Managing Colonial Contradictions: French Attitudes towards El

FORUM: THE 1928 OLYMPIC MARATHON
FORUM
Managing Colonial
Contradictions: French
Attitudes toward El Ouafi’s
1928 Olympic Victory
THIERRY TERRET† AND ANNE ROGER
Centre for Research and Innovation in Sport (CRIS)
University of Lyon
I
N CONTRAST TO THE WIDE AMERICAN COVERAGE given to Ahmed Boughera El
Ouafi’s exploits, the Algerian marathon champion was astonishingly neglected in the French
press in spite of his clear links to colonial France. Although French perception of the 1928
Olympic marathon winner was not entirely devoid of contradiction, it reveals much concerning relations between the homeland and her North African colonies.
El Ouafi was born in Ould Djleb, a small village near Bistra in the “French Algerian
colony,” where the first years of his life were spent against the background of a dominated
country. Prior to the First World War, he was victorious in numerous local races, where he
earned himself the nickname of Louassi, “the flying Berber.” As was the case for many
young Algerians, he was drafted into the 25th infantry regiment of the French Army during that Great War but, fortunately for El Ouafi, this occurred only during the very last
months of 1918. However, he had neither occupation nor family waiting for him in
Algeria and had almost certainly already developed the socioeconomic and cultural “desire
for France” that was later to constitute an important element in the decision of a number
of Algerian sportsmen to migrate to France.1 He thus accepted what was apparently a
better life for him, choosing to stay in the army five more years, and was sent to Germany
†
Correspondence to [email protected].
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with the occupation forces. There he was spotted by a military sports trainer, a Lieutenant
Vaquier, who arranged for him to take part in the military athletic championships of
1923, just before his demobilization. El Ouafi’s participation in this contest, which was
held in continental France, was noticed by the authorities of the French Athletics Federation (FFA) who were actively seeking athletes to build the national team for the next
Olympic games, planned for Paris the following year.2 Although the FFA was not yet
considering turning towards the colonies in its search for talent, El Ouafi was already
living in the French capital. He was therefore requested to participate in the selection
events for the 1924 Olympic games, and it was suggested he become a member of the
Club Athlétique de la Société Générale (CASG),3 one of the best clubs in the country.
El Ouafi accepted the proposal and went on to win the national marathon organized
in Colombes on June 22, following which he was selected for the French team and ran the
Olympic marathon in July of 1924, finishing seventh overall and first among French runners. With insufficient means and basically illiterate, he was recruited soon after as a
worker at the Parisian site of Renault-Billancourt. As an immediate consequence, he also
moved from the CASG to the Renault sports club, the CO Billancourt. There he was
trained by the Frenchman Louis Corlet and experienced victory after victory in longdistance races. He won the Paris-Melun Marathon on July 8, 1928,4 which assured his
selection to the Olympic games for the second time. Less than a month later, in Amsterdam
on August 5, he carried off the Olympic gold medal for long distance running, finishing
the event in 2:32:57.
El Ouafi, still totally unknown, performs
in the Olympic games of Paris in 1924.
COURTESY OF THE ARCHIVES OF THE FRENCH
OLYMPIC COMMITTEE (CNOSF), PARIS.
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The French Empire
During a race for world supremacy that opposed France and Britain for the most part,
France built up a colonial empire between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,
which reached its zenith just before the beginning of the First World War. As the second
largest Empire—just behind Britain with 12 million square kilometers of territory—France
enjoyed a worldwide presence with a strong concentration in Africa, Asia, and Oceania.5
At the beginning of the 1920s, the French Empire was particularly powerful in Africa,
with holdings in Occidental French Africa and Equatorial French Africa territories, including Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, as well as Madagascar, the Reunion, Mayotte Island, and Comoros in the Indian Ocean. In addition to their African dominions, the
French maintained Asian and Pacific domains that included colonies in Indochina, trading posts in India, and island territories in New Caledonia and Polynesia. France also had
holdings in the Western hemisphere, including several territories in the West Indies
(Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, Saint Bartholomew, Guyana), as well as other
areas of the world such as Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Djibouti, Lebanon, and other places
in the Middle East were also held under French mandate.
The case of Algeria, however, was particularly dramatic. The taking of Algiers in
1830 was followed by thirty years of bloody combat and massacre, in spite of the resistance
organized by Abd-el-Kader. The final conquest was achieved in the 1850s with the defeat
of the last pockets of resistance in Greater Kabylia: almost one-third of the Algerian population had perished. The colonization phase was one of the longest in French colonial
history. It terminated in an eight-year war for independence from 1954 to 1962, a bloody
struggle that witnessed numerous executions on both sides.6
In Algeria, as in other territories of the Empire, the economy was based on the exploitation of local resources (both natural and human) to the profit of Metropolitan France
and was justified by the civilizing mission of the French towards what they considered to
be the “inferior races.” Though each territory was administered by a governor who, although dependent on Metropolitan France, was relatively free to act as he saw fit, the
principle of legal and social segregation was systematically applied. A specific code for
indigenous populations was drafted for Algeria in 1881 and was used throughout the
Empire. It constituted one of the foundation stones of colonial society in the 1920s and
distinguished “French citizens” from “French subjects,” the latter being entitled only to
limited rights.7
The social, economic, and political division of the colonized and the colonizers was
visible in all areas, and sport was no exception,8 although its role in the acculturation of
local populations by the French colonizer has only been a subject for discussion since the
middle of the 1990s. A series of monographs have highlighted several points of convergence between the West Indies, Africa, the Indian Ocean, and other territories.9 They
show, for example, that local populations progressively took up sport in the 1920s but that
the speed at which the process progressed was not always identical. For Algeria, the study
of this period has been limited, although the Franco-Algerian historian Youcef Fates has
drawn a number of important conclusions.10 He has demonstrated that, in the three
departments of Algiers, Constantine, and Oran, the first Franco-Arab non-community
clubs appeared around the year 1910.11 Certain Algerians, who had been singled out on
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account of their physical qualities, were occasionally recruited by metropolitan clubs: El
Ouafi was one of the very first of these. A second period in the middle of the 1930s saw
the celebration of the centenary of Algiers’ defeat, and the political effervescence of the
time gave rise to increasing tension in the case of national identities. More radical sport
clubs were set up with the aim not only of serving Arab-Muslim solidarity but also of
defying the colonial power.
