"Que sommes-nous, nous autres?" : writing the belonging of the urban poor white in the literature of the French Algerian settler community

The present study seeks to contribute to contemporary understandings of settler identity by foregrounding the influence of social class on attempts to write a sense of belonging, both in relation to the <i>petite-patrie</i> of Algeria and to the <i>mère-patrie</i> of metropolitan France. To this end, this thesis offers a synchronic analysis of the representation of the <i>petit-blanc</i> as part of a diachronic analysis of the various paradigm shifts within French Algerian narratives of belonging.

Although a wide corpus of settler literature is discussed, ranging from the 1890s to the 2000s, I focus primarily on the work of Musette, Paul Achard, Albert Camus, Emmanuel Roblès, Micheline Susini, and Michèle Villanueva. Each of the three chapters offers a dialogic reading, counterpointing two French Algerian authors who, although displaying inevitable differences from each other, can be connected according to crucial literary and/or biographical elements.

A number of trends common to the representation of the <i>petit-blanc</i> are observed throughout the study. While the French Algerian settler population possessed French citizenship from the late nineteenth century, low socio-economic status is shown to problematize the relationship of settlers with the <i>patrie</i> of metropolitan France. Furthermore, it is argued that the mannerisms, modes of speech and cultural practices of the <i>petit-blanc</i> are essential to the representation of a settler identity which is distinct from the metropolitan French, and are thus mobilised to provide a sense of belonging in the colony of Algeria.

Finally, the female settler is shown to occupy a marginalised position in the often-androcentric representations of the emergence of a <i>petit-blanc</i> identity in colonial Algeria. In conclusion, it is proposed that the poor white settler inhabits a hybrid condition, possessing an ambivalent sense of belonging/non-belonging to both France and Algeria.