Algerian Women in France: What Kind of Citizenship? (1930s-1960s)
This article focuses on the Algerian women who, having migrated across the Mediterranean to France after 1947, also travelled through different forms of citizenship. In the course of their lives, they have been considered by turns “indigeneous subjects” ; Muslim Frenchwomen ; fully French - and thus entitled to vote - for the duration of the four year period before Algerian independence (1958-1962) ; then as Algerians and therefore foreigners - all the while being considered as immigrants. This study examines the itineraries of these women whose status was originally that of colonial subjects, through a range of other kinds of status (French citizens, foreigners, or holding double nationality). It is based on oral research conducted in the Lyon region and the administrative archives (including naturalization applications). It reveals how, through the confusion of different discourses, Algerian women have empirically contributed to a definition of citizenship which has in return consigned them to the status of being an eternal immigrant
Article, 2016