In recent years, scholars have increasingly called attention to the role of imperialism in the fabrication of masculine identities. Focusing on the intertwined discourses of race and gender that emerged from colonial experiences, recent works have shown that imperialism was an essential aspect in the construction of Western notions of masculinity (Stoler, McClintock ). Yet, little research has been done on this process as it relates to North Africa or the Middle East. Notions of Arab masculinity all too-often remain shrouded in nebulous and de-historicized statements and they tend to be assumed, rather than critically examined and contextualized. My paper attempts to fill this lacunae by looking at France’s experience in colonial Algeria and its impact on the formation of masculine norms. The starting point of my paper is the assumption that colonial encounters transformed the gendered norms of both French and Algerians through the invention of new practices on the ground. As an integral part of France overseas, Algeria provided a laboratory in which gender identities could be reinvented and reworked. In addition, demographically speaking, Algeria was heavily dominated by men throughout much of the nineteenth century, a situation which favored the development of homo-sociabilities and the rearticulation of masculine identities as men of various backgrounds came into contact and interacted with each other. I argue that French men’s initial encounter with Algeria’s patriarchal culture in the mid-nineteenth century enabled the attenuation of gender anxieties back in the metropole, where European men worried about the softening and effeminizing effects of modern society. Looking both at the writings of colonial administrators in Algeria (such as Eugene Daumas and Charles Richard) and at the reactions of French citizens to the presence of Algerian men in France, I show that throughout much of the nineteenth century, indigenous models of masculinity provided a positive image that helped inspire and redefine what it meant to be a Frenchman. The exotic life of adventure and danger that Algeria conjured allowed men to escape the emasculating effects of French bourgeois society while they re-negotiated the meaning and practice of manhood in a context that evoked a more traditional past. Thus, far from deprecating and effeminizing Algerian men, my paper argues that French men admired, and even emulated some of the practices associated with the chivalrous and adventurous lifestyle of Arabs. Emblematic figures such as the Emir Abd el-Qader became symbols of this celebrated masculinity.