Tricot found a new threat to the European community in the form of economic competition; which, no doubt unintentionally and with the best of motives, French aid schemes bracketed under the Constantine Plan may have played their part in fomenting. As an example of what was happening, Tricot recalls being struck by the fate of two old French spinsters in the rural centre of Lafayette (in Kabylia) whose small general store had long held a monopoly; now Muslims had set up an identical one (probably financed by French Constantine Plan funds), which was solidly patronised by other Muslims, leaving the two old ladies deprived of custom and confronted with bankruptcy.

XREF: Connects to broader analysis of how well-intentioned colonial development programs created unintended consequences that destabilized the settler-Colonial order they aimed to protect.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1454