France's North African Crisis, 1945–1955: Cold War and Colonial Imperatives

The collapse of Europe's colonial empires after 1945 is not easily assimilated into the grand strategies of the cold war. Nevertheless, decolonization and east–west conflict were closely linked. This was certainly the case in the three territories of French North Africa – Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia – each of which emerged from the Second World War under continuing French imperial rule. Ten years later a vicious colonial war had erupted in Algeria, while in neighbouring Morocco and Tunisia the strength of popular nationalism precipitated French withdrawal from both countries in 1956. This article highlights some of the links between France's actions in post-war North Africa, its changing strategic priorities in Europe, and French ambivalence about creeping American influence along the southern Mediterranean littoral. Although the determinants of French colonial policy are not reducible to any single cause, the developing crisis in French North Africa in the decade after 1945 is better understood when placed in the context of the developing cold war.