> A legacy of Algeria's bloody War of Independence from France (where an estimated 1.5 million Algerians were killed) is a powerful military and security apparatus that put a high value on secrecy.
The French empire just tends to be one of the worst [1][2][3][4] with a sprinkle of modern state sponsored terrorism [5] for good measure. You can take solace that they're in good company in continental Europe, I guess?
There are no saints here, but to act like France isn't completely responsible for it's empire building is obscene.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_indemnity_controversy - crippled Haiti economically in revenge for independence for over a century. Still hasn't recovered.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bamileke_War - fought against Cameroon's independence
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malagasy_Uprising - found against Madagascar's independence, massacring much of the managerial class that ran the country, crippling it
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Indochina_War - Bloody fight against independence all of their Asian colonies resulting in hundreds of thousands dead, leading to the rise of communism in Vietnam and the subsequent wars in Indochina.
[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinking_of_the_Rainbow_Warrior - French intelligence agents bombed a Greenpeace boat in New Zealand in 1985
It wasn't in revenge, it was purely economic cold blooded compensation. Haiti was unrecognised by the world (some like the US were afraid of their own slaves getting ideas, others didn't want to offend France), and France was willing to do that if compensated monetarily for the loss of property (including slaves). Had Haiti not taken the deal, it probably would have spent a few more decades fully isolated and unable to trade, which is unlikely to have improved their situation.
> French intelligence agents bombed a Greenpeace boat in New Zealand in 1985
It's funny how crazy that sounds on the surface, but is totally true. With the benefit of hindsight personally I can say that Greenpeace have been a force for bad more than good (their, and many others like them, short sighted and frankly stupid anti-nuclear stance has set humanity many decades back in the carbon reduction game, and we're all paying for it; what's even more annoying is that they never changed their stance, even when it meant increasing coal or gas usage, and related very problematic dependencies on Russia), so while they didn't deserve getting their ship bombed, they don't deserve to be underlined as some sort of holy thing that nobody could ever imagine someone doing bad things to.
> Bloody fight against independence all of their Asian colonies resulting in hundreds of thousands dead, leading to the rise of communism in Vietnam and the subsequent wars in Indochina.
Communism was already on the rise against the Japanese, can't attribute that mostly to the French. But yep, they made the situation worse and set the stage for the American intervention which made everything even worse.
People aren't trying to shift blame from the imperial aggressor so much as recognizing that imperial aggressors aren't exclusively foreign entities.
On individual scales, this can last years, or lifetimes. On nation scales, decades pushing on centuries doesn’t seem unfair.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiti_indemnity_controversy
Allies helped everybody rebuild, including Germany.
The Allies helped France rebuild after their occupier - Germany - was defeated _by the Allies_. France's colonies, however, did not receive the same courtesy when their occupier - France - had to be violently forced from the colonies.
The independent nations were, more often than not, left ruling over ashes.
That's just wishful hand waving away a problematic period of French history. The Vichy government is a direct successor to the previous government, with Pétain replacing Reynaud as Prime Minister following all procedures, and was elected specifically to sign an armistice with Germany. From there they went on suspending thr constitution and civil liberties, and being in most, but not all (most notably military, the French navy, air force and army didn't help the Germans in any way and ended up being sabotaged before falling in German hands) respects a puppet of Germany. But they got to that position as a direct continuation of the previous Third Republic governments.
As for most of its former colonies, France kept meddling to keep a foot in the country and sustain economic ties, and this often goes through making sure a French friendly gov is in place. We've seen former colonies get into a lot turmoil as their gov gets cosy with the US for instance, and start to severly reduce French influence.
In Algeria during the civil war, French support happened to go to the pro-French gov. In Madagascar for instance it went to against the established gov that was pro-US.
One thing is for sure, French occupation was very bad for the natives. There was a de facto segregation enforced. The French Algerians hoarded the riches (by possessing mist of the land), and Native Algerians didn't have voting rights or political power.
Often used was the justification by so-called "advances" that colons had brought. But the truth is most of the infrastructure built only benefited French Algerians, and despite claims of bringing "civilization", education and alphabetization rates in Algeria were extremely low.
Also regardless of the occupation, the extremely gruesome war hurt the country's economy deeply and traumatized all parties involved
Source: a documentary i viewed a while ago on the Algerian war, I can find the reference if someone wants it (In French)
It seems to me in every world, it’s the selected group of powerful people mostly exerting their influence through money.
https://news.gallup.com/poll/162362/americans-down-congress-...
If anything, the U.S. military's budget having to plop production in every Congressional district speaks to who needs whom to get that money.
Citation very much needed. European parliament that votes on laws is directly elected; European commissioners that propose laws and have somewhat executive authority are indirectly elected (proposed by national governments, which are elected, and confirmed by the European parliament).
The Inca? The Maya? The Navajo call the Ancestral Pueblo the Anasazi for a reason [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancestral_Puebloans#Etymology