French Algeria

French Algeria, also known as Colonial Algeria, was a colony and later an integral part of France. French rule lasted from the beginning of the French conquest in 1830 until the end of the Algerian War which resulted in Algeria gaining independence on 5 July 1962.

The French conquest of Algeria began in 1830 with the invasion of Algiers which toppled the Regency of Algiers, though Algeria was not fully conquered and pacified until 1903. It is estimated that by 1875, approximately 825,000 Algerians had been killed. Various scholars describe the French conquest as genocide. Algeria was ruled as a colony from 1830 to 1848, and then as multiple departments of France after the implementation of the 1848 French Constitution, a situation that lasted until Algerian independence in 1962. After a trip to Algiers in 1860, the French emperor Napoleon III became keen on establishing a client kingdom there which he would in rule in a personal union, expanding freedoms for the indigenous population and limiting colonisation. This project was futile, however, and the newly-established Third French Republic scrapped any plans for Algerian regional autonomy, even seeking to strengthen its hold by granting citizenship to Algeria's native Jewish population and propagating the Kabyle myth in what has been described as examples of divide and rule.