Boom Town Amidst Rebellion

From 6 a.m. on, the morning air is blue with exhaust fumes and the imprecations of traffic-jammed motorists. A continuous ribbon of new and half-finished apartment houses, new factories, assembly plants and used-car lots flanks the 13-mile road be tween the airport and town. Hotel space is at such a premium that many a visiting industrialist is glad to find a cot in the bathroom of any rooming house. The new boom town: Algiers, a city once chiefly celebrated in romantic French novels for its hauntingly mysterious Casbah and flyspecked poverty.

Army & Oil. In the space of barely four years, the twin dynamos of nationalist rebellion and oil discovery have produced a button-busting boom that no city in metropolitan France can match. Since 1956, population has doubled, is now approaching 1,000,000. The first whiff of prosperity came when France increased its Algerian army first to 200,000, then to 500,000 men to fight the F.L.N. rebels. Most of the new troops were reservists drawing far higher pay than the ordinary conscript rate, and produced unheard-of business for Algiers' bars, restaurants and shops. And with an army to supply, farmers, vintners and the purveyors of a hundred-and-one small items of supply started piling up fortunes.

At the same time, wildcatters made their first major oil strikes in the Sahara. The big oil companies landed in Algiers, soon followed by dozens of smaller repair shops, equipped specialists and transport firms.

So many new jobs opened up that any skilled workman among the Moslems could pick and choose from two or three openings. The Algerian cook who once counted herself lucky to get $20 a month started asking--and getting--$70 a month. Some 300,000 refugees poured into Algiers to escape the rebel F.L.N.; the city's growing economy absorbed them without missing a beat. In the spending splurge, rents went up--400% in some parts of the city. Simca auto sales jumped from 3,000 in 1954 to 14,500 in 1959, will hit 20,000 in 1960. Monoprix. France's largest five-and-ten store, expanded from two to nine stores. The number of stores selling radios, refrigerators, household equipment has increased fivefold. They do so well that bank deposits doubled in one year. "Who are the new millionaires in Algiers?" says one government official "Broadly speaking, just about anyone in a small business." Think Big. What started as a war and oil boom is gradually changing into something more permanent. Starting in 1958, under De Gaulle's Constantine Plan to encourage the Algerian economy, dozens of new industries have moved across the Mediterranean to Algiers to take advantage of low government loans (3% interest on up to 40% of the required capital), a ten-year tax exemption, and cash payments for every new job created. To date 269 firms (among them: Michelin, Renault, Unilever) have made the journey--so many that government officials worry about overcrowding in the city. But it is safer and more pleasant in Algiers than out in the sticks, and Frenchmen have the feeling that whatever else happens, Algiers will grow increasingly French.

Algiers still has its beggars, and seven out of every ten Casbah residents have tuberculosis. What makes the city bustle is its newly moneyed middle class, mostly of French, Corsican, Italian or Spanish descent, though many Arabs have done well too. But there is little of the raffish night life of the typical boom town; Algiers' one luxury nightclub is half empty on week nights. "The Algerian businessman," said one French official, "may keep a rakish sports car and luxurious villa on the Riviera, but in Algiers he's middle class, respectable, and rather mean."

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