African demands for citizenship rights made French officials retreat from assimilation’s original promises

Evidence

But statements made by both Dakar and Paris in the 192o’s indicate that colonial officials were less sure that any African would ever be worthy of the rights of citizenship the Third Republic had once promised. Such doubts were a conscious response to Diagne’s successful campaign in 1915 for originaire citizenship, and continuing demands by other evolues for a recognition of comparable rights. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 573

Categorization

• XREF: Directly evidences the reader’s stated puzzle: republican promises met African agency and were quietly withdrawn. — connects to: the MOC “The Republic’s Impossible Embrace: How Universalism Turned Algeria from the Future of France into Its Undoing”