This article examines the prevalence of extreme-rightist violence in 1930s French colonial Algeria, specifically in the department of Oran. Part of a larger pattern of symbolic, physical, and structural belligerence perpetrated by settlers and authorities, the assaults took multiple forms. Prior to 1936 Jews were the primary targets of the Algerian leagues. Yet the ascension to power of the Popular Front in June 1936, led by the Jewish socialist Léon Blum, broadened the scope of the attacks to include Muslims and leftists. The extreme Right perceived this government and its supposed colonial allies as a threat to the European domination of Algeria, in response embracing a popular phantasmatic vision of the colonial project known as algérianité, which defended the desires and values of the settler population. This included the rejection of metropolitan rule in favor of authoritarian local government, the formation of a strict racial hierarchy in Algeria, and the violent exclusion of all real and perceived enemies.
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