Both racist anthropology and progressive sociology led France to abandon assimilationism.

Evidence

Finally, by the end of the nineteenth century assimilation had been rejected in Parisian colonial circles influenced by both racist and progressive trends in the social sciences. Physical anthropology since mid-century had emphasized Africans’ racial inferiority and insisted that they were incapable of following the same trajectory as Westerners. The newer discipline of sociology also stressed the differences between human societies; but it studied cultural rather than racial differences, and did not see these differences as immutable. Despite their antithetical conclusions, both trends argued against a continued policy of assimilation. And social evolutionary thinking-in theory, at least-encouraged the study of each society in its own environment as a prelude to improving it. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 267

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: A genuinely paradigm-level insight in miniature: two antithetical intellectual traditions (one insisting on immutable inferiority, the other on mutable but distinct culture) converged on the same imperial policy conclusion — showing how the ‘civilizing mission’ was hollowed from both directions.
• XREF: Pairs with the reader’s stated interest: this convergence shows republican universalism being eroded before it was even implemented in West Africa.