In a booklet, L’Algérie et la République, published in the summer of 1958, Raymond Aron, the distinguished writer and contributor to the conservative Le Figaro, pointed out that the annual cost of the war “is more or less equal to ten times the profits which would be derived from twenty million tons of crude petroleum,” and that “those who insist or suggest that Algerian autonomy would entail the loss of the petroleum for France are either ignorant or liars….” He predicted: “The best way for France to lose the Sahara oil is to want to keep it for herself.”

XREF: Connects to scholarship on the economics of empire showing colonies often cost more than they yield, an argument later expanded by decolonization theorists. QUESTION: Did Aron's contrarian prediction about Algeria prove accurate in later oil politics?

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 754