Élite Racism and the Colonial Lobby

Abstract

The process by which Algerian migrants were targeted and categorised in racial terms reached a crucial phase during the period 1920–4 and was primarily the work of various colonial pressure groups. Their central object of concern was the liberal provision of the law of 15 July 1914 which had granted all Algerians complete freedom of movement to France. In the light of the later intense pressures to eradicate or cripple the working of the law it is curious that its passage through the legislature aroused little opposition. It appears to have been one of those ‘blunders’, common enough in the history of legislatures, in which potential opponents fail to recognise in time the radical implications of a new bill.¹