Chapter 2

      Medical Pacification and the Sections Administratives Spécialisées

      On 31 October 1954, nine “historic leaders,” Mourad Didouche, Hocine Aït Ahmed, Mohamed Boudiaf, Mohamed Larbi Ben M’hidi, Ahmed Ben Bella, Mustapha Ben Boulaïd, Mohamed Khider, Rabah Bitat, Belkacem Krim, bound by their belief that independence was only possible through armed struggle and revolution, drafted the Proclamation of the National Liberation Front. This document, released in conjunction with the coordinated attacks of 1 November 1954 the next day, announced the beginning of the Algerian war for national liberation.

      The proclamation, addressed to the Algerian people, emphasized that “after decades of struggle, the nationalist movement had reached its final phase…. Our action is solely directed against colonialism, a stubborn and blind enemy who has always refused to grant the slightest liberty by peaceful means. Those are,” its authors believed, “sufficient reasons why our movement comes under the label of the National Liberation Front … offering the opportunity for all Algerian patriots from all social classes … to integrate themselves into the liberation struggle without any other consideration.” The FLN’s primary goal, as defined by the proclamation, was national independence by restoring “the sovereign, democratic, and social state of Algeria within the framework of Islamic principles” and by respecting “fundamental freedoms for all.”¹

      The nationalist leaders carefully outlined internal and external objectives that guided their activities through 1962 and that they believed would secure Algerian sovereignty. Domestically, they aimed to restore the national revolutionary movement to its true place by “ridding it of all vestiges of corruption and reformism” and to “gather and organize all the sound energy of the Algerian people to liquidate the colonial system.” The proclamation specified three external goals: internationalizing the Algerian problem, solidifying North African unity within an Arab Muslim context, and relying upon the United Nations Charter to demonstrate and attract solidarity for the principles articulated within it.² This sophisticated and multidimensional FLN platform was the result of decades of political activity and reflected an engagement with contemporary trends such as Pan-Arabism and human rights, broadly defined, in the post–World War II era. Moreover, the platform reflected the central tenets of what Algerian nationalists thought would prove their sovereignty to the Algerian people, French colonial officials, and world leaders.

      Despite the FLN’s announcement, the French government of Pierre Mendès-France neither recognized nor acknowledged a war was under way. Just a few weeks earlier, in October 1954, François Mitterand, minister of the interior, had traveled throughout Algeria and concluded in a report to French premier Mendès-France that “the climate is getting worse over there,” and he “recognized the urgent need … to integrate more Algerians into the colonial administration.”³ These cautionary words could not have been more true.

      The French administration was not prepared for the long-term political divisions and struggles that would follow between moderates and ultraconservatives who ardently believed in Algérie française and were prepared to take any necessary steps to ensure its survival. For Mendès-France, who advocated a reformist agenda, navigating these factions immediately became a problem after 1 November. At the 12 November National Assembly meeting, he declared his unequivocal support that “the Algerian departments are part of the French Republic. They have been French for a long time, and they are irrevocably French…. Between them and metropolitan France there can be no conceivable secession.”⁴ For the remaining three months that Mendès-France’s government was in power, he grappled with accommodating various viewpoints and trying to find a peaceful solution similar to French policies in Morocco and Tunisia.⁵

      One of Mendès-France’s most significant appointments during this period, before his government crumbled and that of Edgar Faure replaced it, was naming Jacques Soustelle as governor-general of Algeria in January 1955.⁶ Soustelle had long been active in French politics, dating back to World War II, when he joined Charles de Gaulle’s Free French Resistance movement. The two men remained close, and Soustelle served as secretary-general from 1947 to 1951 in de Gaulle’s Rassemblement du Peuple Français (RPF) party and he would later prove instrumental in orchestrating de Gaulle’s return to power in May 1958. Mendès-France anticipated that in addition to Soustelle’s World War II credentials his considerable political experience and acumen would serve to quiet opponents concerned that Algeria would be a third humiliating military loss in recent memory. French military defeats in 1940 when the Vichy government came to power in France and in 1954 at Dien Bien Phu in Indochina weighed heavily on the national consciousness, and military officials could not imagine suffering another defeat in Algeria.⁷

      Soustelle had a reputation for being liberal and many hoped he would help reshape the contentious politics of the moment in Algeria.⁸ He had publicly advocated for Algeria’s integration with France and in the months leading up to his confirmation as governor-general, he wrote several articles that described “his ideas for a French Federation, in which Algeria would find its place.”⁹ Soustelle knew the settler lobby in Algeria distrusted him but that did not “detract him from accelerating reform that would win over the Muslim majority.”¹⁰ He traveled through Algeria on his first official visit in the winter of 1955 and witnessed the abject poverty and poor conditions in which many Algerians lived. His trip revealed the state’s failure to penetrate the territory after 120 years of colonial rule, but he also learned that the recently formed FLN had not gained the people’s support. With this picture in mind, he went on to develop the Special Administrative Sections (Sections Administratives Spécialisées, SAS), “precisely with the goal of elevating the quality of life of the [Algerian] population” and showing it an alternative for the future.¹¹

      The Special Administrative Sections were conceived broadly as a program that would facilitate political rapprochement between the Algerian population and the colonial state. They targeted a variety of areas that would improve the Algerian people’s daily life and relieve dire economic conditions in which many lived. The SAS built roads and bridges and conducted censuses in order to better understand the welfare needs of different communities. They repaired schools and enrolled young boys and girls in primary classes. SAS teams also constructed houses for displaced families, oversaw local elections, and built work camps for unemployed men.¹² These programs went a long way toward pacifying the population and disincentivizing Algerians from joining the FLN.¹³

      Medical outreach was a central component of the SAS program; it offered a dramatically different view of the French and their violent military campaigns. Teams of physicians, nurses, and assistants visited rural areas and provided free care, taught hygiene classes for women, and offered vaccinations. In some cases, their visits were the first time state services penetrated the interior, and the administration devoted serious attention toward remedying this neglect through peaceful pacifiers, instructed to conquer with medicine rather than bullets.¹⁴ To be sure, SAS health-care programs and French military counterinsurgency operations shared a common end goal. However, the humane approach to Algerians’ health and well-being transformed the way some Algerians perceived the colonial state.

      These programs were not an original idea about how to manage North Africans. The initiative closely resembled the Bureaux Arabes in nineteenth-century Algeria and the Service des Affaires Indigènes in early colonial Morocco.¹⁵ Furthermore, the colonial authorities in Algeria made efforts between 1904 and 1960 to train auxiliaires médicaux who were responsible for providing medical treatment and hygienic instruction exclusively to Muslims. This small group of Muslim men who totaled fewer than three hundred worked under médecins de colonisation and helped administer rural life in the first half of the twentieth century.¹⁶ What makes the SAS noteworthy is