The rights-of-man commitment first prompted French citizenship offers to Africans.

Evidence

This republican commitment to the rights of man was responsible for one additional initiative early in the life of the Government General: Roume’s proposal to the Colonial Ministry to allow, for the first time, certain Africans to become citizens of the French nation. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 352

Categorization

• XREF: The citizenship question directly serves the reader’s goal of understanding how French republicanism was forced onto West Africa — a concrete policy vehicle of the ideology.