¹ CAOM [Centre des Archives d'Outre-Mer, Aix-en-Provence] 15H32, Note de M. Le Gouverneur Général d'Algérie à M. le Prefet du Département d'Alger, 22 Nov. 1934 (Copiée à M. le Directeur des Affaires Indigènes après notre entretien, 17 Nov. 1934 and 22 Nov. 1934).

² CAOM 15H32, J. Berthoin, le Directeur de la Sûreté Nationale pour M. le Ministre de l'Intérieur, à M. les Préfets, 27 Sept. 1934. The Governor's office asked the three departmental prefects to begin their investigation of radio merchants on 31 Dec. 1934.

³ CAOM 15H32, Note de M. Le Gouverneur Général d'Algérie à M. le Prefect du Département d'Alger, 22 Nov. 1934 (Copiée à M. le Directeur des Affaires Indigènes après notre entretien, 17 Nov. 1934 and 22 Nov. 1934).

⁴ CAC (Centre des archives contemporaines-Fontainbleau) 19870714-25, Marius Moutet, Ministre des Colonies à M. le Ministre des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, 13 Aug. 1936. Moutet responded to a query from Foreign Affairs. German propaganda broadcasts directed at metropolitan France began in the early 1930s, although Nazi propagandists turned their attention to France's overseas colonies only in the mid-1930s. The short-wave Zeesen station first targeted sub-Saharan Africa and Indochina before beginning Arabic-language broadcasts in 1938. Radio-Berlin began transmitting in Arabic in 1939.

⁵ For an analysis of German and Italian propaganda strategies, see Narif, Basheer M., “The Arabs and the Axis, 1933–1940,” Arab Studies Quarterly 19, 2 (Spring 1997): 1–24Google Scholar; Williams, Manuela, Mussolini's Propaganda Abroad: Subversion in the Mediterranean and Middle East (London 1996), 1–42Google Scholar.

⁶ CAOM 15H32, Ministère de la Défense Nationale et de Guerre. Etat-Major de l'Armée, Section d'Outre-Mer, Bulletin des renseignements des questions musulmanes (SECRET), 1 July 1937.

⁷ Fanon, Frantz, A Dying Colonialism (New York 1967 [1959])Google Scholar.

⁸ Canonical texts responsible for this “visual” turn in colonial studies include: Edward Said, Orientalism (New York 1978); Cohn, Bernard S., Colonialism and Its Forms of Knowledge: The British in India (Princeton 1996)Google Scholar; Mitchell, Timothy, Colonizing Egypt (Cambridge 1998)Google Scholar, esp. ch. 2; and Coombes, Annie, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture, and Popular Imagination in Late Victorian and Early Edwardian England (New Haven 1997)Google Scholar.

⁹ The majority of scholarly literature addressing European broadcasting in the colonies examines the BBC's Empire service. See MacKenzie, John, “‘In Touch with the Infinite’: The BBC and The Empire, 1923–53,” in MacKenzie, J., ed., Imperialism and Popular Culture (Manchester 1986), 165–91Google Scholar; Pinkerton, Alasdair, “Radio and the Raj: Broadcasting in British India, 1920–1940,” Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 18, 2 (2008): 167–91CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ziven, Joselyn, “Bent: A Colonial Subversive and Indian Broadcasting,” Past and Present 162 (1999): 195–220CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ziven, J., “The Imagined Reign of the Iron Lecturer,” Modern Asian Studies 32, 3 (1998): 717–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar. One notable exception is Mrazek's, RudolfEngineers of Happy Land: Technology and Nationalism in a Colony (Princeton 2002)Google Scholar, which considers the relationship between radio, settler life, and Indonesian nationalism in the interwar Netherlands Indies.

¹⁰ For a useful survey of the secondary literature on this subject, see Smith, Mark M., Sensing the Past: Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Touching in History (Berkeley 2007), 1–39Google Scholar.

¹¹ Berque, Jacques, French North Africa: The Maghreb between the Two World Wars (New York 1962)Google Scholar.

¹² On the Centenary festivities, see Gosnell, Jonathan K., The Politics of Frenchness in Colonial Algeria, 1930–1954 (Rochester, N.Y. 2002), 29–30Google Scholar.

¹³ Maurice Martelli, Actes & comptes-rendus de l'Association Colonies-Sciences, 5e Année, N54, Dec. 1929, 241–42. Report presented at the Congrès National de la Radiodiffusion of 1929.

