3 millions d’années avant J.-C. à 7 500 avant J.-C.
Prehistory
Algeria is home to one of the earliest cradles of mankind. In 2018, the Aïn Boucherit site revealed Algeria's oldest carved stone tools, dated between 1.9 and 2.4 million years ago.
The oldest North African human fossils known to date were discovered at the Tighennif site, an ancient prehistoric lake near Mascara. These bones led to the definition of Atlanthrope (Atlas Man), a hunter-gatherer who disappeared around 250,000 BC.
XIIe siècle avant J.-C.
Antiquity - Phoenician trading posts
Around the 12th century BC, the Phoenicians set out to expand their trading network. They founded Carthage (from Qart Hadast, "new city") in 814, then settled on the North African coast, establishing a series of trading posts, particularly in Algeria: Hippone, Skikda, Collo, Jijel, Bejaïa, Algiers, Tipaza, Cherchell... These played a crucial role not only in Mediterranean trade, but also in the development of populations and the spread of Carthaginian culture.
IVe siècle avant J.-C.
The emergence of Numidia
Berber peoples had organized and structured societies long before the arrival of the Phoenicians. As early as the5th century B.C., aguellids (kings) took power to lead the great confederations. Among the Berber peoples, the Numidians were at the origin of a quasi-state organization. Two dynasties emerged in the 3rd century BC: the Massæsyles and the Massyles.
IIIe et IIe siècles avant J.-C.
Roman domination
In the 3rd century BC, the Romans sought to gain control of the Mediterranean by establishing themselves on the North African coast. They came up against the Phoenicians: after a hundred years of tension and three Punic wars, which ended in 146 BC with the fall of Carthage, they created the first province of Africa.
In 105 BC, Numidia, which had been unified under the reigns of Massinissa and then Jugurtha, was once again divided: the western part came under Mauretanian rule and the eastern part was left under Roman control, becoming the province of Africa Nova.
The African provinces were unified in 27 BC under the name of Proconsular Africa. The first Roman emperors sought to control the territory through a vast urbanization policy. Agriculture was developed, ensuring Rome's near-monopoly of wheat and oil resources by the end of the 2nd century. The colonization of the province was nevertheless accompanied by revolts, the most important of which flourished in the 1st century AD.
313 à 647
Vandal, Byzantine and Arab invasions
In 313, Emperor Constantine established the Catholic religion in the Roman Empire, but a schism among the Christians of Roman Africa led to a period of turmoil that weakened the region.
After the sacking of Rome by the Visigoths in 410, the Vandals, led by Genseric, set off for North Africa via Spain. They took Hippo (Annaba) in 430 and made it their first capital. In 439, they invaded proconsular Africa and took Carthage. The Vandals remained in power for almost a century, until the Byzantines, led by Belisarius, head of the armies of the Eastern Emperor Justinian I, seized North Africa in 533. The new occupiers encountered the same Berber resistance as their predecessors. Weakened, they were unable to prevent the new Arab invasions that began in 647, or the advent of Islam.
647 à 705
The Islamization of Algeria
After the death of the Prophet Muhammad in Medina in 632, Abu Bakr, the first orthodox caliph, and then his successor Omar, organized the expansion of Islam. They conquered part of the Middle East and then attacked the Byzantine Empire, which dominated the Mediterranean. Othman won victories over the Byzantines and was persuaded to remain confined to the eastern Maghreb in 642. In 650, the Umayyad dynasty, based in Damascus, resumed its conquest of the region. After many years of conflict, the Berber queen Kahina was defeated in 701. Moussa Ibn Noçaïr, appointed first governor of Ifriqiya, continued the policy of Islamization.
750 à 972
The Rostemid Kingdom
The Rostémid kingdom, named after its founder Abderrahmane Ben Rostem, flourished from 750 onwards in central Maghreb, before being invaded by the Berber Kutama, who took the capital Tahert in 909 and founded the Fatimid caliphate.
In 972, after overcoming resistance from the Spanish Umayyads, the Fatimids reigned over North Africa for three centuries from Cairo. Muslim civilization reached its apogee, and the Berbers were definitively converted, even if pockets of Christianity remained.