Work carried out on sport in the Empire has scarcely touched on the return of settlers
to mainland France before Independence. From this point of view, the case of El Ouafi
can be considered as a precursor, and calls for a deeper understanding of how his victory
was perceived from the Metropolitan stance against a background in which France had
reached its colonial peak.
French Track-and-Field Athletics
The French Athletics Federation (FFA) saw the light of day on November 20, 1920,
as a replacement for the multi-sport body that had managed the development of sport in
France since 1889. This institutional specialization seems to reflect a move from the
model of an all-round and multi-disciplinary sportsman to that of a specialized athlete.
However, specialization in sport was not universally approved, and the FFA was granted
the status of “public utility” after 1925. However government aid remained extremely
limited at this epoch, even for training the athletes of the national team, who had to meet
their own costs or have them taken care of by the French Federation. The absence of any
sports policy on a national level was regularly decried by the press, as was the case after the
first European Championships in Turin in 1934. “Despite having no help from the State,
France has still managed to be a great athletics nation in Europe. What would these
athletes be capable of if they received the same aid as those of foreign countries?” wondered the Miroir des sports after the Turin meet.12
The French Athletics Federation was the only interlocutor of the International Amateur Athletics Association at a national level. It federated not only the athletics societies of
France, its colonies, and protectorates that had adhered to its statutes but also those in
basketball until 1932. Considered by observers of the epoch as a federation particularly
impervious to change, it was regularly reproached for its “narrow-minded” attitude.13 It
notably remained extremely faithful to the great principles of Coubertinian amateurism
and never hesitated to strike off those who appeared to contravene the rules.14 El Ouafi
found himself to be one of the victims of this intransigence.
The debate on sporting values hid other important questions concerning the democratization of the activity: how could factory workers and employees who worked over
forty hours per week take part in a high-level sporting activity without a change in their
status? 15 How was it possible to attain the same high medal rate of the Americans without
adopting certain standards? Concerning the Olympics in Paris, the physician Bellin du
Coteau was quick to decry an “impossible amateurism.”16 A journalist from L’Echo des
sports maintained, “It is not possible to be a high-level athlete without actually earning a
living from one’s specialization.”17
Although there were around thirty regional leagues, Paris centralized the main clubs
during the inter-war period. In spite of the existence of over 1000 clubs in France, the
main associations were the Racing Club de France, the Stade Français, the CASG, the
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El Ouafi winning the Olympic Marathon in Amsterdam in 1928. LE MIROIR
DES SPORT, 7 AUGUST 1924. COURTESY OF
THIERRY TERRET.
Metropolitan Club, and the Paris Université Club. These associations won the vast majority of events organized in France and left few places for small provincial clubs, which were
run with next to no financial means. It was in one of these associations that El Ouafi
trained for the Olympics of Amsterdam. The main sports facilities, especially the four or
five good national tracks of the 1920s, were also to be found in and around the capital.18
A network of municipal stadiums only really developed during the 1930s.19
In the mid 1920s, the French Federation began to consider widening the recruitment
of elite athletes beyond the Parisian circles in order to put together the best possible team.
The Federation management began slowly to turn its attention to the provinces but not
yet the colonies. El Ouafi, who had come to metropolitan France during the First World
War, was the first exception. With a view to preparing for the 1924 Olympics, provincial
training centers were set up alongside the Parisian ones at the Olympic stadium and the
Military Academy of Joinville.20
French Perceptions
A brief look would seem to indicate that El Ouafi’s victory was particularly well perceived in the French press and that the commentaries were mainly positive and supportive.
One of the leading sport newspapers, Le Miroir des Sports, for instance, carried the exploit
on its cover, together with a picture of El Ouafi.21 Louis Maertens, in L’Auto, enthusiastically wrote:
What joy in the French camp at the stadium. . . . A joy even greater since
spectators, who were doubtlessly wrongly told about vicissitudes in our race,
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expected to see an American, Finn or Japanese contestant running onto the
stadium track as winner. And the winner was our brave little guy, so confident
in his capabilities, so valiant in the fight, so beautiful and such a perfect running expert. I will remember, for a long time, the great victory of El Ouafi.22
Similar comments also appeared in Maurice Pefferkorn’s extended article written for L’Echo
des Sports in which the runner was praised in glowing commentaries.23
However, considering the articles in the French press in more detail leads to a less
positive feeling and even to the surprising conclusion that El Ouafi’s victory was finally
marginalized and his performance minimized. The first evidence is quantitative and can
be seen not only when one compares the low number of articles on El Ouafi in France
with the numerous references appearing in the American press, but also if one considers
articles referring to other French athletes of the same period, such as Jules Ladoumègue.
El Ouafi and Ladoumègue both belonged to the CASG at the same time, and both became international athletes in the mid-1920s. El Ouafi finished first in the marathon in
Amsterdam, Ladoumègue second in the 1500 meters. Both were also finally disqualified
for professionalism in the early 1930s.24 Yet that is as far as the comparison goes. When El
Ouafi won the Paris-Melun marathon on July 10, 1928, for example, journalists reported
that this victory was obtained quite by chance given that Guillaume Tell, another French
runner, happened to injure a foot; moreover, the victory was totally eclipsed by the record
of Ladoumègue in the mile.25 More generally, Ladoumègue was a popular hero who
benefited from the support of all the sports press and of general opinion for many years.
His exploits were commented on in hundreds of articles.26 On, the contrary, El Ouafi
received little attention for his very first races in France and remained anonymous. After
Paris in 1924, as well as after Amsterdam four years later, journalists were extremely cautious in writing about him. El Ouafi has been marginalized in the French press, whether
in sports or general news.
