Outline some of the key features of the way in which Camus depicts Franco-Algerian relations during the colonial period. To what extent do such visions of Algeria and Algerians continue to be reproduced in France today?

Abstract

Born and raised in colonized Algeria among the Algerian population but educated as a Frenchman by the French education system, Camus had always developed a specific vision of Algeria. Indeed, even if as a humanist he was against many excesses of French colonization, though he truly believed in French Algeria, the territory of his birth. However, he never saw the independence of Algeria, as he died in a car crash in 1960. Two years after his death, Algeria's independence was declared in the Evian Agreements. This event provoked an important change in the Franco-Algerian relations. Though some of Camus's visions have disappeared according to the evolution of the situation Forty-six years after the Evian Agreements, some of them can still be found in France today even though the actual debates are more about questions of memory and identity.