Algeria had suffered harshly from two years of crop failures, on top of severe hardships imposed by wartime shortages. Emergency rations normally stocked against the eventuality of famine had been depleted by the Vichy French for the benefit of Festung Europa; the black market had thrived, but was beyond the means of most Algerian peasants. Revisiting his native land that year, Albert Camus was horrified to find Kabyle children fighting with dogs for the contents of a rubbish bin. Although relatively rich compared with Kabylia, the countryside round Sétif had received no rain since January — and resentments had been fanned by the prosperous harvest reaped by the foreign-owned Compagnie Genevoise, which held nearly 15,000 hectares of the best farmlands.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 69