¹⁴ Between 1928 and 1930, the colonial lobbying groups Radio-Agricole Française and Association Colonies-Sciences, together with the Institut Colonial, petitioned the French parliament to construct the Poste Colonial, which debuted in 1931 after numerous construction delays. French settlers living abroad and metropolitan commentators criticized the station for failing to produce programs in any non-European languages until after 1935 (and then only in Arabic). Although French-language stations existed in Saigon and Hanoi, during the mid-1930s they broadcast programs only several hours per day. See the Bulletin officiel du Radio-Club de l'Indochine du Nord, 1935. Radio amateur clubs in French West Africa and in Madagascar transmitted short broadcasts and entrepreneurs constructed small transmitters in Tunis and Rabat during the mid-1930s, although neither of these North African stations possessed the broadcast power or cultural influence of Radio-Alger until after 1937. To this date, there is no comprehensive study of French imperial broadcasting, though two studies illuminate the politics surrounding the construction of the Poste Colonial: journalist Brunnquell's, FrédéricFréquence monde: Du poste colonial à RFI (Paris 1992)Google Scholar, and Jean Charron's doctoral thesis Les ondes courtes et la radiodiffusion française: Le services des émissions vers l'étranger, période 1931–1974. Problèmes physiques, législatives, et politiques. Thèse de 3e cycle, Université de Bordeaux, 1984. See also Méadel, Cécile, “Les postes coloniaux,” in Jeanneny, Jean-Noël, ed., L'Echo du siècle: Dictionnaire historique de la radio et de la télévision en France (Paris 1999), 678–80Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Mercier, Gustave, du Centenaire, Commissaire Général, L'Entreprise de la France en Afrique, Voyage de M. le Président de la République, 4–12 Mai, 1930 (Algiers 1930)Google Scholar.

¹⁶ Collot, Claude, Les institutions d'Algérie durant la période coloniale, 1830–1962 (Alger 1972), 56–105Google Scholar. For a succinct discussion of Algerian Muslims' evolving citizenship status, see Shepard, Todd, The Invention of Decolonization: The Algerian War and the Remaking of France (Ithaca 2006), 19–54Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Important works examining interwar Algerian politics include Julien, Charles-André, Les algériens musulmans et la France, 1871–1919 (Paris 1968)Google Scholar; Julien, Charles-André, L'Afrique du nord en marche: Nationalismes musulmans et souveraineté française (Paris 1972)Google Scholar; Kaddache, Mahfoud, Histoire du nationalisme algérien. Question nationale et politique algérienne, 1919–1951 (Alger 1981)Google Scholar; Le Pautremat, Pascal, La politique musulmane de la France aux XXe siècle. De l'Hexagone aux terres d'Islam. Espoirs, réussites, échecs (Paris 2003)Google Scholar; Bouveresse, Jacques, Un parlement colonial? Les délégations financières algériennes, 1898–1945 (Rouen 2008)Google Scholar; McDougall, James, History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria (Cambridge 2006)Google Scholar; and Stora, Benjamin, Nationalistes algérienes et révolutionnaires français (Paris 1987)Google Scholar.

¹⁸ CAOM 15H32, Jean Mirante, Sécretaire des Affaires Indigènes à M. le Sécretaire Général du Gouvernement, 21 Feb. 1933.

¹⁹ Goetz, Lucien, “Le salon algérien de la T.S.F. en 1935,” Annales africaines, 20 Oct. 1935: 354Google Scholar; “Le Xe Salon Algérien de la T.S.F.,” L'Afrique du nord illustrée, 1 Nov. 1935. Rudolf Mrazek makes a similar claim about colonial radio in the Dutch East Indies in Engineers of Happy Land.

²⁰ CAOM 15H-32, Note de Jean Mirante, le Directeur des Affaires Indigènes à M. Le Directeur d'Intérieur et des Beaux-Arts, 17 Aug. 1933.

²¹ Ibid. See the program listings from 1933–1934 in Radio-Alger: Bulletin officiel mensuel de l'Amicale de Radio P.T.T. Alger.

²² Bachetarzi, Mahieddine, Mémoires, suivi d'une étude sur le théâtre dans les pays islamiques, vol. 1 (Alger 1968), 366–68Google Scholar. The caché of a radio performance, Bachetarzi recalls, compelled the Tunisian singer Fadila Khetemi to perform unpaid on Radio-Alger in 1930 after she refused to sing for free in a private concert. Bachetarzi used his own exposure via the airwaves to sign lucrative deals for advertising films and radio jingles commissioned by metropolitan firms selling products to North Africans.

²³ Messaoudi, Alain, “The Teaching of Arabic in French Algeria and Contemporary France,” French History 20, 3 (2006): 297–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Scholars remain divided over whether the colonial state deliberately fostered illiteracy and de-Arabization by restricting the teaching of Arabic in public schools and relegating it to the status of a “foreign” language. Recent historiography suggests that frequent regime changes in nineteenth-century Algeria produced uneven Arabic education policies. However, literacy in classical Arabic remained restricted to a relatively small sector of the overall Algerian population.

²⁴ CARAN [Centre d'accueil et de recherches des Archives nationales] F60-739, Présidence du Conseil. See the interventions of René Foudil, Abdelkader Smati, Sisbane, and Dr. Bendjelloul in the Assemblées Financières. Procès-Verbal de l'Assemblée Algérienne, session ordinaire, 1933, section arabe, 1933 (ca. May); Assemblées Financières Algériennes, Session ordinaire de 1935, Délégation indigène, section arabe, 37; Assemblées Financières Algériennes, 7^e séance, 23 Nov. 1936, 175–76.

