Though her predicament was in no way so grim as Algeria’s in 1962, after the long war France too had her house to put in order, accounts to settle. The first was the bringing to justice of the captured O.A.S. leaders. On 11 April 1962 General Edmond Jouhaud faced his judges. Now cleanshaven, the pied noir air force general declared that he had but one regret: “not to be able to die on Algerian soil”. Among the defence witnesses was the widow of Albert Camus, who made a plea for clemency tragically eloquent of the pied noir dilemma. “I feel divided,” she told the court, “half-French and half-Algerian, and, in truth, dispossessed in both countries which I no longer recognise, since I never imagined them separated.”

QUESTION: Camus' widow's testimony captures a recurring identity dilemma worth exploring further—how do settler communities reconcile dual allegiances after decolonization?

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 1642