Du XIe au XVIe siècle
The Berber dynasties
From the 11th to the 13th century, Berber dynasties followed one another: the Sanhadjas, made up of the Zirids and Hammadids, then the Almoravids and Almohads. Between the 13th and 16th centuries, the Maghreb was controlled by three political entities with fluctuating territories: the Hafsids in the east, the Zianids in the center and the Marinids in the west. The region enjoyed a certain economic and cultural prosperity, reinforced by the arrival of Moriscos, Spanish Muslims, and Jews, expelled from Spain after 1492.
XVIe siècle
Spanish occupation
At the end of the 15th century, the Spanish, who had succeeded in driving the Muslims out of their territory, pursued them to Africa. They began the conquest of Algerian ports, taking Mers El-Kebir in 1505, Oran in 1509 and Bejaïa in 1510, thanks to the disorganization of the Muslim forces. The Berber states were in crisis and fragmented into rival feudal systems; this context was favorable to the Iberian offensive.
Several coastal towns were taken by the Spanish, while others had to pay a heavy price. Algiers reached a compromise and surrendered the islets facing it, where a fortress called the Peñon was built.
1516 à 1521
The founding of the Regency of Algiers
Algiers lacked the resources to take on the Spanish army, and the inhabitants turned to the Barbarossa brothers, privateers who plied the Mediterranean to the aid of Muslim communities. In 1514, they landed at Jijel, from where they fought against the Christian Spaniards. After the capture of Algiers in 1516, Aroudj Barbarossa was proclaimed Sultan of Algiers and made the city the capital of his state. He conquered the entire hinterland and western Algeria before being defeated by the Spanish in 1518. He was succeeded by his brother Kheireddine Barbarossa. In 1519, he proposed to the Ottoman sultan Selim I that Algeria should become part of the Ottoman Empire, whose forces were the only ones capable of countering the Spanish invasion and enabling him to retain his territories around Algiers. Sultan Suleiman, son of Selim I, finally accepted Algeria's voluntary accession to his empire in 1521. The regency was then considered a "State of Empire", and Kheireddine Barbarossa was appointed beylerbey, or emir.
1521 à 1830
In the Ottoman Empire
Within the Ottoman Empire, the state of Algiers was under the sultan's obedience, but retained a degree of independence. Power was first assumed by beylerbey until 1587, then by pashas, aghas and deys.
Strengthened by its relative autonomy, the Regency of Algiers grew richer and more powerful. Algiers became a major port of war and led successful expeditions to the European coast. It quickly gained a reputation as an impregnable city, particularly after the expedition led by Charles V in 1541, which ended in disaster outside the city gates and gave the Ottoman Empire control of the Mediterranean against the Spanish Empire.
After emerging victorious from numerous conflicts between the 16th and 18th centuries, the Regency of Algiers went into decline at the beginning of the 19th century: the Napoleonic wars hampered trade, and it was now the foreign powers - the British and French fleets - that dominated the Mediterranean. At the same time, the Regency had to contend with uprisings by certain populations who wanted to put an end to the Regency.
1830 à 1834
The French conquest of Algeria
Following a diplomatic incident between a French consul and Hussein Dey, the dey of Algiers, the French king Charles X mounted an expedition in 1827 and set up the blockade of Algiers, which lasted 3 years. In June 1830, French troops landed in Algiers, with no official intention of colonization. The army advanced rapidly and, on July 5, 1830, after the battles of Staouéli, Chrafa and El-Biar, the dey capitulated.
On July 26, during the Trois Glorieuses in Paris that put an end to the reign of Charles X, Bône (Annaba) and Bougie (Bejaïa) submitted. The French government, reluctant to conquer Algeria, merely recommended liquidating the Turkish authority reigning over the country's 3 million inhabitants. With Paris still hesitating, military manpower was reduced, generals came and went, and the situation became confused. It remained so until 1833, when the status of Algeria was unclear, and was debated by the Chambers of Parliament, with "anti-colonists" and "colonists" opposing each other.
