Crémieux Decree

The decree automatically made the native Algerian Jews French citizens, while their Muslim Arab and Berber neighbors were excluded and remained under the second-class indigenous status outlined in the code de l'Indigénat.

Mozabite Jews were granted "common law civil status" and French citizenship in 1961, over ninety years later.

That set the scene for deteriorating relations between the Muslim and Jewish communities, with tensions increased by the colonial administration discrimination between natives and citizens.

[4] This eventually proved fateful in the 1954–1962 Algerian War where suspects of collaboration with French authorities had been seen as enemies of the revolution and traitors of the people and the nation, after which the vast majority of the Jews of Algeria emigrated to France.

These ministers were members of the provisional Government of National Defense (based in Tours, since France was at war and Paris was besieged.

Many French colonists refused to accept Jews as citizens, leading to a wave of antisemitism that continued to worsen well into the mid-1900s.

[13] After the Anglo-American landings in Algeria and Morocco in November 1942, Vichyist Admiral François Darlan was initially kept in power by the Allies and did not abrogate the laws of Vichy.

After Darlan's assassination on December 24, 1942, General Henri Giraud was appointed French Civil and Military Commander-in-Chief and, on March 14, 1943, he revoked the antisemitic laws of Vichy and reinstated the Crémieux decree.

The Decree remained in effect until Algeria won its independence in 1962 and most of the Algerian Jewish population relocated to France [11] More than 90% of Algerian Jews (110,000 out of about 130,000) opted for France, they left Algeria en masse, not because they were persecuted there as Jews but because they had so deeply internalized their "Frenchness" that they considered their destiny linked to that of the French [14].