The role of the pieds-noirs in the economy of Alicante between the late 1950s and the 1970s

Abstract

The Europeans from Algeria who settled in Alicante since 1962 extensively contributed to the development both of the province and the tertiary sector. This paper proposes a spatial analysis of the so-called pied-noir settlement in Alicante by identifying the economic activities those people carried out and their further evolution, linked to the social, economic, and urban progress that both the province of Alicante and its capital underwent since the end of the 1950s. The analysis of the pieds-noirs economic activities is part of a broader study of the urban and economic transformations of Alicante, in the context of social changes.