Marta Musso
1956 was a pivotal year in the entangled histories of North Africa and Europe. In June the negotiations for the establishment of the European Economic Community started in Brussels at the Château of Val- Duchesse, and they would continue until March the following year. In September the beginning of the outbreak of violence that went down in history as ‘the battle of Algiers’ marked the descent of the Algerian rebellion into open warfare. In October the nationalization of the Suez Canal Company by the most active African ruler, Egypt’s Gamal Abdel Nasser, and the ensuing crisis that lasted until March, showed all the weakness of former European empires in post- war foreign politics. These facts are well-
documented developments in the history of the twentieth century.1 Less
attention has been given, however, to another set of events that occurred in 1956 and that, at the time, was welcomed as a fundamental change for the economics and geopolitical position of Europe and Africa: the discovery of large reserves of hydrocarbons in the Sahara Desert.
The presence of hydrocarbons in northern Africa gave Europe, and especially France, a unique opportunity to develop a domestic oil industry. In fact, while the traditional production areas outside the Soviet bloc were a prerogative of a few large US companies (the so- called ‘Seven Sisters’), the discovery of hydrocarbons in the Sahara on the part of French companies opened the possibility for European operators to develop a new oil district, closer to Europe and perceived as more pro- tected than Middle East supplies. For France, this was not simply the occasion to boost its own domestic oil industry – the richest business of the post- war era – but to control a powerful geopolitical tool, and to
retain its influence in North Africa. At the same time, for Algeria’s Front de Libération Nationale (FLN), as for many newly independent govern- ments, oil became the symbol and the basis of economic independence, its
bargaining chip against the West and against France in particular.2 In this
narrative of oil as power, two opposite views of the world’s future alliance system unfolded. France tried to revive the idea of creating a Eurafrican space, an integrated system that would allow Europe to rise again as a global power thanks to energy independence. The Algerian fighters, on the contrary, promoted a nationalistic view of the oil industry against Eurafrica and against Europe, with the idea that oil would allow them to reverse the dependency pattern between Europe and Africa. In this complex political, military and economic scenario, oil companies played an intensively active role. Private and state- owned companies alike acted according to their own rules, interfering in the Algerian decolonization process through secret diplomacy, overt aid and mutual influences on the governments. Rather than promoting integration, the main effect of the hydrocarbon discoveries was to prolong the Algerian War and to aggra- vate the negotiations over the control of the Sahara, the one condition from which neither party was willing to give an inch.
This chapter aims to reconstruct the political and economic dis- course around the Saharan reserves, from the moment of their discovery up to the Évian Agreements. The contingent visions of the future out- lined during this period outline the importance of the oil industry in the Algerian decolonization process both on an ideological and a material level. The historiography of the Algerian War has generally focused on French and international politics, leaving non- state actors and the eco- nomic aspects of decolonization in the background. Given the fundamen- tal importance that Algeria had in contemporary French history, and the messy political and social fallout of the war in both France and Algeria, it is perhaps of little surprise that non- state actors have been marginal- ized. Furthermore, national, diplomatic and even military archives are generally open and offer a vast amount of information; business archives are often more difficult to access. Reconstructing the history of the strate- gies of non- state actors, especially private companies, presents particular challenges, therefore. Yet, as this chapter will show, the role of non- state business actors was paramount in the unfolding of the war. In general, international industry followed the decolonization process closely, as shifting sands promised profits for the prudent. The withdrawal of tra- ditional European control left open new territories in which to seize new economic opportunities; in effect, the Cold War could itself be read as a global competition to seize resources and new markets on the part of
two opposite systems of power.3 While Algeria is an exception in the his-
tory of decolonization, because of its stronger ties to the metropole, the history of the oil industry in the Sahara shows that France was willing to accept Algerian independence as long as the new status of the country would not endanger French access to its oil resources. This was believed to be France’s right not only because of its historical control over the terri- tory, but also because of the sustained investments by which it had sought to develop the Sahara. Controlling these resources altered the contingent vision with which France plotted out Algeria’s future. Maintaining this para- political entanglement became an important consideration for the French Republic. With that in mind, the difference between the political independence and the ‘actual’ independence of Algeria was very clear at the time, yet the latter was both much more elusive and much more dif- ficult for France to accept.