Legal assimilation meant African subjects came under French courts

Evidence

All Africans who were not considered assimiles qualified as subjects of the French Empire. From a legal point of view, an assimile was treated like a European and came under the jurisdiction of the French courts. … Meunier argues that this definition was left out of the final decree because it would unintentionally place several categories of individuals under the jurisdiction of French laws against their wishes. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 1094

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the practical legal consequences of assimile status versus subject status.
• XREF: connects to: the MOC “The Republic’s Impossible Embrace: How Universalism Turned Algeria from the Future of France into Its Undoing”