²⁵ CAC 19950218-2, Radio France, Service des Archives écrites, Report on the Functioning of the Centre d'Ecoute, Direction Général de Radiodiffusion, n.d.

²⁶ CAOM 9H50, Louis Millot, Directeur Général des Affaires Indigènes à M. le Sécretaire Général du Gouvernement, 21 Feb. 1938. The colonial administration in Algeria first proposed creating a radio listening service within the Algerian P.T.T. in 1938, and then only after pressure from metropolitan politicians.

²⁷ Stoler, Ann Laura, Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule (Berkeley 2002), 206–7Google Scholar; Lorcin, Patricia M., Imperial Identities: Stereotyping, Race, and Prejudice in Colonial Algeria (New York 1995)Google Scholar.

²⁸ Thomas, Martin, Empires of Intelligence: Security Services and Colonial Disorder after 1914 (Berkeley 2008), 204Google Scholar; see also Cleveland, William L., Islam against the West: Shakib Arslan and the Campaign for Islamic Nationalism (Austin 1985), 90–114Google Scholar.

²⁹ Rosenberg, Clifford, Policing Paris: The Origins of Modern Immigration Control between the Wars (Cornell 2006), 17–43Google Scholar.

³⁰ Scott, James C., Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed (New Haven 1998), 5–8Google Scholar.

³¹ CAOM 15H32, P.T.T. Direction de Constantine, Liste des indigènes ayant déclaré un poste de radiodiffusion, 30 Nov. 1934. See also the list of radios owned by Algerians in the Département d'Alger (1934), and Oran (Dec. 1934).

³² CAOM 15H32, Ministère de la Défense Nationale et de Guerre, Etat-Major de l'Armée, Section d'Outre-Mer, Bulletin des renseignements des questions musulmanes, 1 July 1937. According to this memo, the Algerian Bureau of Native Affairs questioned the veracity of the P.T.T.'s radio ownership statistics, believing the real numbers to be much higher. Metropolitan France counted four million registered radio receivers in 1937, but in both metropole and colony determining the precise number of radio listeners remains difficult since families listened to a single receiver and individuals listened in public. Precise statistics on the number of public receivers are unavailable. See Méadel, Cécile, Histoire de la radio des années trente (Paris 1994), 92Google Scholar.

³³ Kateb, Kamel, Européens, “indigenes,” et juifs en Algérie (1830–1962): Représentations et réalités des populations (Paris 2001), 109–10, 197Google Scholar.

³⁴ Carlier, Omar, “Le café maure, sociabilité masculine et effervescence citoyenne (Algérie XVIIe–XXe siècles), Annales ESC, juillet-aout 4 (1990): 975–1003Google Scholar.

³⁵ Mernissi, Fatima, Dreams of Trespass: Tales of a Harem Girlhood (New York 1995)Google Scholar, esp. chs. 1, 10, and 12. Mernissi describes the pivotal role that radio played in her early 1930s childhood in Fez by inspiring women in her extended family to imagine alternative lifestyles for themselves outside the family harem.

³⁶ Thomas, Empires of Intelligence, 27, 78.

³⁷ Grange, Daniel, “Structure et techniques d'une propagande: les émissions arabes de Radio-Bari,” Relations internationales 2 (1974): 165–85Google Scholar. In 1934, Radio-Bari transmitted short news bulletins ranging from five to fifteen minutes in length. In the French protectorate of Morocco, the Service de la Direction des Affaires Politiques began transcribing and systematically analyzing Radio-Bari's broadcasts in 1937. French authorities in Algeria did not follow suit until early 1938. Radio-Bari's broadcasts attacked the French code de l'indigénat, forced military conscription, and colonial policies in Syria and Lebanon. Radio-Bari often changed frequencies and other Italian stations (Rome) sometimes retransmitted its broadcasts. On this point see CAOM 10APOM30 (C.H.E.A.M. [Centre des Hautes Etudes sur l'Afrique et l'Asie Modernes]), M. Delahaye, “Les émissions de langue arabe du poste Radio P.T.T.-Alger.” Exposé fait par M. Delahaye au Cours de Perfectionnement des Affaires Indigènes en février 1937.

³⁸ French surveillance of theatrical productions acquired a new intensity during the 1930s, when Mahieddine Bachetarzi and several other Algerian actors pioneered comedies and caf'conc-style sketches in the Algerian Arabic dialect. The Bureau of Native Affairs censored the play scripts and song lyrics, but performers sometimes improvised on stage by twisting words or exploiting gestures to offer subtle and humorous critiques of the colonial administration. Mahieddine Bachetarzi, one of Radio-Alger's regular performers, excelled at this strategy. See Cheniki, Ahmed, Le théâtre en Algérie: Histoire et enjeux (Aix-en-Provence 2002), 23–29Google Scholar.

