 60s, but it seems that such projects would have been a massive political and social nightmare for France.

Doubt the Algerians will be happy, i bet the French will need to keep a strong garrison there.

  Agreed.  Its likely that there's a long and bloody guerilla war.  The Muslims who support France initially might well be alienated by discrimination while there is likely to be continued pressure by groups on all borders, especially relating to the thinly populated Sahara region.  Likely to get very nasty on both sides.

[lordroel]

Jun 23, 2020 15:52:45 GMT stevep said:

Jun 23, 2020 14:42:18 GMT lordroel said:

Doubt the Algerians will be happy, i bet the French will need to keep a strong garrison there.

  Agreed.  Its likely that there's a long and bloody guerilla war.  The Muslims who support France initially might well be alienated by discrimination while there is likely to be continued pressure by groups on all borders, especially relating to the thinly populated Sahara region.  Likely to get very nasty on both sides.

Here you can read more: SUMMER 1961: WHEN FRANCE WAS CONSIDERING CREATING A “FRENCH ISRAEL” IN ALGERIA

[ukron]

Seems obvious that France political prestige will be reduced to ashes with such plan, and probably led to a "South African" situation in Europe.

[lordroel]

Jun 24, 2020 7:28:13 GMT ukron said:

Seems obvious that France political prestige will be reduced to ashes with such plan, and probably led to a "South African" situation in Europe.

I think the French will come under such a pressure from the rest of the Western European countries, they will officially cut ties with, what do we call it, the French-Algerian Republic ore French Republic of Algeria.

[ukron]

"On July 26, 1956, the FLN in Algiers sent a memoir to the three influential leaders of the Non-Aligned Countries, namely: J. Nehru, Marshal Tito and Djamel Abel Nasser where he clearly claims: the restoration of the Sovereignty of the Algerian People; the free, complete and full exercise of this sovereignty; National Independence, including diplomatic issues and National Defense; and the indivisibility and completeness of the current Algerian territory. This determined choice is confirmed a month later at the Soummam Congress, emphasizing the "Recognition of the indivisible Algerian Nation. And for future negotiations, he focuses on the limits of the Algerian territory (current limits, including the Algerian Sahara). Against sectarianism, the Congress, which under the leadership of Abbane Ramdane and Krim Belkacem, specifies the awareness by the Algerians of the maneuvers of the old chimera of "native affairs" artificially separating Algerians into Berbers and hostile Arabs. The draft statutes of Algeria led Congress to decide on the issue by stating its refusal to accept a "shameful compromise of this kind".

Peyrefitte suggest a more developped Hersant plan, Hersant,a socialist deputy, promote the idea of a federalization of french algeria in order to avoid a bloodbath: the "myth" of independence ignores ethnic, demographic and economic problems. he suggests an arbitration, according to which "France and the nationalists must, for an indefinite period, measure themselves in two parallel and peaceful experiments. Geography and settlement give everyone the field of their experience. The nationalists will have to try theirs in an area where the Muslim population constitutes the overwhelming majority: this area is the Constantinois or the Autonomous Republic of Constantine grouping the 4,400,000 Muslims and 100,000 Europeans in the departments of Constantine, Bône, Batna Setif, and partly of Tizi Ouzou and Medea. The region of Tlemcen, or the Autonomous Territory of Tlemcen (department of Tlemcen and part of the district of Ain Temouchent), because of its specific character and its almost exclusively Muslim population, will have to benefit from a special status. In the Constantinois, France will let develop the experience of the nationalists. As for the province of Algiers-Oranais, because of the French settlement, which largely contributed to the development of these regions, it requires the promulgation of a definitive status of integration to the metropolis, and submit to the National Assembly a Ten-Year Plan tending in all areas, political, financial, cultural, economic, military, to make indestructible the links uniting the province of Algiers-Oran to France .