As a summing up on how Algerians viewed the material benefits bestowed on them by France in 1944, the words of Messali Hadj strike a relevant note: “The achievement of France is self-evident. It leaps to the eyes, and it would be unjust to deny it; but if the French have done a lot, they did it for themselves.” Or, phrased perhaps even more succinctly by a Frenchman, Robert Aron: “France did much for Algeria, too little for the Algerians.”

SEED: The distinction between developing a territory vs. developing its people is a useful lens for contemporary foreign aid and colonial/neocolonial critique essays.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 189