"I learned not to separate these creatures bursting with violent energy from the sky where their desires whirl," says Camus of his fellow pieds noirs. The sea and sun, these were factors that were all-conditioning, responsible for their best as well as their worst characteristics. In contrast to the Cartesian rationale in which the northern Gaul so prides himself, the meridional pied noir was first and foremost a creature of the senses. Everything was excess: excessive exuberance, excessive hospitality, excessive affection — and excessive hate.

XREF: Relates to Camus's Mediterranean thought and the binary between northern rationalism and southern sensuality that recurs in his essays.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 156