Indigénat

The Code de l'indigénat (French pronunciation: ​[kɔd də lɛ̃diʒena], Code of the indiginate) was a set of laws creating, in practice, an inferior legal status for natives of French Colonies from 1887 until 1944–1947. Implemented first in Algeria, it was applied across the French Colonial Empire during 1887–1889.

French colonial policy is often contrasted with the British concept of indirect rule pioneered by Frederick Lugard of the British East Africa Company in Uganda and later the Royal Niger Company in what is now Nigeria. Lugard devised a method of colonial administration which relied upon maintenance of pre-colonial chiefs and other political institutions, who were in turn subject to the authority of British representatives.

The French government, in contrast, published much about the assimilation of colonial subjects, with the goal of making their colonies integral parts of France, filled with African, Arab, or Asian Frenchmen. This combined with a Jacobin tradition of centralizing government, has given weight to the argument that French colonial rule stood in stark contrast to other models. But only small areas of France's colonial possessions were ever afforded full rights as overseas departments of the French state. Between 1865 and 1962, only 7,000 Algerians became French citizens, in a global empire which, during 1939, counted some 69 million subjects.

The Code de l'indigénat has been the topic of revised historical thinking about French colonial policy. The indigénat is an example of Association: French colonial indirect rule. It enabled an entire legal system by which the vast majority of colonial subjects were governed from the creation of the French Empire until the reforms following World War II. These laws were designed to be enforced by a system of administrative "cercles": appointed indigenous authorities, religious courts, and native police carrying out the orders of often distant French administrators.

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