This state of affairs is confirmed by a more attentive reading of the comments made
before and after his Olympic victory. Thus, despite his previous distance performances, El
Ouafi was never presented as a challenger for the Olympic marathon. After the race, Le
Miroir des Sports admitted that the “splendid victory of El Ouafi came as a surprise,”27 and
both L’Auto and Sporting confirmed that it was an “unexpected victory.”28 So little was it
(or he?) thought of that when the French ambassador arrived at the stadium soon after the
race (in fact seeking his secretary), nobody thought to inform him of the result.29
These positions seem contradictory, but the contradiction remained superficial. In
short, the Olympic marathon was celebrated as the victory of France and not as that of a
Frenchman, since El Ouafi was not a real native Frenchman. Such a distinction became
extremely clear in a number of articles and comments as was seen, for example, by the fact
that El Ouafi’s famous picture on the cover of Le Miroir des Sports was given the very
explicit caption, “El Ouafi, who confirmed the long-distance running qualities of the
Arabs, had already won the French Marathon in the Paris-Melun race.”30 A similar stigmatization was used by Victor Breyer, the director of L’Echo des sports, stating that the
“Algerian El Ouafi, winner of the marathon, gives France another victory. . . . Algeria
affirms herself as an extension of the mother country. . . . This victory brings her still closer
to the sport of the mother country. . . . It really is a charming consolation for French
people, even if it was won by an Algerian.”31
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The metropolitan colonialist press, such as La Dépêche Coloniale et Maritime, developed similar reflections on El Ouafi’s contribution to France’s successes, referring to “this
small Algerian . . . coming to help France.”32 At the same time, a convergent, although
more ironic, statement was expressed by the anti-colonialist, left-wing-oriented newspaper L’Humanité, “Finally, a French victory! This is . . . ironically . . . the one of Arabian El
Ouafi.”33
Interestingly, certain journalists even went as far as to consider that the victory was
because of the superiority of French people over minorities, in the sense that the latter had
in fact been educated by the former. “We must not forget that, although the winner was
born in Biskra, he followed his entire sports career in France, and that it was the advice of
French trainers which made him a remarkable specialist in long-distance races,” cautioned
the journalist Victor Breyer.34 The unexpressed conclusion was that France did not have
good sportsmen on her own soil, but that she had the capacity to use the “natural” potential of her colonial sports athletes through rational selection and relevant training. In a
sense, white masters demonstrated their superiority over black natives by the use of intelligence. But the fact that the French press presented El Ouafi as having received an “athletic education,” a blessing that signified the generosity of the French society, could not be
simply understood with ethnic and racial interpretations although they are also relevant
here. Indeed, such comments were also linked to the particular status of athletics in France,
since these activities were shaped by a strong belief in their connection to specific educational systems.35
A French victory, not a victory from a Frenchman: the difference is of great importance. However, it hardly explains the relative neglect of press coverage on El Ouafi in the
months and years following Amsterdam. The difference is visible in the period immediately after that when the metropolitan French press, on the contrary, published a considerable number of articles about the champions from North Africa, in which they wrote of
them being both North African and French. When analyzing the 1,246 articles and photographs of media cover on Larbi Ben Barek, the footballer of Algerian origin, Marcel
Cerdan, the boxer of Moroccan origin, and Alfred Nakache, the Algerian swimmer, all of
which appeared in the specialized and general press (L’Auto, Paris Soir et Gringoire) between 1936 and 1944, the sports historian Stanislas Frankiel discovered a certain “indeterminate categorization” of Barek, Cerdan, and Nakache which blurred their ethnicity in
the media accounts.36 A decade earlier, El Ouafi, in contrast, was clearly always stigmatized as North African. Two explanations can be advanced here, following sporting dynamics and ethno-racial considerations.
The Marathon, Amateurism, and the American Illusion
It is important first to mention the status of marathon running in France. This
activity had always been poorly perceived in the country. As confessed in 1957 by Gaston
Meyer, “[T]he marathon question has never preoccupied the FFA.”37 Whereas national
championships had been organized in most of the traditional athletic events since the end
of the nineteenth century, the marathon was an exception with very irregular
championships and erratic distances. There were, for instance, no national championships in 1927 and 1929, and the championship held in 1928 was run over a distance of
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thirty-eight kilometers.38 Moreover, the marathon was considered to be a dangerous race
for health given that it was contrary to what was generally believed by French scientists
and trainers in the 1920s. Only real specialists were supposed to run such a distance,39
and some experts even claimed that this race was harmful.40
Such beliefs were also shared by the press, and they explain why only one French
journalist followed the Olympic Marathon in Amsterdam, whereas many of them were
present at the stadium.41 Clearly, the lack of attention given to El Ouafi was also a consequence of the status of marathon running in a country where it could hardly contribute to
a process of collective identification.
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the majority of French marathon runners had been professional and thus not allowed to take part in the Olympic games. The
consequences of this early history were still visible in the 1920s, leading to another sporting debate that played a role here, that of amateurism and the fact that El Ouafi rapidly
turned professional after Amsterdam, a move that had not really been anticipated. Indeed, factors contributing to marginalizing El Ouafi included his poor—by western standards—education and his failing to understand how people would manipulate him, as
well as possibly a certain naivety that prevented him from foreseeing the consequences of
his decisions. This attitude is well illustrated by what happened immediately after his
Olympic exploit of 1928. When he went back to the dressing room, El Ouafi admitted to
the journalists waiting for a declaration, “I really want to thank Mr. Spitzer for his care and
advice over the 8 days. It is to him that I owe my victory.”42 Alfred Spitzer, who worked
as journalist, trainer, and head of a famous Parisian sports club, the Metropolitan Club,
thus gained easy promotion. The truth was revealed almost thirty years later by a witness
interviewed by the journalist Gaston Meyer. Not only had the Metropolitan Club designed El Ouafi’s running shoes—a sheet of foam rubber between two leather soles—but
Spitzer had simply paid the Olympic winner to express such spontaneous gratitude. “Alfred
Spitzer, disregarding the intruders, approached the man smiling and sweaty and told him
‘Oh, here are 10 guilders. Off you go and have fun in town.’”43
This same attitude explains why El Ouafi so easily accepted Tex Rickard’s offer to
perform during a tour of America in September of 1928 and through the following months.