³⁹ Thomas, Empires of Intelligence, 27. European colonial powers displayed an inordinate interest in indigenous communication networks. In his Empire and Information: Intelligence Gathering and Social Communication in India, 1780–1870 (Cambridge 1996), C. A. Bayly argues that British colonial civil servants constantly feared the political threat posed by gossip in Indian communities, particularly after the 1857 Indian Rebellion, when rumors circulated that Indian runners had secreted messages on “chapatis” between rebel groups. During the Algerian War, Europeans continued to fear the role of the “téléphone arabe” in transmitting FLN communications. See Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 78. Mahieddine Bachetarzi uses the term “Radio-Burnous” to refer to this same phenomenon in his Mémoires, 324.

⁴⁰ CAOM 15H32, Edouard Estaudié, Chef des Services Centrales au P.T.T. à M. le Directeur Général des Affaires Indigènes, 18 Dec. 1934.

⁴¹ CAOM 15H32, Le Ministre de l'Intérieur à M. les Préfets, 27 Sept. 1934. Interestingly, there seems to have been little response from prefects within France to this memo. No references to these investigations appear in the central files of the Minister of the Interior, which suggests that Algerian colonial officials may have taken the request more seriously given the cosmopolitan and multi-ethnic population of the colony. In Algiers, policemen turned up a number of suspects including the German Hebert Kofahl, the Italian Ferruccio Menini, a reported member of the “Young Fascists,” and the Hungarian communist Nicolas Koves.

⁴² Gronow, Pekka, “The Record Industry Comes to the Orient,” Ethnomusicology 25, 2 (1981): 262–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Based on customs statistics, Gronow estimates that French companies alone exported a half-million records to Algeria in 1930. For a broader look at international recording labels in European overseas colonies, see Jones, Andrew F., Yellow Music: Media Culture and Colonial Modernity in the Chinese Jazz Age (Durham 2001)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. chs. 2 and 3.

⁴³ Daoudi, Bouziane and Miliani, Hadj, L'aventure du raï (Paris 1996), 37–84Google Scholar; Miliani, , Sociétaires de l'émotion: Etudes sur les musiques et les chants d'Algerie d'hier et d'aujourd'hui (Oran 2005)Google Scholar; and Mahieddine Bachetarzi, Mémoires; Saadallah, Rabah, El-Hadj M'hamed El-Anka: Maitre et rénovateur de la musique ‘chaabi’ (Algiers 1981)Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Hadj Miliani, Sociétaires de l'émotion: Etudes sur les musiques et les chants d'Algérie d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, 58–60. French policemen typically learned of these performances only after they ended. See CAOM 2I-48, Le Gouverneur Général, Direction de la Securité Générale à M. le Préfet du Département d'Alger, 20 Dec. 1935. The Governor General submitted to the Prefect of Algiers the text of a song performed by the singer Cheihk Mohammed El-Anka at a baptism ceremony in August 1934, recommending that a staff member in the Bureau of Native Affairs be assigned to analyze the text.

⁴⁵ CAOM 15H32, Le Directeur de la Sécurité Générale à M. le Directeur des Affaires Indigènes au Gouvernement Général, 26 Jan. 1931; Département de Constantine, Sûreté Départementale, Commissariat Spéciale de Bône, report dated 26 Oct. 1936. During the 1920s, the Bureau of Native Affairs monitored the activities of Algerian artists who traveled to Europe to record for Continental labels and their North African subsidiaries. The more information police acquired about North African recording labels, the more they paid attention to the musicians selected to record. Policemen in Bône noted the departure of Mohammed El Kourd and several other musicians for Paris to record albums “on the account of Resaici Anouar [sic].” See also CAOM 9H37, “Note sur la censure artistique,” 1 July 1936. In December 1935, an agent called for the Bureau of Native Affairs and its affiliates in the Territoires du Sud to establish an “artistic censorship committee.” The Bureau of Native Affairs had drafted a proposed law requiring an entry visa for records that remained in a file, only developing more concrete proposals for record censorship after record sales became linked to foreign subversion.

⁴⁶ CAOM 15H32, Renseignement Tunisie; Source: Très bonne, A/S du nommé Michel Baida, suspect.

⁴⁷ CAOM 15H32, Undated note, “Agents allemands Berlin;” and Chef du Département de Sûreté d'Alger à M. les Préfets (Cabinet, Police Générale, Securité Générale), 28 Dec. 1937. Operating on similar suspicions, French authorities in Tunisia “invited” Michel Baida to leave the Regency in January of 1936.

⁴⁸ CAOM 15H32, Renseignement A/S du Dr. Pierre Baida, 17 June 1935.

