The Crémieux Decree () was a law that granted French citizenship to the majority of the Jewish population in French Algeria (around 35,000), signed by the Government of National Defense on 24 October 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War. It was named after French-Jewish lawyer and Minister of Justice Adolphe Crémieux. The decree automatically made the native Algerian Jews French citizens, while their Muslim Arabs and Berbers neighbors were excluded and remained under the second-class indigenous status outlined in the Code de l'Indigénat. Muslim Algerians could, on paper, apply individually for French citizenship, but this required that they formally renounce Islam and its laws, and their requests were additionally very seldom accepted. That set the scene for deteriorating relations between the Muslim and Jewish communities, with tensions increased by the colonial administration discrimination between natives and citizens. Seeing one's indigenous brother become a first class citizen while being left as a second class citizen divided locals with animosity. This eventually proved fateful in the 1954-1962 Algerian War of Independence, after which the vast majority of the Jews of Algeria emigrated to France. History Jews first started migrating to Algeria during the Roman period. The Spanish inquisition led to an influx of Jewish migration. In 1865 the Senatus-consulte revised citizenship laws, allowing indigenous Algerian Jews and Muslims to apply for French citizenship. The rationale was assimilation with French culture. Algerian culture prided itself on its customary practices, and as a result application rates were low. At this point in time, France was focused on assimilating colonized people into French citizens, with the goal of deporting a thriving French colony to French Canada. Given that European Jews already resided in France, the French held the belief that Algerian Jews were easier to convert to French people due to their having other Sephardic (Portuguese Jews, like Crémieux's mother) and also Ashkenazi brethren in France. Jews had gained recognition in France as a means of control: the French government realized that by enabling Ashkenazi practices, they could appoint chief Rabbis to be installed, with the duty to “inculcate unconditional obedience to the laws, loyalty to France, and the obligation to defend it”. By 1845, they had granted the same system of permission to Algeria in an effort at "civilization", as the local Algerian Jews were viewed as not fully civilized. France had already given the Sephardic Jews of France citizenship in 1790, and almost two