He never realized at this time that he would be disqualified for professionalism by the
French Athletics Federation as soon as he returned to France. This is, however, exactly
what happened, at a time when the Federation had declared war on professionalism. The
issue particularly worried the sports institutions and was also taken up by the press. At the
end of 1928, for instance, L’Auto made a national study of the question. Soccer and rugby
were particularly concerned, the first one turning officially towards professionalism in
1932, the second splitting soon after into two institutions, amateur rugby union and
professional rugby league.44 The fear of athletics also dividing into two institutions made
its leaders particularly cautious about taking any risk that might reinforce the process. The
sports context was thus very difficult for El Ouafi, knowing that, a few weeks before he
came back from the United States to France, the leaders of the Football Club de Sochaux
had officially announced their willingness to pay their players. On the contrary, under
pressure from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF), the FFA was
one of the most traditionalist sports federations in France on this issue. As Gaston Meyer
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recalled, “El Ouafi had nothing to expect from the leaders of amateurism, not even alms.
In their eyes, he had betrayed the cause of amateurism. This is what my friend and master
Marcel Delarbre, who was general secretary of the French Olympic Committee at this
time, told him.”45
Only years later did El Ouafi recognize that his American tour had probably been a
mistake and that he had been fooled by a promising future he never saw, “I was an idiot for
agreeing to cross the Atlantic. . . . I do not know if you realize what it was for me, a worker
at Renault factories, to go to America! I accepted, of course! All my expenses were
paid. . . . It’s beautiful, you know, America. . . . To the Chilean who was behind me in
Amsterdam, his president gave him a cottage. . . . Mine disqualified me!”46
Being disqualified from a sport also meant being excluded socially, which explains
partially why the French press was so cautious, whereas the American press marveled at El
Ouafi. However, the comparison with Ladoumègue, who was also disqualified but nevertheless remained extremely popular, leads one to explore alternative explanations.
Challenging Colonial Order
One year before Amsterdam, Marcel Berger had already published articles in L’Auto in
which he pointed out the promising long distances performed by people from Congo and
Haute-Volta in their daily activities.47 However, during the 1920s it was considered more
important to build a “French method” and a “French school” of athletics to train champions rather than extending the system of selection and recruitment to beyond the borders
of the motherland. French athletics was still mainly based on educative and hygienic
purposes rather than on the quest for performances and records. 48
Although French colonies were not yet seen as a “fishing pond” for sportsmen in the
1920s, they were in the 1930s. Thus, El Ouafi’s marathon took place during a transition
phase that saw France systematically searching for top athletes in her colonies. This process was particularly obvious during the Colonial Fair of 1931, used to “evaluate the capabilities of the natives in comparison to those of Metropolitans,”49 as well as in the FFA’s
“mission” to Africa and L’Auto from 1937 to 1938.50 The quest to discover champions in
the colonies, however, declined rapidly as Europe descended toward the Second World
War. French sport leaders made the decision to break off the search in Africa for the
simple reason that it had produced no immediate results, not on account of ethnic representations or racial stigmatizations.
But it cannot be said that there was no political influence here. The issue even affected
French reaction to El Ouafi’s Olympic victory in 1928. American sport historian Mark
Dyreson points out that the Pittsburgh Courier had contended that France was “proud” of
El Ouafi and that he and other dark-skinned colonials did not face the same racism in
France as African Americans in the United States.51 In one way, this was the case. While
El Ouafi became a kind of living proof of the ideological roots of racism in the United
States, he was seen as an anachronism in France, breaking the belief that existed in the
superiority of metropolitans over colonized people. Such an important divergence between the United States and France had already been referred to by Timothée Jobert in his
analysis of how black sportsmen were perceived in the white sporting press within the
context of colonial France.52 It is true that commentaries in the colonial press, such as
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those of La Dépêche Coloniale et Maritime, occasionally made reference to “our comrade
with dark skin and crimped hair.”53 Nevertheless, for French authorities and public
opinion, El Ouafi’s victory constituted, above all, a challenge to the colonial power rather
than a challenge to the racial order, although the two are obviously linked.
Despite the transition in process, however, El Ouafi’s challenge to the colonial order
was doomed from the start on account of what French sport historian Bernardette DevilleDanthu has called the “Siki syndrome.”54 It refers to the boxing victory of the Senegalese
Louis Phal (Battling) Siki over Georges Carpentier for the title of Light Heavyweight
World Champion in September of 1922. Carpentier was a French idol, whose defeat by
the American Jack Dempsey for the title of World Heavyweight Champion in July of
1921 had been followed closely by the whole of France.55 When Carpentier was brought
down by Siki, it was perceived as a national tragedy and soon generated a feeling of anxiety
among the French population when it was realized that black colonial athletes could be
superior to white metropolitan ones. As a reaction, the French Boxing Federation used
dubious pretexts to have Siki excluded. Various accusations of racism were immediately
launched in the press and Parliament against the federation.56
In a way, El Ouafi’s victory could have reactivated the Siki syndrome and opened the
door to a new crisis in France. Moreover, the late 1920s was a time of trouble and unrest
in French Algeria. The indigenous population was increasingly hostile to the specific code
that had been written for them in 1881, which gave the colonial administration considerable powers and considered them as inferior citizens.57 Sport thus became a tool for the
colonial order. In 1928 particularly, heightened tensions in Algeria led colonial officials to
impose on all Muslim sports clubs the requirement to include a certain number of European members in order to reduce ethnic confrontations. The rapid marginalization of El
Ouafi, both in the press and by virtue of his sporting disqualification, made it easier for
France to solve the problem of him being used as a symbol of disorder to challenge the
hierarchy between the mother country and her colonies. As confirmed by French Colonial period historians Philippe Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel, and Sandrine Lemaire, “[D]uring
the 1920s, to be anti-colonial meant to be anti-French; on the other hand, looking forward to an extended France was intended to legitimate the ‘Greater France.’”58
El Ouafi in the Realms of Oblivion
Reducing the risk of challenge to the colonial order largely explains the surprising
erasure of El Ouafi in the French inter-war collective memory. After his return to France
in 1929 and his disqualification by the French Federation of Athletics, El Ouafi used the
money he had earned during his American tour to buy a café in Paris in partnership with
one of his friends, who soon after led the business into bankruptcy. Illiterate and isolated,
El Ouafi became a waiter, then a worker, an unskilled laborer and, finally, an unemployed
person, living in miserable conditions and marked by social destitution, illness, and anonymity. Yet his demise met with general indifference among the French public. The
oblivion of El Ouafi was so deeply rooted in the French collective memory that it lasted
almost thirty years. His existence was only recalled in two particular circumstances.
