The problem of the border between Tunisia and Algeria during the colonial period
Abstract
The issue of the Tunisian-Algerian border with the French presence raised the status of the political factor in imposing its conception of the territorial field, as France adopted the principle of loyalty to the central authority represented by the Husseini court in Tunisia in exchange for the Algerian midwives, by paying the tax. The concept of borders was shrouded in the “fading away” between two political authorities that were unable, despite attempts to build the space prior to the French presence, to break the relations of communication and integration between the social elements that make up the Algerian and Tunisian spheres represented by tribes and civil groups, whose interdependence and harmony appeared over a vast and undefined frontier field that is border area, imposed on the French presence since its beginnings in Algeria, taking into account, in addition to the geographical given, several other elements, the most important of which is the social component of the Algerian and Tunisian spheres. And it represented influencing factors in its structure, especially in "drawing the state of fusion that the border region knew The main paradox is that the process of controlling the borders according to the French pattern between Tunisia and Algeria and the premises adopted in it was accompanied by a special circumstance represented in its first stage in a weak Tunisian mandate and it is about to lose its economic immunity and political independence during the period that followed the annexation of Algeria and preceded the occupation of Tunisia in favor of French colonialism, and an Algerian mandate In the process of keeping pace with the process of colonial conquest that led to the complete annexation of French soil. Thus, the French colonial state had the first and active role in imposing the necessity of controlling borders in line with its economic and geopolitical interests. Rather, this necessity was behind the erection of the French occupation in Tunisia, as it was associated with the clear state of convergence of the people of the border region in the north and center-west of Tunisia.
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