top and bottom of the economic scale, the span was even wider. On the whole, earnings were lower than in France; perhaps as many as eighty per cent of the pieds noirs were merchants or salaried employees, and among them a father of three might earn less than half that of his metropolitan opposite number (on the other hand, it would buy benefits inaccessible to the latter, such as the cheap domestic services of an Algerian fatma ). Yet the prosperity gap between very rich and very poor in France was less than that between the handful of most affluent grands colons of Algeria and the petit blanc ; while between the latter and his Muslim competitor, the differential was, in contrast, extremely slender.
Who in fact were the grands colons , the men of power, in Algeria by 1954? Three names, Borgeaud, Schiaffino, Blachette, were the big entrepreneurs of Algeria, between them controlling the greater part of the economy, and, pari passu , wielding immense political power. Top of the list was Henri Borgeaud, a Swiss by origin (two generations back), a big man in his mid-fifties who looked like a jolly farmer from the Auvergne and who was proud to proclaim himself a pioneer of the soil. Centre of the Borgeaud empire was the magnificent mansion of La Trappe at Staouéli, close to Algiers, which had passed to the Borgeaud family after its founders, the Trappist monks who gave it its name, were dispossessed during France’s secular “war” in 1905. La Trappe embraced 1,000 hectares of the best land in Algeria, producing regularly four million litres of wine per annum. But if wine was the chief source of the Borgeauds’ fortunes, it was only one of many interests; they were major food producers, and owned Bastos cigarettes (the Gauloises of Algeria); while the name of Henri Borgeaud appeared on the boards of, inter alia , the Crédit Foncier d’Algérie et de Tunisie bank, the granary Moulins du Chélif, the transportation Cargos Algériens, the Lafarge cement works, the Distillerie d’Algérie, the cork industry, the timber industry, etc., etc. Hence came the popular saying: “In Algeria, one drinks Borgeaud, smokes Borgeaud, eats Borgeaud, and banks or borrows Borgeaud.…” In addition he was senator for Algiers, and had powerful allies in the form of Comte Alain de Sérigny, the conservative owner of the Écho d’Alger , and, at the Palais-Bourbon, the deputy Réné Mayer who headed an influential pro- pieds noirs lobby. The archetype of a paternalist seigneur, he apparently enjoyed the affection of many of the Muslims among his 6,000 employees, who were (relatively speaking) both well-paid and well cared-for. But politically Borgeaud was a deep-dyed conservative. At the Evian peace negotiations in 1962, one of the F.L.N. leaders, Ben Tobbal, claimed to Favrod, the Swiss journalist: “Henri Borgeaud deserves the title of national hero. Without him and those like him, there would never have been a united Algeria.”
Then there was Laurent Schiaffino, who controlled probably the biggest fortune in Algeria, including most of its shipping. Although a third-generation Neapolitan, Schiaffino revealed few of the extrovert characteristics one might have expected; with a greyish complexion, he was a cold and retiring personality with a meticulous knowledge of the marine world, but seldom seen outside family or business circles. He too was a senator for Algiers, and owner of the Dépêche Algérienne , which held a reputation principally for being “anti”, that is to say, “anti” any measure of liberalisation. (Yet, after 1962, because of the efficiency and indispensability of his marine fleet, he was the only one of the grands colons to be invited to stay on by the new Algerian republic.) Third among the triumvirate of pieds noirs tycoons was Georges Blachette, whose family, originating from the Midi, were among the earliest pioneers of Algeria. A small, rotund figure with a delicate stomach and said to live on Evian water,
Who in fact were the grands colons , the men of power, in Algeria by 1954? Three names, Borgeaud, Schiaffino, Blachette, were the big entrepreneurs of Algeria, between them controlling the greater part of the economy, and, pari passu , wielding immense political power. Top of the list was Henri Borgeaud, a Swiss by origin (two generations back), a big man in his mid-fifties who looked like a jolly farmer from the Auvergne and who was proud to proclaim himself a pioneer of the soil. Centre of the Borgeaud empire was the magnificent mansion of La Trappe at Staouéli, close to Algiers, which had passed to the Borgeaud family after its founders, the Trappist monks who gave it its name, were dispossessed during France’s secular “war” in 1905. La Trappe embraced 1,000 hectares of the best land in Algeria, producing regularly four million litres of wine per annum. But if wine was the chief source of the Borgeauds’ fortunes, it was only one of many interests; they were major food producers, and owned Bastos cigarettes (the Gauloises of Algeria); while the name of Henri Borgeaud appeared on the boards of, inter alia , the Crédit Foncier d’Algérie et de Tunisie bank, the granary Moulins du Chélif, the transportation Cargos Algériens, the Lafarge cement works, the Distillerie d’Algérie, the cork industry, the timber industry, etc., etc. Hence came the popular saying: “In Algeria, one drinks Borgeaud, smokes Borgeaud, eats Borgeaud, and banks or borrows Borgeaud.…” In addition he was senator for Algiers, and had powerful allies in the form of Comte Alain de Sérigny, the conservative owner of the Écho d’Alger , and, at the Palais-Bourbon, the deputy Réné Mayer who headed an influential pro- pieds noirs lobby. The archetype of a paternalist seigneur, he apparently enjoyed the affection of many of the Muslims among his 6,000 employees, who were (relatively speaking) both well-paid and well cared-for. But politically Borgeaud was a deep-dyed conservative. At the Evian peace negotiations in 1962, one of the F.L.N. leaders, Ben Tobbal, claimed to Favrod, the Swiss journalist: “Henri Borgeaud deserves the title of national hero. Without him and those like him, there would never have been a united Algeria.”
Then there was Laurent Schiaffino, who controlled probably the biggest fortune in Algeria, including most of its shipping. Although a third-generation Neapolitan, Schiaffino revealed few of the extrovert characteristics one might have expected; with a greyish complexion, he was a cold and retiring personality with a meticulous knowledge of the marine world, but seldom seen outside family or business circles. He too was a senator for Algiers, and owner of the Dépêche Algérienne , which held a reputation principally for being “anti”, that is to say, “anti” any measure of liberalisation. (Yet, after 1962, because of the efficiency and indispensability of his marine fleet, he was the only one of the grands colons to be invited to stay on by the new Algerian republic.) Third among the triumvirate of pieds noirs tycoons was Georges Blachette, whose family, originating from the Midi, were among the earliest pioneers of Algeria. A small, rotund figure with a delicate stomach and said to live on Evian water,
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