The first started as a beautiful dream but finished as a nightmare. It happened precisely between 1956 and 1959. In 1956, El Ouafi managed to regain some sort of celeb-
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rity, due in large part to respect expressed for his 1928 feat by another Algerian-born
French marathoner, Alain Mimoun, whose support of El Ouafi resulted from the similarity between their two social and sports paths, as well as from community solidarity. Mimoun
was a national sports hero who won the Olympic marathon in Melbourne. His victory
was celebrated as a prodigious symbol at a time of open hostilities between France and the
Algerian colony, which resulted in war between 1954 and 1962 and the ensuing independence of Algeria. When Mimoun returned to France after his Olympic victory, he received an invitation from the French President René Coti and managed to have El Ouafi
invited to join him at the Elysée. Soon after, Mimoun not only gave El Ouafi part of the
subscription he had obtained with the support of journalist Pierre Sabbagh but also landed
the great French endurance runner of the 1920s a modest job as doorkeeper in a stadium.59
Tragically, just three years later, in the dark context of the war between France and her
African colonies, the story ended brutally in a room located at n° 10 Landis Street, in the
Parisian suburb of Plaine-Saint-Denis. On October 18, 1959, El Ouafi attended a stormy
family meeting to discuss the heritage of his nephew. It is still not clear whether or not the
situation degenerated for financial or political reasons, but it resulted in the shooting and
death of Boughera El Ouafi from a bullet that was most probably not intended for him—
if one is to believe Mimoun’s declarations in an interview soon after the murder.60 El
Ouafi was buried in the Muslim cemetery of Bobigny, the cost of the ceremony being paid
for by the National Olympic Committee. The invitation to the Elysée, together with the
murder, gave a small number of journalists the occasion to recall that El Ouafi had once
been a marathon champion. However, even here, there were few articles, all of which were
published in the French leading sports newspaper, L’Equipe.61
The second circumstance is even more recent since it is linked to the reactivation of
the debate over immigration in France in the mid 1990s. El Ouafi’s name was used in two
editions of the communist newspaper, L’Humanité, as a good example of how North Africans had been well integrated into French society.62 These citations were not surprising
since the Communists had been the most radically opposed to the colonial policy of France
and to the war. Scholars were soon to follow with a couple of brief and relatively redundant overviews seek to situate El Ouafi’s sporting life within the context of colonial France.63
El Ouafi had received more attention in the American press during the few months of
his U.S. tour than in the French press during his entire life. In France, as in most countries
where sport has slowly become a political matter, to forget an Olympic winner is not such
an infrequent affair for journalists and scholars. Even today, there is still no certitude as to
the exact year that El Ouafi was born, and dates vary between 1898 and 1903 depending
on the source.
Conclusion: A Forgotten Memory
El Ouafi was the first of a long series of Algerian sporting talents to migrate to France,
a process that never stopped even after independence.64 However, his pioneering successes led to reactions that were relatively unique in French sporting history. His Olympic
triumph occurred at a time of tension in the North African colonies, and this rather
embarrassing situation for the colonial power was managed by relatively poor press coverage
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of the athlete and through a subtle set of comments that presented El Ouafi’s exploit as a
victory for France and not as a victory of a French sportsman. Soon after, and owing to the
ongoing debate on the status of amateurism, his American tour of 1928-1929 was immediately followed by a sports disqualification that announced wider social exclusion. El
Ouafi sank into oblivion while the colonial order remained intact for a time—long enough
at least to make it possible for the French authorities to seek other talent in Africa just a
few years later, although it is clear that the context was briefly less tense.
The forgotten memory of El Ouafi reflects the uncomfortable and ever conflicting
attitudes of France towards her former colonies.65 It is sufficient here to recall that the war
of independence in Algeria has very recently been an object of tension within the French
parliament, causing diplomatic difficulties with Algeria and resulting in a political battle
that has opposed historians and the French Government.
