Colonial bureaucrats systematically restricted evolue access to jobs, army, and elite schools

Evidence

Before 1914, the federal administration took several additional measures, all of which seemed aimed at diminishing the status of the evolues. During this period, it was ruled that only citizens could serve in the more lucrative, upper-level positions of the colonial service, the cadre superieur or metropolitain. This effectively barred the evolues from certain jobs to which they had previously had access. Only naturalized citizens could serve in the regular French army; other Africans had to join the tirailleurs. The administration also attempted in 1914 to reform the French school system in the Four Communes, replacing it with one modeled on the adaptationist institutions in the rest of the colony. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 533