On July 22, 1834, a royal decree appointed Drouet d'Erlon as the first Governor General of the "French possessions in North Africa", responsible for organizing the occupation of the coastal strip alone, maintaining the best possible relations with the chiefs of the interior. The term Algeria did not appear in official texts until 1838.
1834 à 1848
Abdelkader's resistance
In November 1832, Abdelkader ibn Muhieddine (1808-1883), from a Sufi religious aristocratic family, was elected emir of the western tribes. After a year of punitive raids against the French, his territory covered the entire province of Oran. Two peace treaties were signed with the French in 1834 and 1837. His theocratic state had Tagdemt as its capital and extended as far south as Biskra and as far east as Kabylia. The Treaty of Tafna was broken in 1839, and fighting resumed. Abdelkader was cornered in 1847 by Marshal Bugeaud, Governor of French Algeria, who was responsible for the complete conquest of the territory, and surrendered on December 23.
1848 à 1857
The conquest of Kabylia
After the conquest of the former Regency of Algiers and the surrender of Abdelkader, the territory of Algeria was declared French territory by the French Constitution of 1848. Algeria was divided into three departments: Algiers, Oran and Constantine. However, the Kabylie region did not recognize French authority and continued to resist. Between 1849 and 1852, the French took Petite Kabylie. Grande Kabylie submitted in 1857, marking the end of Algerian resistance.
1860 à 1870
French colonization - under Napoleon III
On September 17, 1860, Napoleon III landed in Algeria. He had big plans for the country: he wanted to found an "Arab kingdom" under French protection. The emperor's arrival was the occasion for Algeria's development plans; major urban planning projects made it one of the first "modern" cities.
Napoleon III's policies were generally favorable to the natives, even if they were hampered by local resistance and colonist parliamentarians. From 1865, the Emperor granted civil and political rights to Algerians, whether Muslim or Jewish. Algerian Jews could apply for French naturalization, while Muslims had to renounce polygamy and divorce in order to become French citizens (only 371 did so between 1865 and 1875). Napoleon III also limited colonization to the coastal strip. His dream of a great Arab protectorate came to an end with his empire in 1870.
1870 à 1914
French colonization - The Third Republic
The Third Republic pursued a policy of assimilation, the opposite of what Napoleon III had dreamed of. The French and Muslim communities lived side by side, but did not mix.
The last major revolt took place in Algeria in 1871: 150,000 Kabyles rose up, but the uprising was severely repressed. At the beginning of the 20th century, the South was in the process of being "pacified". North Africa was soon completely under French rule.
1914 à 1945
The two world wars
Algerians took part in all the French army's major battles during the Great War. In all, 249,000 inhabitants of the three French departments of Algeria were mobilized by France, including 73,000 colonists and 176,000 natives.
The interwar period saw the emergence of various independence movements: in 1926, Ahmed Messali Hadj created the Étoile nord-africaine, which became the Mouvement national algérien (MNA) in 1954, and the Parti communiste algérien (PCA) was founded in 1936.
During the Second World War, the French army again recruited Algerians to fight against the Germans: 123,000 Muslims and 93,000 European settlers.
Operation Torch, the Allied landing in North Africa, took place on November 8, 1942. Algiers was taken by the Resistance, including Algerian Jews.
In February 1943, Ferhat Abbas and a number of other elected representatives published the Manifesto of the Algerian People, calling for a constitution in which "absolute equality between men, whatever their race or religion, will be proclaimed". In June of the same year, the Governor General approved the plan for Muslim representatives to participate in the Algerian government, initially, and for the creation of an Algerian state at the end of the conflict, but this was only a way of calming spirits.
8 mai 1945
The massacre of May 8, 1945
Algerian nationalist parties take advantage of a parade organized in the Constantine department to celebrate the end of the war to voice their demands. In Sétif, a young man is shot dead by a policeman during a demonstration, provoking riots and deadly actions, particularly in Petite Kabylie, Guelma and Kherrata, before the army intervenes.
