Citizenship and nationality in the French colonial Maghreb

Abstract

This chapter examines the history of citizenship in the French colonial Maghrib, from the colonization of Algeria in 1830 to independence after the Second World War, focusing on the legal dimensions of subjecthood, nationality, and citizenship in Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia. Rather than view citizenship as a binary distinguishing those who are “in” from those who are “out,” it argues that “legal belonging” – a neutral term encompassing a variety of ways state membership worked – is best understood as existing along a spectrum. Some colonial subjects, like Algerian Jews, were made full citizens of France. Others, like Algerian Muslims, were deemed to have French nationality; but because they were barred from the enjoyment of full political rights, they were not citizens. Taking a transnational approach to the history of nationality and citizenship in the French Maghrib, the chapter examines the colonial Maghrib in the context of the Ottoman Empire, and traces the impact of colonial regimes of legal belonging in metropolitan France. More than simply a footnote of metropolitan history, the regimes of legal belonging in the French colonial Maghrib can change the way we think about the history of citizenship more broadly – in the Middle East and beyond.