Malnutrition induces lethargy at work, which doubtless could to a large extent explain the commonly held pied noir notion that the Algerian worker was, by nature, indolent and idle.

XREF: Connects to broader colonial-era misattributions of character flaws to material conditions, and to histories of how colonizers naturalized economic exploitation.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 185