The term bidonville literally a town built of oil drums originated in North Africa in the s and came into use in mainland France in the s to designate neighbourhoods composed of temporary, makeshift housing, particularly housing that accommodated Algerians. This thus raises the question of how and when the term bidonville was first used to designate a much older reality, about which specialists had already written using different vocabulary.
As soon as one tries to constitute a history of bidonvilles in France, the usual chronological and territorial landmarks are immediately called into question, even when the situation is considered purely from the viewpoint of the public bodies who sought to transform or eradicate these slums. For example, bidonvilles represented a category of public intervention with regard to the urban fabric, dealt with in two laws, in and then in , that provided mayors, local councillors and prefects [ 1 ] with specific legal tools.
However, the actions of the French administration and local councils with regard to bidonvilles began long before then, without any ad hoc legal framework. The first recorded uses of the term bidonville in mainland France appeared in the context of their activities. Of course, at the time, France was an empire: the term bidonville , like the public action that targeted this type of accommodation, had appeared sometime between the s and the s in the territories that France had colonised in North Africa.
Administrative action with regard to bidonvilles would be more extensive in Algeria with the Constantine Plan [ 3 ] initiated in It is true that this colonial dimension is not the only aspect to be considered. The media attention accorded to bidonvilles in s France, together with their structuring effects on later policies regarding urban interventions, was also due to the considerable development of urban policies from the s onwards and, above all, the usage made of them by local politicians.
This development was completely foreign to the French empire; However, the imperial dimension of the history of bidonvilles in mainland France is clear β first, through the practices of personnel in the prefectural administrations that took charge of dealing with the bidonvilles , who were recruited in Algeria; and secondly, because of the role played by bidonvilles in the manifestations of the Algerian War in mainland France.
