'“It was the time of utopias, of turbulence, the time of Africa”. Algerian Students and French Coopérants in the Global 1960s', in Educational Internationalism in the Cold War: Plural Visions, Global Experiences, ed. by Damiano Matasci & Raphaëlle Ruppen Coutaz, Routledge, New York and London, 2024

This chapter deals with the history of cultural internationalism in the 20th century by focusing on Algeria after independence (1962) as a case study. Building on a wide range of sources, both oral and written, from both Algeria and France, the chapter first analyses one of the most relevant encounters of the Global 1960s: namely, the one between French young instituteurs coopérants (teachers), who went to Algeria willing to “donner un coup de main” (help), and their Algerian students. The chapter then argues that this encounter was the occasion for a cross-fertilization process and examines its relevance in the genealogy of the international New Left. In other words, it is not so much a question of evaluating once again the impact of the “European paradigm” of education on something “Other”. Rather, it is a matter of considering these young actors – Algerian students and their French teachers – together, redesigning the political geography of Europe to include the postcolonial space. And this perhaps means simply considering the 1960s’ new international culture in a true global perspective: one that is capable of visualizing these two “spaces” together, investigating the “folds” where two even geographically distant edges meet (and conflict) politically.