Around 200 Europeans were killed by the insurgents. The number of indigenous victims is still a matter of debate: historians' estimates range from 5,000 to 30,000 dead. French repression was massive and violent. On February 27, 2005, France, through its ambassador in Algiers, spoke for the first time of its responsibility in this tragedy.
1945 à 1954
A time for demands
In 1946, Ferhat Abbas founded the Union Démocratique du Manifesto Algérien (UDMA), advocating Algerian independence.
A law passed on September 20, 1947 gave French nationality to all native Algerians. From then on, they enjoyed the same rights as French citizens.
On January 5, 1948, the PPA-MTLD, in association with the Tunisian Néo-Destour and the Moroccan Istiqlal, founded the Comité de libération du Maghreb arabe in Cairo. In April, elections to the Algerian Assembly resulted in a victory for the French administration, as in subsequent elections in 1951 and 1954.
1954 à 1962
The Algerian war
At midnight on November1, 1954, the Revolutionary Committee for Unity and Action (Comité Révolutionnaire pour l'Unité et l'Action - CRUA), the "Group of Six", took action, simultaneously organizing some 50 attacks in the Aurès and Greater Kabylia regions. This was the start of the "events". The urban and rural guerrilla warfare waged by the newly-formed National Liberation Front (FLN) prompted the French Parliament to declare a state of emergency on March 31, 1955.
In May, recalled reservists left for Algeria, soon to be joined by 500,000 conscripts, while Pierre Mendès France, President of the French Council, negotiated peace with Tunisia and Morocco, which would become independent in 1956. With France's general discourse remaining vague and undecided, trends in Algeria became more radical.
In September 1956, a wave of attacks targeted the European districts of Algiers, inaugurating the year-long "Battle of Algiers".
On Algerian soil, arrests and executions multiplied. In February 1958, the French army bombed a Tunisian village, the country serving as a rear base for the Armée de Libération Nationale (ALN). The destruction of a school and the death of its pupils outraged international opinion, which also discovered the use of torture and the guillotine, denounced by French intellectuals. The war continued to escalate on both sides.
The referendum of September 28 approved the Constitution of theFifth Republic, of which de Gaulle was the first president. He finally recognized the Algerians' right to self-determination on September 18, 1959.
On January 8, 1961, a referendum held in France and Algeria approved the principle of self-determination for Algeria. Algerian Europeans, the pieds-noirs, felt betrayed, and some turned to rebellion, supporting the newly-formed Secret Army Organization (OAS) created in February. Demonstrations, counter-demonstrations and settling of scores between rival factions on all sides heightened the social and political climate, very close to civil war.
Despite OAS instructions, the pieds-noirs began to leave en masse a land where many had always lived, often for several generations. Nearly a million of them left the country in the following months, under very difficult conditions.
In the referendum held in Algeria on July1, 1962, 99.7% of voters voted in favor of independence, which was proclaimed on July 3. Two days later, the anniversary of the landing of the first French troops near Algiers in 1830. The date was chosen to celebrate Algeria's national holiday. From July 4 onwards, Europeans and harkis (Algerians employed as auxiliaries in the French army), abandoned by the French army and authorities, are abducted and massacred.
1962 à 1966
Independence
In September 1962, Ferhat Abbas was appointed president (of the provisional government) of a ravaged country, where few were trained in management and where score-settling continued to be the rule; Ahmed Ben Bella was entrusted with forming the first Algerian government, whose policies were to be socialist in inspiration. Arabic became the national language, though not yet the official one, and Algeria joined the UN. The FLN became the sole party of a country designated as an Arab republic - although Berbers made up almost half the population - Islamic and socialist.
In 1963, Ben Bella was appointed Secretary General of the FLN's political bureau, whose leadership was collective. The first measures adopted, without much success, concerned centralization, nationalization and land reform. A referendum granted the new president broad powers, but he was deposed in 1965 in favor of Colonel Houari Boumédiène, backed by the army, which soon supplanted the FLN. The new president formed a 26-member Revolutionary Council, which he placed at the head of the state, and launched the country on a vast industrialization campaign, neglecting agriculture despite a few agrarian reforms. Algeria soon became dependent on imported foodstuffs, which it no longer produced.