⁴⁹ CAOM 15H32, Préfecture de Constantine, Section des Affaires Indigènes et de la Police Générale, transmis à M. le Gouverneur Général d'Algérie, Direction Générale des Affaires Indigènes et des Territoires du Sud, January 1936. Labeled “Secret.”

⁵⁰ CAOM 15H32, “Agents allemands Berlin,” undated and unsigned note.

⁵¹ CAC 19940500-64, letters from the Minister of Finances to the Interior Minister, 25 Mar. 1917, and 24 Dec. 1918.

⁵² CAOM 15H32, Bachagha Smati, “Causerie faite par M. Bachagha Smati au Cours de Perfectionnement des Affaires Indigènes. Le disque en langue arabe,” Feb. 1937; CAOM 9H37, Surveillance politique des indigènes. Bachaga Smati, “Note sur la censure artistique” from July 1, 1936. Smati's first reports on records date to December 1935.

⁵³ Ibid.

⁵⁴ Miliani, Hadj, “Variations linguistiques et formulations thematiques dans la chanson algérienne au cours de XXe siecle. Un parcours,” in Dakhlia, Joceylne, ed., Trames de langues: usages et métissages linguistiques dans l'histoire du Maghreb (Paris 2004), 427Google Scholar.

⁵⁵ Keller, Richard C., Colonial Madness: Psychiatry in French North Africa (Chicago 2007)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. chs. 2 and 3.

⁵⁶ CAOM 15H32, Bachagha Smati, “Causerie faite par M. Bachagha Smati au Cours de Perfectionnement des Affaires Indigènes. Le disque en langue arabe,” Feb. 1937.

⁵⁷ Ibid.

⁵⁸ Ibid. Smati's neglect of the Baidas' religious background and its potential influence on their politics is surprising given the ethno-religious clashes of the mid-1930s, yet he also saw no contradiction in denouncing Jewish merchants for their complicity in this subversive pan-Arab propaganda. While ignoring the “moral side” of their business activity, Jewish merchants' “easy methods of payment” (layaway) and “large knowledge of native language” facilitated Algerians' taste for recorded sound.

⁵⁹ Thomas, Empires of Intelligence, 282. Michael Miller concurs that surveillance reports reveal as much about the fears, prejudices, and incapacities of individual policemen as they do about the objects of their surveillance. Miller, Michael B., Shanghai on the Metro: Spies, Intrigue, and the French between the Wars (Berkeley 1994), 76–77, 83Google Scholar.

⁶⁰ CAOM 9H37; see the “Note sur la censure artistique,” 1 July 1936. Whereas film imports required a visa, permitting those “containing spoken or sung passages that attacked French sovereignty” to be suppressed or edited, records underwent no examination. The Bureau of Native Affairs had drafted proposed legislation requiring a visa for records several years earlier, but the project lapsed and the proposal remained in a file.

⁶¹ CAOM 15H32, note labeled “Gouvernement Général, Direction des Affaires Indigènes et des Territoires du Sud. Centre d'Informations et d'Etudes,” 14 Dec. 1936. The Bureau of Native Affairs compiled a detailed file on Baida's nephew Theodore Khayat, who ran the family business from Tunisia through his associates in Constantine.

⁶² CAOM 5I54, Centre d'Information et d'Etudes, Renseignement A/S des Etablissement Taieb ben Amor de Constantine, 29 Dec. 1937. See also CAOM 15H32, Lettre de Louis Millot, Directeur Général des Affaires Indigènes et des Territoires du Sud, 14 Jan. 1938.

⁶³ McDougall, History and the Culture of Nationalism in Algeria.

⁶⁴ CAOM 15H32, un-authored note dated 1 Apr. 1938. This evaluation of a collection of Diamophone record translations suggested the translator(s), whether French or Algerian, made abundant errors in the “purely phonetic” transliterations of the songs. The translator(s) incorrectly attached syllables to words and failed to acknowledge the informal structure of the working-class songs, which employed simple rhyming phrases rather than full stanzas to convey meaning, and thus misinterpreted the meanings of several songs. Algerian tenor Mahieddine Bachetarzi used this same argument of mistranslation in his own defense when the Governor's Office accused him of singing “tendentious” songs in Algerian theaters. See Mahieddine Bachetarzi, Mémoires, 173.

⁶⁵ CARAN F60-707, Présidence du Conseil, Note pour M. le Secrétaire Général de la Présidence du Conseil, stamped 25 July 1939. Variations in transliterations complicated police efforts to track musicians. Singer El-Hadj Mohammed El-Anka appeared in police files as El-Onkla and Al-Onka.

⁶⁶ CAOM 4I66, Alger, Service des liaisons Nord-africaines. Alger, Chef du Département de la Sûreté d'Alger à MM les Préfets (Cabinet, Police Générale, Direction de la Sûreté Générale), 28 Dec. 1937.

