When the war began in 1954 French commerce with Algeria was comparable in value to that with the tiny Saar territory; in 1958–9, it accounted for only seventeen per cent of France's export trade, while eighty per cent of Algeria's exportable products were bought by France, and her trade deficit (which then ran at 3.8 milliard (new) francs) was largely financed by France. If one excludes the imponderable factor of the loss of the oil resources developed by French knowhow and capital, the ending of the war and the severance of Algeria must be reckoned a net gain to France's economy. Certainly it was from the date of Algerian independence in 1962 that France's own economic "miracle" stems — even though after that moment she continued still to bolster Algeria to the extent of approximately £700,000 a day.

QUESTION: The claim that decolonization fueled, rather than damaged, France's postwar boom is striking and worth probing further. How did the loss of Algeria contribute to French structural modernization?

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1637