There was an important additional anomaly that provoked bitterness whenever the bona fides of "assimilation" with the mother country were questioned. This was the issue of French citizenship. Muslims were automatically French "subjects", but not French "citizens". From the early days legislation had permitted them to be subject to Islamic, as opposed to French, law; this may have been designed as a cultural and religious protection, but it became in effect a prison, because a Muslim wishing to adopt French citizenship had to renounce these rights, thereby virtually committing an act of apostasy. Moreover, in practice many obstacles were placed in the path of the Muslim seeking French citizenship. Back in 1871 tribesmen reporting in front of a judge at Bougie to fill in naturalisation papers were, reportedly, thrown into prison — pour encourager les autres. As a result, by 1936, after seventy-five years of "assimilation", no more than 2,500 Muslims had actually crossed the bar to French citizenship. There were two further inconsistencies. To begin with, in having imposed upon them by the French the Arab judicial system, the Berber Kabyles had been made to accept a social structure that had been alien to them in the first place. Secondly, in 1870 the Crémieux Decrees had made the exception of conferring automatic French citizenship upon the whole Jewish community of Algeria. Here, for Muslims, was a constantly open wound: why should the Jewish minority be open to political privileges denied to the indigenous majority?

XREF: Connects to broader North African decolonization history and the Algerian independence struggle against French rule.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 100