Code de l'indigénat

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The Code de l'indigénat was a collection of decrees introduced by the prefecture in Algiers on February 9, 1875, initially for Algeria and later extended to all French colonies , which replaced the constitutional rights for people of the motherland for the indigenous people and their validity only expired after the end of the Second World War - after a transition period until the early 1950s.

meaning

The Code de l'indigénat , which contemporary critics also called Code matraque ( German  “stick code” ), subjugated the “natives” (French indigènes ) as French “subjects” ( sujets ) in contrast to the administrative members and European settlers who as French "citizens" ( citoyens ) were, in the version of 1875, 27 different decrees. This regulated the entire way of life of the indigenous peoples in the sense of the French concept of order, the often adapted arrangement of which was incumbent on the respective governor . Compliance was subject to the French colonial administration without a separation of powers, which was also jurisdiction and thus its absolute control. For the local population affected, this meant living in a permanent state of emergency . Although the Code de l'indigénat was repealed on December 22, 1945, the adaptation to the legislation of the mother country, for example with uniform labor law in the overseas territories, extended until December 15, 1952.

history

During the Second Empire , the legal distinction between the Europeans and the Algerian population was codified and remained in force throughout the Third Republic until May 7, 1946. After the Senate resolution of 1865, the Muslim Algerian was French under Article 1 , but remained subject to Islamic law . He could be approved for military service in the army or the navy and hold civil offices in Algeria. Upon application, he was able to obtain French citizenship . However, between 1865 and 1962 only 7,000 Algerians became French citizens.

In 1870, with the Décret Crémieux in the three Algerian departments belonging to the mother country, the Jews there received French citizenship. Opposition to this law arose both from French residents who were resident in Algeria and demanded its abolition and from those who demanded equal rights for Muslims in Algeria.

The Code de l'indigénat of 1875, which was supplemented in 1881 with a regulation for the expropriation of the land of the local population, confirmed and specified the Senate resolution of 1865 made in the Second Empire. The following violations were punished: assemblies without permission, leaving the municipal area without travel permission , Disrespect, insulting an official even outside of their functions. The local population could be punished with a fine or internment , which did not rule out additional collective liability. The exercise of civil rights was, apart from temporary relief, made a criminal offense. In 1903 it was declared that a “Muslim” should be considered to be anyone who was of Muslim origin, regardless of what religion he might practice. This shows the ethno-political character of dealing with the locals, which could only be replaced by granting French citizenship.

Since 1887, the scope of the Code de l'indigénat was extended to all French colonies with various exceptions . In general, the code subjected the population to forced labor , a ban on moving freely at night, house searches that could be made at any time, and a special poll tax (see Capitation ). The regulations were aimed at maintaining the "good colonial order" and were constantly adapted to the interests of the European settlers.

The Code de l'indigénat differentiated between French citizens of European origin and French subjects, namely black Africans, Madagascans, Algerians, inhabitants of the Antilles, Melanesians, etc. They only retained the personality status “corresponding to their religion and their customs”.

Overall, French colonialism codified in this way can be viewed as a continuation of slavery , which is shown by comparison with the " Code noir " that was in effect until 1848 .

Processing of the colonial legacy

In 1987, in preparation for the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution , the political philosopher Louis Sala-Molins brought the "Code Noir" back to light for the first time. This set of laws determined the lot of slaves in the French colonies from 1685 for 163 years until 1848 . It survived the Age of Enlightenment unscathed , and the abolition decree enacted in the Revolution of 1794 was never implemented, so that Napoleon Bonaparte repealed it in 1802 and expressly confirmed the validity of the Code noir . A law passed in 2001 takes this legacy into account by retrospectively declaring human trafficking and slavery as crimes against humanity .

If Sala-Molins describes the Code Noir as the most monstrous legal text that modernity has produced, the Code de l'indigénat was already considered by the contemporaries who justified it, in comparison with everything that was owed to the French of the 19th century, as “legal Monstrosity ”. Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison emphasizes above all that it was the Third French Republic with Jules Ferry and other left-wing Republicans who knowingly and willingly adopted the republican principles of freedom, equality and fraternity against opposition in the National Assembly, first in Algeria and then in the suspended the entire colonial empire for the "natives" and subjected it to a racist regime. According to Le Cour Grandmaison,
all the measures of emergency implemented through the Code de l'indigénat , of which administrative internment was the most serious, ultimately also had an impact on the republic in the motherland itself, which was revealed in the late 1930s as “ public order "half measures against" undesirable "foreigners (for example, with the end of the Spanish civil War , which in 1939 fled from Spain supporters of the republic), against the opposition and" imposed racial foreigners "placement in internment meant. In 1940, as the first measure of the Vichy regime , the emancipation approaches of the Crémieux decree were repealed, so that all Jews remained “natives” without rights, which was then transferred to all Jews of the motherland from June 2, 1941. In 1961 the police prefect of Paris, Maurice Papon , on the basis of his Algerian experiences, declared a state of emergency on the "French Muslims from Algeria" ( FMA ) living in France in order to prevent demonstrations (→  Paris Massacre 1961 , Caché (film) by Michael Haneke ).

On February 23, 2005, the National Assembly passed a law making a positive presentation of French colonial history binding and expressing in Article 1 the nation's thanks to all those involved in the work of colonization. Only after massive public protest was this law repealed by decree of the then President Jacques Chirac . In 2010, Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, with a detailed documentation on the history of the Code de l'indigénat, reminds us that this positive portrayal is about "national mythology" that ignores the reality of the living conditions of the local population and the diverse critical voices and testimonies to the colonial rule that would have accompanied the Code de l'indigénat since its introduction.

Remarks

  1. ↑ Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison : De l'indigénat. Anatomie d'un “monstre” juridique: le droit colonial en Algérie et dans l'Empire français . Zones (Éditions la Découverte), Paris 2010, pp. 80–94.
  2. ↑ Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison (2010), p. 79.
  3. ↑ Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison (2010), p. 149.
  4. ↑ Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison (2010), p. 58.
  5. ↑ The following statements largely correspond to the Internet presentation of the Toulon section of the French League for Human Rights ( Memento of the original of March 14, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.ldh-toulon.net
  6. ↑ Louis Sala-Molins, Le Code Noir ou le calvaire de Canaan , PUF: Paris 2007, p. VIII.
  7. ↑ Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, Coloniser. Exterminers. Sur la guerre et l'État colonial , Fayard: Paris 2005, p. 249 f.
  8. ↑ Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, La République impériale. Politique et racisme d'État , Fayard: Paris 2009, pp. 7–21.
  9. ↑ Olivier Le Cour Grandmasison (2005), pp. 247-275.
  10. ↑ Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison (2010), pp. 163–180.

literature

  • Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, coloniser. Exterminers. Sur la guerre et l'État colonial , Fayard: Paris 2005; ISBN 2-213-62316-3 .
  • Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, La République impériale. Politique et racisme d'État , Fayard: Paris 2009; ISBN 2-213-62515-8 .
  • Olivier Le Cour Grandmaison, De l'indigénat. Anatomie d'un “monstre” juridique: le droit colonial en Algérie et dans l'Empire français , Zones (Éditions la Découverte): Paris 2010; ISBN 978-2-35522-005-0 .

Web links

Patrick Weil: Le statut des musulmans en Algérie coloniale (pdf; 161 kB)