Then Soustelle introduced a new concept: "This means that a choice has been made, and this choice is called 'integration'. It is to make Algeria each day more completely a province, different from the others, certainly, but fully French." Elaborating, later, on the difference between his new policy of "integration" and the old Blum—Viollette ideal of "assimilation", Soustelle explained that it was much the more "realist"; that it recognised the original "personality" of Algeria; that, in economic terms, it aimed at sweeping away "obsolete legacies of an imaginary autonomy affording Algeria no other privilege than that of her misery"; and that, in political terms, it was to be based upon the "immutable equality of all its inhabitants".

DEFINE: Distinguishes Soustelle's 'integration' from the older 'assimilation' ideal — a key conceptual distinction in Algerian colonial history.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 343