The media ping-pong match, in which Éric Zemmour, Samia Ghali and a few others on their claimed Berber origins, brought the Amazigh or “Berber” question to the forefront of the French public scene.
This fact illustrates the singular ignorance of our elites about North Africa and the diaspora in Europe that resulted from it.
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Before the French colonization of Algeria, North Africa was designated in France according to two expressions: Barbary (which gave the eponymous "fig tree"), and the Barbary regencies.
But since in 1832 the Muslim leader Abdelkader raised the flag of jihad against the “infidel” invader, the French army has erected him as “leader of the Arabs”: the inhabitants of Algeria have then become “Arabs”. " for the French people.
This “Arab” identity assignment of a people then in majority Berber speaking, accelerated under the blow of the creation of the Arab offices (1834), then of the policy of the Arab Kingdom (1860).
A handful of officers ...
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