Reporting on 1962: the Evolution of pied-noir Identity across 50 Years of Print Media

This article offers a longitudinal review of print media representations of the European population in Algeria, from the final months of the Algerian war to commemorative coverage of the 50th anniversary in 2012. It traces the evolution of the metropole's relatively hostile view of the Francais d'Algerie as a ‘foreign’ people to the depiction of an integrated group whose voice has become incorporated within official memory. With reference to the anniversary coverage of 2012, it argues that while the pied-noir lobby was partially successful in persuading the media to adopt aspects of their historical narrative, the socio-political context of the ‘guerre de memoires’ produced challenges to that narrative, with the relativisation of the pied-noir experience as one aspect of a broader memorial mosaic of the war.