Crémieux Decree

The Crémieux Decree (Décret Crémieux) was issued on October 24, 1870, by the French Government of National Defense during the Franco-Prussian War. Drafted under the leadership of Adolphe Crémieux, France’s Minister of Justice and a prominent Jewish statesman, the decree granted full French citizenship to all Jews born in Algeria, transforming roughly 37,000 Algerian Jews from French “subjects” into citizens. This act marked the first collective naturalization of a colonial population in French history. The following is the full text of the decree:

The decree was promulgated amid France’s national crisis following its defeat by Prussia and the fall of the Second Empire. With Algeria under French colonial rule since 1830, the Jewish and Muslim populations had both been classified as “indigenous subjects,” governed by local religious law.

Under the Senatus-Consulte of 1865, Muslims and Jews could apply individually for French citizenship if they renounced their religious personal status. Few did so — Muslims out of attachment to Islamic law, and Jews out of communal cohesion.

Crémieux, a liberal republican and leader of the Consistoire Central, viewed emancipation as both a moral imperative and a tool of integration. By granting citizenship en bloc to Algerian Jews, the French government sought to reinforce loyalty in a colony shaken by rebellion and defeat. Hannah Arendt later observed that the decree also served pragmatic colonial aims — ensuring a reliable, pro-French population amid instability.

The decree created a sharp legal and social divide between Jews and Muslims. While Jews became French citizens, Muslims remained subjects under indigenous law. French administrators and settlers in Algeria resented the elevation of Jews to civic equality, seeing it as an affront to colonial hierarchy.

Throughout the late 19th century, anti-Semitism flourished in French Algeria, driven by European settlers such as Édouard Drumont and Max Régis, whose campaigns led to pogroms in Algiers (1898), Oran (1925), and Constantine (1934). The decree became a political lightning rod, symbolizing both Jewish assimilation and colonial inequality.

During World War II, the Vichy government revoked the Crémieux Decree in October 1940, stripping approximately 140,000 Algerian Jews of French citizenship. General Henri Giraud, after Allied landings in North Africa, confirmed his abrogation in 1943 “to eliminate all racial discrimination,” but his move was widely condemned as anti-Semitic. Under pressure from Charles de Gaulle and liberal French circles, the French Committee for National Liberation formally restored the decree on October 22, 1943, reinstating the Jews’ prewar rights.

The Crémieux Decree profoundly shaped Jewish identity in colonial North Africa.

By aligning Algerian Jews with French civil law and education, it fostered rapid linguistic and cultural assimilation. Nearly all Jewish children attended French schools by the early 20th century, in stark contrast to the limited schooling among Muslims.

When Algeria gained independence in 1962, almost the entire Jewish community — some 130,000 people — emigrated to France, seeing themselves as French citizens rather than Algerian nationals. 

The Crémieux Decree remains a landmark in the global history of Jewish emancipation and colonial citizenship. It simultaneously exemplified the universalist ideals of the French Republic and the racial hierarchies of empire. For Algerian Jews, it was both a path to modernity and a source of enduring estrangement from their Muslim neighbors.

Sources: Hannah Arendt, “Why the Cremieux Decree was abrogated,” AJC Archives.
“The Crémieux Decree,” marxists.org.
“Cremieux Decree Restored; 140,000 Jews in Algeria Restored to French Citizenship,” JTA, (October 22, 1943).
Benjamin Stora, “Origins to the Present Day: Prologue. The Crémieux Decree,” Princeton University Press, (2014).