Les ressortissants de la protection consulaire française en pays musulman

Since the capture of Algiers in 1830, Algerian Muslims and Jews who took refuge in this Ottoman regency could benefit from French consular protection under certain conditions and if they requested it. Few of them accepted being registered in this way. However, in 1865, Napoleon III’s declaration that the Arabs of Algeria were now French nationals, and no longer subjects, led to them hoping for «the right to have rights». The legal recognition of French national affiliation did not allow the Algerian colonised people to become French citizens collectively. However, it provoked a conflict of sovereignty between the French consulate and the bey of Tunis, the victims of which were the French-registered Algerians: some were deported by the Tunisian government to French Algeria, others were «denationalised» by the consulate if they continued to live within the «Tunisian nation».