Yet of its total population of 900,000 only one-third was in fact European. In their different enclaves the two communities coexisted closely together — which, in time of peace, was to provide Algiers with its most fascinating contrasts, and, later, its most savagely bloody collisions.

XREF: Connects to colonial Algeria history and the broader French colonial enterprise in North Africa. SEED: The uneasy coexistence of European and native communities in Algiers — the 'fascinating contrasts' turning to 'bloody collisions' — could anchor an essay on how proximity breeds both cultural richness and violent fracture.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 141