Lethal provocation : the Constantine murders and the politics of French Algeria

This book explores the history of an anti-Jewish riot in 1934 in t Constantine, French Algeria, in which 25 Jews and 3 Muslims died. Understood at the time as the result of long-standing tensions between Muslims and Jews in North Africa, the riot was closely related to contemporary debates about reforming the colonial regime in Algeria. These debates divided the population and their political representatives, leaving Constantine vulnerable to acts of provocation by French nationalist extremists who appear to have been responsible for the majority of the murders. Although the police and some local officials were aware of these acts of provocation, the story was successfully covered up in the subsequent trials and in the official reports. The book sets these events in a broad chronological context, considering the ways that the history of colonialism in Algeria recast the relationship between Muslims, Jews, and Europeans in North Africa.

Part murder mystery, part social history of political violence, Lethal Provocation is a forensic examination of the deadliest peacetime episode of anti-Jewish violence in modern French history. Joshua Cole reconstructs the 1934 riots in Constantine, Algeria, in which tensions between Muslims and Jews were aggravated by right-wing extremists, resulting in the deaths of twenty-eight people.

Animating the unrest was Mohamed El Maadi, a soldier in the French army. Later a member of a notorious French nationalist group that threatened insurrection in the late 1930s, El Maadi became an enthusiastic supporter of France's Vichy regime in World War II, and finished his career in the German SS. Cole cracks the "cold case" of El Maadi's participation in the events, revealing both his presence at the scene and his motives in provoking violence at a moment when the French government was debating the rights of Muslims in Algeria. Local police and authorities came to know about the role of provocation in the unrest and killings and purposely hid the truth during the investigation that followed. Cole's sensitive history brings into high relief the cruelty of social relations in the decades before the war for Algerian independence.

This text explores the history of an anti-Jewish riot in 1934 in Constantine, French Algeria, in which 25 Jews & 3 Muslims died. Understood at the time as the result of long-standing tensions between Muslims & Jews in North Africa, the riot was closely related to contemporary debates about reforming the colonial regime in Algeria. These debates divided the population & and their political representatives, leaving Constantine vulnerable to acts of provocation by French nationalist extremists who appear to have been responsible for the majority of the murders. Although the police & some local officials were aware of these acts of provocation, the story was successfully covered up in the subsequent trials & in the official reports. This text sets these events in a broad chronological context "Explores the most lethal episode of anti-Jewish violence to happen on French territory in peacetime in the twentieth century, a riot in Constantine, Algeria in 1934 in which 28 people died"-- Provided by publisher