⁶⁷ CAOM 15H32, Préfecture d'Alger, Centre d'Information et d'Etudes, 16 Nov. 1939. Colonial police detained Zupiger repeatedly but never arrested him even after they placed him on the notorious Carnet B (the Sûreté's list of foreigners to be deported in case of war) in 1937 for distributing Nazi propaganda.

⁶⁸ CAOM 15H32, Gouvernement Général d'Algérie, Cabinet du Gouvernement Général, Centre d'Information et d'Etudes, Algiers, 11 Nov. 1940. Rsaissi built up a two million-franc business for Baidaphone in Tunis, Constantine, and Bône during the 1920s, earning the reward of a Mercedes automobile. However, Rsaissi's relationship with Baida soured in 1930, resulting in Rsaissi's break from the company.

⁶⁹ CAOM 2I48, see letters from the Sous-Préfet, Commissaire de Police de Médea to the Sous-Préfet des Affaires Indigènes, Alger, 29 Oct. 1938; the Rapport de Commissaire de Police, Ville de Tizi-Ouzou, 29 Oct. 1938. See also CAOM 15H32, Le Préfet de Constantine à M. le Gouverneur Général d'Algérie, Direction de la Sécurité Générale, 1 Sept. 1938.

⁷⁰ CAOM 5I54, Algérie, Service des liaisons nord-africaines, Département d'Oran, response to questionnaire, Alger, July 1937.

⁷¹ CAOM 15H32, Police d'Etat d'Alger, Rapport, 30 Dec. 1937.

⁷² CAOM 15H32, Rapport du Chef de la Police Spéciale de Constantine, Surveillance politique des indigènes, 8 Sept. 1938.

⁷³ Ruedy, John, Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation (Bloomington, Ind. 1992), 140Google Scholar; CAOM 2I48, Algérie, Administration des indigènes, Département d'Alger. M. le Sous-Préfet de Médea à M. le Préfet d'Alger, 22 Mar. 1938; and 15H32, Préfecture de Constantine à M. le Gouverneur Général d'Algérie, Direction de la Securité Générale, Alger, 1 Sept. 1938; Département de Constantine, Sûreté Départementale, Commissaire Spéciale de Bône, 26 Oct. 1936. El Kourd did not perform the song on the “Piano solo” record but had already attracted police attention. In October 1936, police in Bône reported that El Kourd and several other musicians known to be “ardent nationalists” and “Communist sympathizers” had recently boarded a steamer for Paris, where they planned to record for the Rsaissi label.

⁷⁴ CAOM 10APOM30, M. Delahaye, “Les émissions de langue arabe du poste Radio P.T.T.-Alger,” Exposé fait par M. Delahaye au Cours de Perfectionnement des Affaires Indigènes, Feb. 1937.

⁷⁵ SHAT [Service historique de l'Armée de Terre] 7N4095, Revue de la presse arabe et des questions musulmanes, Dec. 1937; see also SHAT 7N4093, Bulletin des renseignements musulmanes, Mar. 1938.

⁷⁶ CAOM 15H31, “Note dans la partie du sans-filisme,” Blida, 31 July 1938; CAOM 15H32, “Les véritables ennuis de la France africaine,” Gazette de la Maritime, 15 Sept. 1937.

⁷⁷ CAOM 5I54, Algérie, Service des liaisons nord-africaines, Département d'Oran, “Emissions radiophoniques,” 10 July 1937.

⁷⁸ CAOM 15H31, Algérie, Gouvernement Général, Affaires Indigènes, Report on “Emissions radiophoniques,” 1 July 1937; and Déclarations d'appareils récepteurs de radiodiffusion. Relevé, par bureau de poste, des auditeurs indigènes et européens, 31 Mar. 1938.

⁷⁹ CAOM 15H31, Relevé numérique des postes récepteurs de radiodiffusion existant dans le Département de Constantine, 5 Oct. 1938.

⁸⁰ CAOM 15H31, Rapport de Guilhermet, Police Spéciale Départementale de Constantine à M. le Directeur des Affaires Indigènes, 14 Apr. 1938.

⁸¹ CAOM 15H31, Algérie, Gouvernement Général, Affaires Indigènes, report on “Emissions radiophoniques,” 1 July 1937.

⁸² CAOM 10APOM30, M. Delahaye, “Les émissions de langue arabe du poste Radio P.T.T.-Alger,” Feb. 1937. Radio-Bari's Syrian announcer Lababidi reportedly spent over a year in Algeria before moving to Italy to work for Radio-Bari, suggesting he may have picked up the Algerian Arabic dialect during this period. Several security reports claimed Lababidi sojourned in Constantine, while others highlighted his visits to Biskra and the Touggout regions. CARAN F60-710, Le Ministre des Affaires Etrangères à M. Le Ministre des P.T.T., Côntrole de la Radiodiffusion. By late 1936, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had gathered more information on Lababidi and possessed transcripts of a series of talks given on the Rome station in December of 1936.

