pieds-noirs, mythes et origines

My Contemporary French Literature students just completed Un aller simple by Didier Van Cauwelaert, a novel which offers an intriguing approach to the questions of national identity, written homelands, nostalgia for the past, and the myths and fictions we create about ourselves. I have always appreciated the novel for the interesting counterpoint it offers to the writings of the Pieds-Noirs and the multiple myths of their pasts. The first of these myths pertains to the term "pied-noir" and its origins (consider Aziz and his name coming from the Ami 6). This site http://www.francparler.com/syntagme.php?id=337 gives an overview of the primary sources of the term. As Marie Cardinal says it, however, they were never Pieds-Noirs until they arrived in France. First an insult and eventually a badge of honor.