The still-born Blum—Viollette Bill was the ultimate plea for "assimilation". It aroused the most glowing hopes among Muslim liberals, but when — like every other endeavour of reform between 1909 and 1954 — it was thwarted, they were replaced by black despair.

XREF: Connects to histories of colonial assimilation policies and how failed gradual reform cycles radicalize moderate factions — parallels with other settler-colonial contexts like South Africa or Palestine.

Horne, Alistair, A Savage War of Peace- Alge…, loc. 104