In 1826, Charles X imposed a naval blockade on the port city of Algiers. French military forces were already engaged in the Eastern Mediterranean, in the Greek War of Independence. This decision necessitated increasing the already bloated military budget. In reading speeches made on the floor of the Chamber of Deputies, throughout the 1820s, it is evident that many voices were raised to question the wisdom of confronting a traditional French ally, the Ottoman Empire. From 1826 to 1830, many deputies also questioned the necessity of maintaining and expanding the on-going blocus of the North African coast. One deputy went so far as far as to call it “une guerre froide” in1827. At the heart of the quarrel with the Pasha of Algiers lay the issue of a French debt dating back to the Directoire, as well as French non-payment for use of its concessions at La Calla and Bône. After French forces succeeded in taking Algiers, it was left to the July Monarchy to decide whether to remain only in Algiers or to expand the conquest. In the face of mounting debt and increasing casualties, members of the Chamber of Deputies questioned the feasibility of conquering the entire 1,000 mile coastline, from Constantine to Oran. Their doubts were assuaged only after 1837 with the successful taking of Constantine. At that point, dissent was reduced to the sole voice of Amédée Desjobert (1796-1853), a deputy representing a region in Normandy. My paper is focused on the ideas of deputy Desjobert as he expressed them on the floor of the Chamber and in his various publications. Unlike fellow deputy Alexis de Tocqueville, Desjobert never traveled to Algeria claiming, “I do not feel the need to travel there to know what we are doing there is wrong.” Desjobert deplored the escalating brutality of French occupying forces, and called for the recognition of a “sovereign Islamic nation” on the southern shores of the Mediterranean, with its rightful leader Abdel Kader. The most surprising element of Desjobert’s anti-colonial rhetoric is his deeply held belief that colonialism itself had become “anachronistic”. In interpreting his arguments, I will explore his writing within the intellectual context of his time. In so doing, Desjobert’s rhetoric gives us a view into an overlooked period in the history of French colonialism, before the “Mission to Civilize” was formulated as a justification for its actions.