French Algeria

French Algeria was the period in which Algeria was ruled as part of France, from the invasion of 1830 to independence in 1962. The French army took Algiers in July 1830, and although the conquest was initially meant to be limited, resistance under Abd al-Qadir and later uprisings drew France into decades of warfare. By 1848 the occupied north was organised into three French departments, and Algeria was formally treated as part of France rather than as a colony. European settlers, known as colons or pieds-noirs, took land and dominated the coastal cities, while the Muslim majority remained excluded from full citizenship. The conquest of the interior was completed only in the early twentieth century. After the Second World War the failure to grant equal rights, and the violent repression of the Sétif and Guelma demonstrations of 1945, fed the independence movement. The FLN launched its war in 1954, and the Évian Accords of 1962 ended French rule; most European settlers left.