When the FLN executed its “sisters”: The Algerian War, summary justice, and fratricidal violence against women in France from 1954 to 1962

Résumé 0

Many historians have studied the Algerian women who were condemned to death by French courts during the Algerian War of Independence, but few if any have acknowledged the many Algerian and French women who were condemned and executed by the National Liberation Front (FLN) in France as they succumbed to the bloody fratricidal divisions within the Algerian population during decolonization. An exhaustive investigation of the archival dossiers of the French regional judicial police that investigated civil crimes reveals important facts and figures about the deaths of these women. This article examines the Algerian War as a fratricidal and civil conflict that unfolded in mainland France as well as the FLN’s summary judicial methods, which were ruthless towards women. The FLN relied on a centralized set of internal directives and regulations, and their execution by party shock troops. The party’s methods of justice were applied with extra severity against Algerian women who were suspected of being informants for the police, of having friendly relations with Europeans, or of being affiliated with its rival group, the MNA (The National Algerian Movement). Although the FLN identified both men and women as internal enemies, its female victims often suffered added violence in the form of rape. Finally, this article shows how the fight for independence unfolded in a gray zone in France, shifting often between violence in war and gender-based violence, between political assassination and common law crimes, between militant activities and private life, summary executions and extraordinary justice, political repression and control over women, and finally revolution and conservatism.