⁸³ CAOM 2I48, Le Sous-Préfet de Tizi-Ouzou à M. le Préfet d'Alger, 18 Nov. 1938. Policemen reported similar incidents involving records. See CAOM 15H-32, Algérie, Ville de Tlemcen, Police municipale, Romatet, le Commissaire Général à Monsieur le Préfet, 13 Jan. 1938. A Tlemcen policeman reported that listeners displayed particular enthusiasm for a record of the “Egyptian National Anthem,” though their ardor could be explained by the fact that the “majority of the natives in the region, who only know imperfectly the language in which it is performed, mistake it for the ‘Algerian National Anthem.’”

⁸⁴ Messaoudi, Alain, “The Teaching of Arabic in French Algeria and Contemporary France,” French History 20, 3 (2006): 297–317CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Note the Ulama's slogan, “Islam is our religion, Arabic is our language, Algeria is our country.”

⁸⁵ CARAN F60-710, Etat-Major de l'Armée, Section d'Outre-Mer, “Note sur la radiodiffusion en pays musulmanes,” 1937. See similar extracts in CAOM 15H32, Ministère de la Défense Nationale et de la Guerre, “Bulletin des renseignements des questions musulmanes,” 14 Oct. 1937.

⁸⁶ Charles-Robert Ageron, Les algériens musulmans et la France, 1871–1919, esp. 612–43; and Claude Collot, Les institutions d'Algérie durant la période coloniale, 50–129.

⁸⁷ CARAN F60-702, Gouverneur Général d'Algérie, Direction des Affaires Indigènes et des Territoires du Sud, Deuxième bureau, Administration générale, Note sur l'extension de la connaissance des langues indigènes parmi les fonctionnaires et même parmi les divers éléments de la population européenne, 1 Mar. 1938.

⁸⁸ SHAT 7N4093, “La Radiodiffusion en Afrique du Nord,” Bulletin des renseignements de questions musulmanes, 14 Oct. 1937; Thomas, Martin, The French Empire Between the Wars: Imperialism, Politics, and Society (Manchester 2005), 316–19Google Scholar.

⁸⁹ CARAN F60-710, Le Directeur du Service de la Radiodiffusion à M. le Président du Conseil, 27 Nov. 1937.

⁹⁰ CARAN F60-710, Note sur la radiodiffusion en pays musulmanes from the Etat-Major de l'Armée, Section d'Outre-Mer, 1937. See similar extracts in the document CAOM 15H32, Algérie, Gouvernement Général, Affaires Indigènes, Ministère de la Défense Nationale et de la Guerre, “Bulletin des renseignements des questions musulmanes,” 14 Oct. 1937.

⁹¹ Pascal Le Pautremat, La politique musulmane de la France aux XXe siècle, 354.

⁹² Hoisington, William A. Jr., “France and Islam: The Haut Comité Méditerranéen and French North Africa,” in Joffé, George, ed., North Africa: Nation, State, and Region (London 1993), 80–82Google Scholar. CAOM 3CAB-35, Présidence du Conseil, Haut Comité Méditerranéen et de l'Afrique du Nord, Session de mars 1937. The HCM became a permanent secrétariat attached to the French premier's office in December 1937.

⁹³ F60-710, Réunion du Sous-Commission des Affaires Musulmanes, 16 Dec. 1937. This committee predated the HCM but was subsumed into it in 1937. Charles-Andre Julien complained that the linguistic incapacities of French colonial civil servants in North Africa exacerbated the new security challenges posed by transnational broadcasting.

⁹⁴ CARAN F60-739, “La Radiodiffusion en Algérie,” undated report likely drafted by Marceau Pivert (ca. Dec. 1936). Pivert complained that Radio-Alger announcers read news bulletins excerpted entirely from right-wing newspapers (La Dépêche algérienne) and repeated the pro-Franco communiqués of Radio-Seville over the air.

⁹⁵ CARAN F60-710, Marcel Pellenc, “Etude sur la radiodiffusion nord-africaine,” 7 Dec. 1936. Pellenc's report, the product of a radio-electrician rather than an experienced ethnographer, called for the construction of a North African radio network (with new stations in Oran and Tunis) linked by telephone lines to metropolitan transmitters.

⁹⁶ Frédéric Brunnquell, Fréquence monde: Du poste colonial à RFI, 34–42. Electoral turmoil in metropolitan France placed Paris-Mondial at the center of a partisan political battle and slowed construction of the station.

⁹⁷ CARAN F60-710, Présidence du Conseil, Sécretariat Général, Note sur la propagande par radio en Afrique du Nord, 20 Oct. 1936.

⁹⁸ CARAN F60-702, Haut-Comité Méditerranéen, Session de mars 1938; Compte-rendu de la séance du samedi matin le 12 mars 1938. Tessan also proposed the name “Radio-universel.” See also F60-710, Procès-Verbal de la Commission du Travail de la Radiodiffusion en langue arabe, 22 Feb. 1938. Tessan noted, “We should profit from the construction of the new station to change the name of the Poste Colonial. The name alone suffices to awaken the suspicions of Arabic-language speakers and renders a great part of our efforts sterile before they have begun.”