Since the publication of the Black Book of Colonialism in 2003, in which the historian
Marc Ferro took apart the pacific and civilizing ideology upon which French colonial
memory had been built, the debate has intensified. 66 The visits made to Paris by Algerian
president Abdelaziz Bouteflika have, for several years now, provided the opportunity to
recall that the past still “needs revisiting,” in spite of increasing research into the subject.67
Several polemical issues have served to confirm this. By reactivating tensions, they have
served to remind us that colonial wounds do not heal as long as the effort to “revisit the
past” has not been made. They began with the issue of torture and massacre, subjects
which were taboo in history books but which had come under the spotlight following
revelations made during the Iraqi-American conflict. Over and above the irrefutable proof
brought to public notice during the Algerian War, the bloody episode of Setif—a town in
eastern Algeria, in which French partisans, inspired by Vichy ideologies, massacred between ten and forty thousand Algerians who were celebrating the Liberation on May 8,
1945—afforded President Bouteflika the possibility of talking about “genocide” and demanding that France apologize.68
After this, there was the question of the “Harkis,” those Algerians by birth who chose
to engage and fight on the side of the French forces during the 1958-1962 war and who
had always been considered as traitors by their fellow countrymen. Abandoned to their
fate by the French officers, tens of thousands of them were assassinated. Others, who
migrated to France at the end of the war in order to avoid certain death in Algeria, were
shunted into camps for several decades, victims of total amnesia on the part of those in
power. A law voted on February 21, 2005, that “gave recognition by the State and a
national contribution for the repatriated French, and was supposed at last to recognize
their right to decent indemnity,” gave rise to considerable controversy and several of its
articles were judged contrary to the European Convention on Human Rights by a decision of April 6, 2007. 69 The same law also resulted in a third point of discord between
France and Algeria concerning certain aspects of colonial history. In fact, Article 4 states
that “school programs in particular recognize the positive role of the French presence
overseas, notably in North Africa, and accord to the history and sacrifices of French army
combatants from these territories the eminent place to which they have a right.” This
extract embarrassed French historians and led to articles and petitions aimed at pointing
out that historical truth was not a matter of decree and that the “positive and civilizing”
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FORUM: THE 1928 OLYMPIC MARATHON
role played by France was a false, dangerous, and ideological conception of history.70 In
the upsurge of protest that developed, it was pointed out that history manuals used in
primary and secondary education contained not even a line on the massacre of Sétif.71
Unsurprisingly, President Bouteflika reacted forcibly to the law of 2005, even going as far
as to block the signature of a pending Franco-Algerian agreement, whilst denouncing “the
mental blindness” of France.72
The tensions surrounding the history of Franco-Algerian relations confirm the unsustainable content of a historical memory invented by the French, who had known how to
exploit their dominant position well after decolonization. Certain events were reconsidered in an unbalanced manner, ignoring those who might have had a leading role, something that France claimed for itself. Sport has been part and parcel of this approach, and it
is hardly surprising in such a context that the Marseillaise has been whistled at during
friendly football matches between France and Algeria (October 2001), France and Morocco (November 2007) and France and Tunisia (October 2008 in Paris), scandalizing
President Sarkozy and Prime Minister Fillon. The failure to celebrate the Olympic victory
of El Ouafi is not an accident. Rather, it is symptomatic of a vast enterprise of collective
refusal to remember that contributes to an on-going degradation of relations between
France and Algeria.
1
Stanislas Frenkiel and Nicolas Bancel, “The Migration of Professional Algerian Footballers to the
French Championship (1956-1982): The ‘Desire for France’ and the Prevailing National Contexts,”
International Journal of the History of Sport 25 (2008): 1031-1050.
2
François Quilgars, “Comment créer des représentants olympiques? ” Très sport, 1 September 1922.
On this point, see Anne Roger, “Plus haut, plus loin, plus vite : l’athlétisme aux Jeux olympiques de
Paris,” in Les Paris des Jeux de 1924, vol. 2: Les Paris Sportifs, ed. Thierry Terret (Biarritz, Fr.: Atlantica,
2008,), 351-384.
3
Jean Bouin, the best French athlete before World War I, belonging to the CASG.
4
The exact distance was 38.5 kilometers and explains his excellent performance of 2:20:03.
5
Jean Meyer et al., Histoire de la France coloniale, des origines à 1914 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1990).
6
Tunisia and Morocco obtained their independence in 1956.
7
Jacques Thobie et al., Histoire de la France coloniale, 1914-1990 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1990).
8
Nicolas Bancel, Daniel Denis, and Youcef Fates, eds., De l’Indochine à l’Algérie. La jeunesse en
mouvements des deux côtés du miroir colonial. 1940-1962 (Paris: La Découverte, 2003); Evelyne CombeauMari, Sports et loisirs dans les colonies aux XIXème-XXème siècles (Paris: Sedes, 2004); idem, “Sport in the
French Colonies (1880-1962),” Journal of Sport History 33 (2006): 27-58.
9
For the West Indies, see Jacques Dumont, Sport et assimilation à la Guadeloupe (1914-1965) (Paris:
L’Harmattan, 2002); Philippe Gastaud, “Les pratiques corporelles dans les mouvements de jeunesse catholiques
guadeloupéens. Histoire de l’identité créole au XXe siècle” (unpublished dissertation, University of Strasbourg
I, 2002); Jacques Dumont, Sport et mouvements de jeunesse à la Martinique (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2006).
For the AOF and the AEF, see Bernadette Deville-Danthu, Le sport en noir et blanc. Du sport colonial au
sport africain (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996); David-Claude Kemo, “Représentations, politiques et pratiques
corporelles au Cameroun (1920-1996). Enjeux et paradoxes du sport et de l’éducation physique en Afrique
noire” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Strasbourg, 1999); Nicolas Bancel, “Entre acculturation et révolution.
Mouvements de jeunesse et sports dans l’évolution politique et institutionnelle de l’AOF (1945-1962)” (unpublished dissertation, University Paris I , 1999). For the islands of the Indian Ocean, see André-Jean
Benoit, Sport colonial (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1996) ; Evelyne Combeau-Mari, Sport et décolonisation à la
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réunion de 1946 à la fin des années 60 (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998); Claude Calvini, Histoire du sport à l’ile
Maurice (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2008). For the other territories, see especially Yves Leloup, “Histoire des
courses de pirogues polynésiennes. De l’acculturation sportive occidentale à la ré-appropriation identitaire ma’ohi
(XIXe-XXe siècle)” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of French Polynesia, 2007); Sébastien Ruffié, “Etude
sociologique des pratiques corporelles chez les Tamouls de nationalité française de Pondichéry (Sud de l’Inde). La
complémentarité des rôles sexués comme mode d’acculturation spécifique” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Montpellier, 2003); Agathe Larcher-Goscha, “Sports, colonialisme et identités nationales : premières
approches du ‘corps à corps colonial’ en Indochine (1918-1945),” in Bancel et al., De l’Indochine à
l’Algérie,15-31; Agathe Larcher-Goscha, “Volonté de puissance coloniale et puissance de volonté nationaliste:
aux origines de la création de l’école d’éducation physique de Hanio (1913-1922),” in Combeau-Mari,
Sport et loisirs, 35-44.
