The Berber or Amazigh populations of North Africa have an interesting and frequently controversial relationship with France and the Francophone world. France, through its colonial presence in the region, purposefully established much stronger relationships with this part of the North African population than they did with others ? notably the Arab population. Although Arab and Berber joined together across the region to evict the French in the 1950s and 1960s, colonial emphasis on differences between Arab and Berber remained a political issue after the achievement of independence. This was most notably the case in the debate over language use in the independent states. Although Arabic was chosen as the official language in both Algeria and Morocco, large sections of the population of both states did not use Arabic as a first language. Indeed the ability to speak one of the Amazigh languages was - and remains - the primary marker of Amazigh identity. This was further complicated by the fact that some Amazigh communities used a European language as their second language? Spanish amongst the Riffis of Northern Morocco and French among the Algerian Kabyles. In the latter case, being accomplished Francophones gave Kabyles a decisive advantage in the largely still Francophone educational and administrative structures that existed in the aftermath of colonialism an advantage that was threatened by official campaigns of Arabisation. This contributed to the politicisation of the issue of Amazigh identity and language in Kabylia and Algeria more generally. It also raised the question of whether resistance to Arabisation was primarily to do with defending Amazigh or French cultural and linguistic identity. The paper aims to explore these issues and seeks to answer the question as to whether the growing politicisation of the issue of Amazigh identity across the region is largely due to the natural demands of a minority population, is the spillover effect from the particular case of Kabylia, or is the result of the persistence of French colonial policies to divide Arab and Berber which can still be witnessed today in the creation of academic departments and programmes in 'Berber studies' in French universities.