Émilie Busquant (1901–1953) was a French feminist, anarcho-syndicalist and anti-colonial activist who was married to the Algerian nationalist leader Messali Hadj.
Émilie Busquant | |
|---|---|
.png) Émilie Busquant (1942) | |
| Born | 3 March 1901 |
| Died | 2 October 1953 (aged 52) |
| Nationality | French |
| Known for | Participation of the creation of Algerian Flag |
| Movement | Algerian nationalism, anarcho-syndicalism |
| Partner | Messali Hadj |
Biography edit
One of nine children, Émilie grew up in the working-class town of Neuves-Maisons in Eastern France where her father worked in the local steel mill.[1] Her father was involved in anarcho-syndicalism and she was engaged politically from an early age.[2] She moved to Paris and worked in a department store before meeting a young Algerian migrant and political activist, Messali Hadj.[3] As was often the case for working-class couples, they moved in together without officially getting married.[4] Their partnership, which produced two children, was marked by a shared commitment to progressive and anticolonial causes.[5] During Messali's long spells in prison, Émilie often spoke on his behalf and used her position as a Frenchwoman to pour particular scorn on France's declared commitment to "civilising" Algeria.[6]
She is perhaps best known as the creator of the Algerian flag. While there is some dispute over who exactly designed green and white with red star and crescent symbol,[7] Émilie is generally credited as having sewed the first version of the flag.[2]
She died in Algiers in 1953, while her husband was in exile in France. He was refused permission to visit her on her death bed. A cortege of 10000 followed her coffin, draped in the Algerian flag, through the streets of the Algerian capital on its way to the port. Her funeral in Neuves-Maisons was attended by delegation from the major parties of the radical Left and her husband, under police surveillance, gave a eulogy recalling her activism and declaring her "the symbol of the union of the Algerian and French peoples in their shared struggle".[8]
A long forgotten figure, her hometown erected a plaque in her memory on the fiftieth anniversary of her death in 2003 while a 2015 documentary by director Rabah Zanoun introduced a French audience to her story for the first time.[2]
References edit
- ^ Stora, Benjamin (2004). Messali Hadj 1898-1974. Paris: Pluriel. p. 48.
- ^ a b c Kessous, Mustapaha (23 January 2015). "Émilie Busquant, la plus algérienne des Francaises". Le Monde (in French). Retrieved 19 October 2023.
- ^ Stora. Messali Hadj. p. 48.
- ^ Gallissot, René (2004). "Émilie Busquant, dite Mme Messali". Insaniyat (25–26): 151.
- ^ Stora, Benjamin (1985). Dictionnaire biographique de militants nationalistes algériens. L'Harmattan. p. 404.
- ^ "Discours de Mme Messali à La Mutualité". El Ouma. December 1934.
- ^ Houda, B. (20 August 1997). "Le vert, le blanc, l'étoile et le croissant Qui a conçu le drapeau algérien ?". El Watan. Archived from the original on 13 March 2012. Retrieved 28 February 2017.
- ^ Gallissot 2004, p. 157.
Further reading edit
- Drew, Allison (2014). "'This land is not for sale' Communists, nationalists and the popular front". We are no longer in France. Manchester University Press. doi:10.7765/9781847799210.00013. ISBN 9781847799210.
- Goebel, Michael (2019). "Spokesmen, Spies, and Spouses: Anticolonialism, Surveillance, and Intimacy in Interwar France". The Journal of Modern History. 91 (2): 380–414. doi:10.1086/703145. ISSN 0022-2801.
- Hachemaoui, Mohammed (2020). "Algeria: From One Revolution to the Other? The Metamorphosis of the State-Regime Complex" (PDF). Sociétés politiques comparées (51): 1–69. ISSN 2429-1714.
- MacMaster, Neil (2011). "The Role of European Women and the Question of Mixed Couples in the Algerian Nationalist Movement in France, Circa 1918–1962". French Historical Studies. 34 (2): 357–386. doi:10.1215/00161071-1157376. ISSN 0016-1071.
- Nadi, Selim (2018). "The Algerian Revolution, the French state and the colonial counter-revolutionary strategy of the Holy Republic". International Journal of Francophone Studies. 21 (3–4): 301–323. doi:10.1386/ijfs.21.3-4.301_1. ISSN 1368-2679.
- Phipps, Caroline (2022). "'Disgusting and Intolerable': Sexual Relationships between European Women and Moroccan Men in French Morocco in the 1940s and 1950s". Gender & History. 34 (1): 222–242. doi:10.1111/1468-0424.12525. ISSN 0953-5233.
- Rominger, Chris (2018). "Nursing Transgressions, Exploring Difference: North Africans in French Medical Spaces during World War I". International Journal of Middle East Studies. 50 (4): 691–713. doi:10.1017/S0020743818000880.
- Zagoria, Janet Dorsch (1973). The Rise and Fall of the Movement of Messali Hadj in Algeria, 1924-1954 (PhD). Columbia University. ProQuest 7412775.