10
Youcef Fates, Sport et politique en Algérie, de la période coloniale à nos jours (unpublished dissertation, University Paris-Sorbonne, 2001).
11
Youcef Fates, “Le club sportif, structure d’encadrement et de formation nationaliste de la jeunesse
musulmane pendant la période coloniale,” in Bancel et al., De l’Indochine à l’Algérie,150-162, 153.
12
Miroir des sports, 11 September 1934.
13
Geo André, “La leçon de Magdebourg : ‘Derrière une belle façade, il y a un vide effrayant dans
l’athlétisme français,’” Miroir des sports n° 791, 25 September 1934.
14
It is enough to compare the situations of track and field with soccer that started to become a
professional sport in the early 1930s. See Alfred Wahl and Pierre Lanfranchi, Le footballeur professionnel
des années trente à nos jours (Hachette: Paris, 1995).
15
Suzanne Trist, “Le patronat face à la question des loisirs ouvriers : avant 1936 et après,” Le mouvement
social 135 (1986): 7-30.
16
Dr. Bellin du Coteau et M. Pefferkorn, L’entraînement sportif (Paris: Flammarion, 1924), 55.
17
L’Echo des Sports, 7 April 1932, quoted by Marianne Lassus, L’affaire Ladoumègue: Le débat
amateurisme/professionnalisme dans les années trente (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2000), 61.
18
Elisabeth Lê-Germain, “La construction du stade de Gerland (1914-1919),” in Education et politique
sportives, eds. Pierre Arnaud and Thiery Terret (Paris: CTHS, 1995), 306.
19
Geo André, “L’aménagement et l’entretien d’une piste de course à pied,” Miroir des sports, 96, 4
May 1922; Jean-Paul Callède, Les politiques sportives en France (Paris: Economica, 2000). However,
according to Michel Héluwaert, France had still only 5,000 stadiums in 1940, i.e. less than one square
meter of sports area per inhabitant. Michel Héluwaert, Jeunesse et sports, espérances contrariées, marginalités
récupérées, propos sur des utopies abandonnées (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2002). See also Philippe Tichit, “Politiques
sportives municipals: Genèse, structuration et enjeux (1900-1980),” in Christian Vivier and Jean-François
Loudcher, Le sport dans la ville (Paris: L’Harmattan, 1998).
20
Minutes of the Commission Technique et d’Organisation, L’Athlétisme, 26 February 1924, p. 121.
The military school of Joinville was used for the preparation of the French sport elite until the Olympic
Games of 1928. See Marcel Spivak, “L’Ecole de Joinville (1852-1939),” in Le corps en Mouvement, précurseurs
et pionniers de l’éducation physique, ed. Pierre Arnaud (Toulouse: Privat, 1981); Pierre Simonet, L’INSEP:
De la gymnastique joinvillaise aux sports contemporains (Paris: G. Klopp, 1998).
21
Le Miroir des sports, 7 August 1928.
22
Louis Maertens, in L’Auto, 7 August 1928.
23
Maurice Pefferkorn, “La victoire du marathonien,” L’Echo des Sport, 8 August 1928.
24
Ladoumègue was disqualified in March of 1932, after one year of investigation. See Lassus, L’affaire
Ladoumègue, 23-24.
25
Le Miroir des Sports, 10 July 1928.
26
Lassus, L’affaire Ladoumègue.
27
GA, “Comment El Ouafi a gagné le marathon olympique,” Le Miroir des Sports, 7 August 1928,
p.12.
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FORUM: THE 1928 OLYMPIC MARATHON
28
Lucien Debech in L’Auto, 6 August 1928; Alfred Spitzer, C.W. Herring and Lucien Avocat, “Les
IX° Jeux Olympiques sont terminés,” Sporting, 14 August 1928.
29
Spitzer, Herring, and Avocat, “Les IX° Jeux Olympiques.”
30
Le Miroir des sports, 7 August 1928.
31
Victor Breyer, L’Echo des sports, 6 August 1928.
32
La Dépêche Coloniale et Maritime, 8 August 1928.
33
L’Humanité, 6 August 1928.
34
Victor Breyer, L’Echo des sports, 6 August 1928.
35
Thierry Terret et al., L’athlétisme et l’école: Histoire et épistémologie d’un sport éducatif (Paris:
L’Harmattan, 2002).
36
Stanislas Frankiel, “Larbi Ben Barek, Marcel Cerdan et Alfred Nakache : icônes de l’utopie coloniale
dans la presse métropolitaine 1936-1942,” STAP:. Revue internationale des sciences du sport et de l’éducation
physique 80 (2008): 99-113.
37
Gaston Meyer, “L’athlétisme,” in L’athlétisme. Encyclopédie des Sports modernes series, 3 vols. (Paris:
Larousse, 1957), 1: 237.
38
Still today, the marathon is organized separately from the national championships in athletics,
with specific date and location.
39
Rochard et Alfred Spitzer, Les cahiers de l’athlétisme, Courses de fond—marche (Paris: FFA, 1936), 33.
40
Lieutenant Caste, Vers l’Olympiade (Paris: Vuibert, 1922), 60-61.
41
Louis Maertens in L’Auto, 7 August 1928.
42
Spitzer et al., Sporting, 14 August 1928.