1980
The Berber Spring
While Arabic took over from French as the official language, it was in 1980 that the Berber-speaking population, representing a quarter to a third of the total population, demanded recognition of the Berber identity and language. Numerous demonstrations in Kabylia and Algiers began in March 1980 to demand the officialization of the Amazigh language. This series of demonstrations, known as the "Berber Spring", seriously challenged the Arabization policy. However, it was not until 2001 that Tamazight became an official language in Algeria.
1992 à 2002
The black decade
In 1989, a new constitution was promulgated, recognizing democracy and a multi-party system following the riots of October 1988, which were violently repressed.
In January 1992, civil war broke out, pitting the Algerian government and its army against several Islamist groups, including the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) and the Armed Islamic Movement (MIA). The government interrupted legislative elections after the first round of voting showed that the Front Islamique du Salut (FIS), which advocated the establishment of an Islamic state, would win. A series of deadly attacks on the army and police began, followed by attacks on civilians. A state of emergency was declared.
In 1994, talks between the government and the FIS broke down. The same year, the GIA declared war on the FIS, while the MIA joined it under the name of the Islamic Salvation Army (AIS).
In the summer of 1995, the GIA claimed responsibility for a series of attacks in Paris. The years 1997 and 1998 saw the peak of massacres between the army and Islamist groups, including the massacre of entire villages by the GIA.
In early 1999, General Liamine Zeroual announced early presidential elections. A relative calm returned to the country following a law granting amnesty to most of the combatants. The civil war ended with the surrender of the AIS and the decline of the GIA. In ten years, nearly 200,000 people were killed or went missing, 30,000 soldiers were killed, a million people were displaced and 20 billion dollars worth of property was damaged.
2001
Black Spring
Just as the situation seemed relatively calm, Kabylia erupted into riots, challenging the ban on Berber culture, and were severely repressed. This was later known as the "Black Spring", in reference to the Berber Spring of 1980.
1999 à 2019
The Bouteflika regime
Abdelaziz Bouteflika, Boumédiène's former foreign minister, was elected president on April 15, 1999, after the other candidates defected in protest against fraud. On April 8, 2004, he was re-elected for a second term. Despite 192 appeals lodged by the opposition, international observers declared the elections to have been more or less democratic. Foreign investment, amnesties, the emergence of a new middle class, reforms, etc., the country seems to be emerging from chaos. But Algeria is lagging far behind in its vital reforms (banking, schools, hospitals, public services, etc.) and the projects that are constantly being postponed are titanic.
The spectre of terrorism, thought to have receded, returned on April 11, 2007. It was the first time that suicide bombers had taken action in the country. Summer 2008 saw another wave of attacks, notably in eastern Algiers.
In April 2014, Bouteflika was re-elected for the4th time, despite his weakened health.
2019 à 2021
In 2019, the announcement of Bouteflika's candidacy for a5th presidential term led to a massive and peaceful mobilization of the population. Starting on February 22, thousands of people staged weekly demonstrations in the country's main cities. In the face of popular protest, and under pressure from the Chief of Staff of the National People's Army, Bouteflika resigned on April 2.
On December 12, 2019, Abdelmadjid Tebboune was elected President of the Algerian Republic.
2020 à 2024
Algeria today
By February 2020, the Covid-19 pandemic was spreading in Algeria. On March1, an outbreak occurred in the wilaya of Blida, before the disease rapidly spread to all wilayas. Official figures put the total number of cases at around 196,000, with 5,269 deaths by August 2021.
To contain the spread of the disease, the government took a series of health measures from March 2020, including a ban on gatherings, the closure of schools, universities and training centers, mosques and places of worship, the suspension of air and sea travel and the closure of the country's land borders. Partial or total confinements were also put in place locally from March to May. A vaccination pass will be introduced on December 29, 2021. Finally, many sporting, cultural and political events are postponed.
Initially scheduled for December 2024, the last presidential election was held early on September 7. Incumbent President Abdelmadjid Tebboune was re-elected for a second term with over 84% of the vote.
