Jews in French politics: From their liberation in France to their discrimination in the integration policy in Algeria (1789-1870)

Abstract

By exploring the history of the improvement in the situation of the Israelites in France and Algeria between 1789-1870, we try to reach the legal and cultural foundations on which the French assimilationist policy was based to create a divide , legal and de facto, between the two categories of natives who together formed a “people” of French subjects: Muslims and Israelites. Thus by granting mass naturalization to native Israelites, France, through its own policy, provided an opportunity for the “human” character of its revolution to fade from the eyes of Muslims.