43
Gaston Meyer, “La tragique aventure d’El Ouafi illustre le problème de l’amateurisme,” L’Equipe,
18 December 1956.
44
Alfred Wahl, Les archives du football: Sport et société en France 1880-1980 (Paris: Gallimard-Julliard,
1989); Robert Fassolette, Histoire politique du conflit des deux Rugby en France (Paris: INSEP, Dissertation
for the Diploma of Higher Studies, 1996).
45
Gaston Meyer, “Response to Paul Méricamp,” Bulletin du CIO 59 (1957): 16.
46
Quoted by Frédéric Sugnot, “Boughera El Ouafi, marathonien inconnu,” L’Humanité, 21 September 2002.
47
Marcel Berger, “Les athlètes noirs accomplissent parfois des prouesses extraordinaires,” L’Auto, 20
May 1927.
48
Anne Roger, L’entraînement en athlétisme en France (1919-1973): une histoire de théoriciens? (Ph.D.
thesis, University of Lyon 1, 2003). On the invention of the French Method of Physical Education and
how it served the French imperialist project, see Thierry Terret and Leomar Tesche, “French Gymnastics
in Brazil: Dissemination, Diffusion and Re-localization,” International Journal of the History of Sport,
forthcoming.
49
Max Bihan, “Les athlètes noirs s’exhibent à l’Exposition, ” L’Auto, 22 August 1931.
50
Deville-Danthu, Le sport en noir et blanc.
51
“El Ouafi Arrives,” Pittsburgh Courier, 22 September 1928, editorial page.
52
Timothée Jobert, Champions noirs, racisme blanc. La métropole et les sportifs noirs en contexte colonial
(1901-1944) (Grenoble, Fr.: Presses universitaires de Grenoble, 2006).
53
La Dépêche Coloniale et Maritime, 8 August 1928.
54
Deville-Danthu, Le sport en noir et blanc.
55
André Rauch, “Courage against Cupidity: Carpentier and Demsey—Symbols of Cultural Confrontation,” in European Heroes: Myth, Identity, Sport, eds. Antony J. Mangan, Richard Holt and Pierre
Lanfranchi (London: Routledge, 1996), 156-168. Ironically, the match was organized by impresario Tex
Rickard, who invited El Ouafi to his American Tour seven years later.
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56
Jobert, Champions noirs, racisme blanc.
Fates, Sport et politique en Algérie.
58
Philippe Blanchard, Nicolas Bancel and Sandrine Lemaire, La fracture coloniale (Paris: La découverte,
2006), 42.
59
Meyer, L’Equipe, 18 December 1956.
60
“It is his sister-in-law who should have been shot because she did not want to pay the FLN
(National Front of Liberation). El Ouafi could not give anything. He had no money. But he tried to
intervene in the quarrel, believing that nobody would shoot him. However, the shooting happened”
(Interview of Alain Mimoun by F. Sugnot, in L’Humanité, 21 September 2002).
61
Meyer, L’Equipe, 18 December 1956; Gérard Edelstein, “La gloire avait été trop lourde pour El
Ouafi, ” L’Equipe, 20 October 1959.
62
See, for instance, Patrick Pierquet, “Ahmed Bouguera El Ouafi de l’Olympe à l’oubli,” L’Humanité,
4 September 1995; Frédéric Sugnot, “Boughera El Ouafi, marathonien inconnu,” L’Humanité, 21 September 2002.
63
Pierre Lanfranchi, “Mekhloufi, Mimoun and El Ouafi: the difficulty of being a French sporting
hero,” Gazette de l’université d’Oxford, 1998; Alain Lunzenfichter, L’or français en athlétisme (Biarritz and
Paris: Atlantica, 2003), 96-104; Yvan Gastaud, “Ahmed Boughera El Ouafi (1899–1959),” Migrance 22
(2003): 10-11.
64
Philip Dine, “France, Algeria and Sport: From Colonisation to Globalisation” Modern and Contemporary France 10 (2002): 495-505.
65
Blanchard et al., La fracture coloniale.
66
Marc Ferro, ed., Le livre noir du colonialisme XVIe-XXIe siècle : de l’extermination à la repentance
(Paris: Robert Laffont, 2003).
67
Daniel Vernet, “L’Algérie, c’est l’histoire de France,” Le Monde, 23 June 2000.
68
Jean-Pierre Tuquoi, “Le président Bouteflika retient du ‘règne’ colonial français un ‘génocide’ et
des ‘fours’,” Le Monde, 12 May 2005. Despite the accusation, French president Jacques Chirac did not
react officially. See Bertrand Le Gendre, “Les mots de la rancœur continuent de faire obstacle à la
réconciliation franco-algérienne, ” Le Monde, 11 June 2005.
69
Quoted from Journal Officiel, 24 February, 2005. On the Harkis and the lost memory issue, see
for instance Jean-Jacques Jordi, La Réécriture de l’Histoire (Nice, Fr.: Actes du colloque du Centre universitaire
méditerranéen de Nice, 1998); Mohand Hamoumou and Jean-Jacques Jordi, Les Harkis, une mémoire
enfouie (Paris: Autrement, 1999); Dalila Kerchouche, “Harkis, l’histoire d’un déni,” Le Monde, 7 October 2006.
70
See, for instance, Claude Liauzu, “Une loi contre l’histoire,” Le Monde diplomatique, April 2005;
and “L’incitation à reconnaître le ‘rôle positif ’ de la colonisation à l’école suscite une levée de boucliers,”
Le Monde, 13 April 2005.
71
Sylvie Kerviel, “Ecole: la guerre des mémoires,” Le Monde, 2 October 2005; Philippe Bernard and
Catherine Rollot, “Les points d’interrogation des manuels,” Le Monde, 25 December 2005.
72
Jean-Pierre Tuquoi, “Le président algérien accuse la France de ‘cécité mentale’,” Le Monde, 5 July
2005; Florence Beaugé, “Les relations avec la France ne cessent de se détériorer,” Le Monde, 31 December
2005; Raphaëlle Branche et al., “La responsabilité des historiens face à l’histoire coloniale,” Le Monde, 27
March 2007.
57
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