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Between the birth of an independent Algeria on 5 July 1962 and the military coup of 19 June 1965, which put an end to the turbulence of those early years as an independent State, Algerian leaders instituted a number of pragmatic language policies. The promotion of the Arabic language (“Arabization”) from 1962–1965 was not designed as retaliation against the French language or other oral, indigenous idioms. It was conducted so cautiously that it generated immense frustration in the rural regions, where Arabization was synonymous with upwards social mobility for educated people trained in Arabic. That frustration was exploited by the Army to present its putsch as a global “revolutionary overhaul” (redressement révolutionnaire) that encompassed the linguistic domain.