⁹⁹ SHAT 2N243, Procès-Verbal de la Conférence des Services Généraux d'Information des trois gouverneurs Nord-africains, tenue au Quartier General de l'Armée, 16 and 17 Oct. 1939.

¹⁰⁰ CARAN F60-710, Albert LeBeau, Gouverneur Général d'Algérie à M. le Ministre des P.T.T., 8 Dec. 1936.

¹⁰¹ CAOM 10APOM30, M. Delahaye, “Les émissions de langue arabe du poste Radio P.T.T.-Alger,” Feb. 1937.

¹⁰² CAOM 4I66. The right-wing press in Algeria attacked the Popular Front radio association Radio-Liberté for including Algerians as members and inviting Algerian political leaders to speak at their meetings. In December 1937, the anti-Semitic Algiers daily La Défense reported on a recent meeting in which president Leon Weinmann introduced (in Arabic) Cheikh El-Okbi and Ben-Badis (leader of the reformist Ulama), along with Amar Ouzegane, the regional secretary of the French Communist Party.

¹⁰³ Edmond Esquirol, “Opinions et propos sur la radio en Afrique du Nord,” Alger-Radio, 12 Sept. 1937. Esquirol responded to the critique of Louis Grosard in Annales Africaines.

¹⁰⁴ See Radio-Alger's program listings in La presse libre, 25 Feb. 1937: 6; and 11 Mar. 1937.

¹⁰⁵ CAOM 15H32, Département d'Alger, L'Administrateur Principal de la Commune Mixte de Fort-National à M. le Gouverneur Général d'Algérie, Direction des Affaires Indigènes, Objet: T.S.F. Emission en langue kabyle, 4 Nov. 1936.

¹⁰⁶ Mahieddine Bachetarzi, Mémoires, 332–34.

¹⁰⁷ CAOM 5I-54, Notes du Centre d'Information et d'Etudes, 11 Oct. 1938, and 24 Nov. 1938. Paris-Mondial hired musicians suspected of nationalist activity by colonial authorities and the military intelligence services, to perform during its Arabic-language broadcasts, including Mohammed El-Kamal. On this point, see also SHAT 7N4093, Bulletin des renseignements des questions musulmans, 16 Nov. 1938: 438.

¹⁰⁸ CAOM 9H50, L'Administrateur de la Commune mixte de Nedroma à M. le Sous-Préfet de Tlemcen, 24 May 1939.

¹⁰⁹ CAOM 2I41. The Governor General issued a 1938 decree banning the import of “disques phonographiques en langue autre qu'en langue française.” Record merchants had three months to submit their existing stock for review by the Direction de la Sécurité Général.

¹¹⁰ CARAN F60-707, Note pour Monsieur le Secrétaire Général du Présidence du Conseil, 25 July 1938; and SHAT 7N4133, Ministère de la Defense Nationale et de la Guerre, Section d'Outre-Mer, Le Président du Conseil à MM le Gouverneurs Militaires de Paris, Metz, et Lyon; le Commandant Général de la région de Paris; les Généraux Commandants de 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20; le Général Commandant en Chef des Troupes du Maroc; le Général Commandant le Corps 19e d'Armèe; Généraux Commandants des Troupes de Tunisie et le Levant. Paris, 31 Mar. 1939.

¹¹¹ CAOM 2I41, Le Commissaire de Police de la ville d'Arba à M. Le Chef du Bureau du service des Affaires indigènes et de police générale de Préfecture d'Alger, 17 Jan. 1939.

¹¹² Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 92–94.

¹¹³ Stora, Benjamin, “Comment la FLN écoutait la radio,” in de Bussière, Michèle, Méadel, Cécile, and Ulmann-Mauriat, Caroline, eds., Radios et télévisions au temps des “événements d'Algérie” 1954–1962 (Paris 1999), 109–13Google Scholar.

¹¹⁴ Sabbagh, Antoine, “La propagande à Radio-Alger,” in de Bussière, Michèle, Méadel, Cécile, and Ulmann-Mauriat, Caroline, eds., Radios et télévisions au temps des “événements d'Algérie” 1954–1962 (Paris 1999), 27–40Google Scholar.

¹¹⁵ My reading of Fanon is indebted to Baucom, Ian, “Frantz Fanon's Radio: Solidarity, Diaspora, and the Tactics of Listening,” Contemporary Literature 42, 1 (2001): 15–49CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹¹⁶ Frantz Fanon, A Dying Colonialism, 86–87.

¹¹⁷ See Breiner, Laurence A., “Caribbean Voices on the Air: Radio, Poetry, and Nationalism in the Anglophone Caribbean,” in Squier, Susan Merill, ed., Communities of the Air: Radio Century, Radio Culture (Durham 2003), 93–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.