Anti-Semitism, class resentment, and everyday violence in colonial Constantine under Vichy rule

On the eve of the Second World War, working-class Jews, Muslims, and Europeans in colonial Constantine shared the same social space and interacted with each other every day. The establishment of the Vichy regime in 1940, and the implementation in Algeria of Vichy’s anti-Semitic laws, disrupted these social dynamics and produced new social desires and anxieties. Some working-class Europeans hoped that soon they would no longer be forced to share the same social space with the ‘inferior’ Jews. Some working-class Muslims hoped that social privileges taken from the Jews would be granted to them. These expectations never materialised, as working-class Jews’ were still present and active in the city, and their stripped rights were never reallocated to Muslims. The disparity between social expectations and realities, this article shows, contributed to inter-communal violence. Dozens of violent confrontations between Jews and Europeans and between Jews and Muslims took place in streets, cafés, stores, and markets. These confrontations developed from mundane social disagreements. But as they unfolded, all parties involved used racial categories to identify and vilify members of the opposite group. As a result, in the aftermath of the war, ethno-class resentments in Constantine intensified and communal boundaries hardened.