Berber buildings destroyed during the French colonial period in Tlemcen

In 1836, the French colonialists entered in Tlemcen and began to destroy and reshape the city following the European model. No study of this historical period has demonstrated the detail of the demolitions made by the French military genius. We then asked about the type and number of buildings demolished during that time. To answer these questions, we adopted two approaches. The first approach is historical, which is based on the reading of ancient documents that address the urban development of the city. The second approach is comparative where we will compare the first Tlemcen map of 1836 with the 22 other cards, the last of which dates back to 1961. It then turns out that the French military at the time has destroyed 654 buildings, including 13 city gates, 38 fragments of ramparts, 20 palaces, 12 mosques, 1 fondouk, 8 madrasahs and 562 houses. The area of Tlemcen in 1836 was 64 ha and in 1962 it was reduced to 48 ha. This reduction of 25 % of the area of his urban fabric is a terrible loss for this historic city