Sixty years after the Algerian War of Independence - and as France prepares to elect a new President - Edward Stourton presents stories from a colonial past which still cast their shadow over the present. It's a very different colonial story from our own - even more brutal, more complex and more secret.

In the first of five programmes, Edward tells the surprising story of how an ugly bug - a tiny insect called phylloxera - created the climate for the Algerian War. The insect all but wiped out the French wine industry and caused huge numbers of French people to move to Algeria.

The French were initially seduced by the sun, sea and light of Algeria, exoticism captured in Albert Camus' famous novel, 'The Outsider'.

But the love affair quickly turned sour....

Sound design: Peregrine Andrews
Producers: Adele Armstrong and Ellie House
Editor: Richard Vadon
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman

MUSIC
"Nostra Algeria", from "Freedom Fighters of Algeria"
"Killing an Arab", The Cure
"Gnossienne No 1", Erik Satie Show less