Immigration and National Identity: North African Political Movements in Colonial and Postcolonial France

Immigration is at the heart of social, cultural and political debate in France, a country still struggling to come to terms with its postcolonial legacy. In this volume, the author provides a re-examination of the assumptions about immigrants and ethnic and national identity through a study of the Maghrebis, especially their political mobilization from the colonial to the postcolonial period. Combining insights from the archive and interviews with political activists, he examines the diaspora's voice and their struggle against racism and oppression. Through a study of key political movements, he shows how they constructed a powerful and consistent political tradition and charts the development in France of the Algerian anti-colonial and nationalist movement, as well as new forms of political activism during the 1970s. This book foregrounds the migrants' perspective and the necessary historical background to the fraught contemporary context of immigrant communities in France.