French Colonial Welfare and the Crisis of Decolonization: Le Service Des Centres Sociaux, 1956-1962

In 1956 Governor-General and anthropologist Jacques Soustelle announced his plan to establish a new educational project in Algeria. He called upon fellow anthropologist and resistor, Germaine Tillion, whose agenda differed radically from her former musée de l’homme colleague. When creating the Service des Centres Sociaux (SCS), Tillion’s team built upon social welfare programs established in metropolitan France and Algeria in the 1950s and relied on institutions that aided and trained SCS staff. They built a comprehensive curriculum that provided elementary education for children and gender specific programs for adults. Moreover, Tillion and her team hired young Algerian and French men and women, integrating staff in centers all over Algeria.

This essay explores the SCS’s resilience in two ways.  Given the interconnected nature of welfare programs on both sides of the Mediterranean, how did metropolitan welfare programs and personnel influence the SCS? Despite SCS’s progressive approach, how pervasive were ideas about ‘civilizing’ Algerians? The SCS also remained resilient despite being targeted by colonial authorities. Within a year of its inception, the police arrested and tortured seventeen members of the staff. Tillion’s influence secured the release of most with the caveat that they leave Algeria. The SCS continued its work, building over one hundred centers by 1962. The colonial regime remained suspicious; the OAS assassinated six members of the SCS leadership in early 1962. How did the SCS navigate the crisis? How did it remain a state-sponsored organization and separate itself from state-sponsored violence that sought to crush the Algerian Revolution?