The Blum–Viollette proposal of 1936 takes its name from
Léon Blum
André Léon Blum (; 9 April 1872 – 30 March 1950) was a French socialist politician and three-time Prime Minister.
As a Jew, he was heavily influenced by the Dreyfus affair of the late 19th century. He was a disciple of French Socialist le ...
and
Maurice Viollette, who acted as the French premier and governor-general of
Algeria. The proposal was introduced to the
Popular Front government of France in 1936, and aimed to address the issue of longstanding
French colonialism in Algeria along with the persistent disenfranchisement of the territory's Muslim majority.
The proposal would have enabled a small number of Algerian Muslims to obtain full French
citizenship while still allowing them to be subject to
Muslim
Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...
law on some social issues (such as
marriage/
divorce,
custody,
inheritance). An earlier policy, the sénatus-consulte legislation of 1865, had enabled Muslims to apply for French citizenship only if they renounced the provisions of Islamic personal status law, something that the vast majority of Muslims refused to do since many regarded doing so as the equivalent of apostasy.
The Blum–Viollette proposal of 1936 would have granted these benefits to the highly educated, as well as to those Algerian men who served in the French military, with the plan to widen the benefits to other Muslims at a later date. The proposal did not apply to Algerian Jews, who had gained French citizenship following the
Crémieux Decree of 1870.
The proposal never made it to the French
Chamber of Deputies
The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.
Description
Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...
for a vote because of the massive protest staged by French settlers in Algeria. It was the failure of this and other such proposals that eventually led to the emergence of violent resistance on the part of the Algerian
National Liberation Front and other militant groups whose members aimed to reclaim sovereignty for Algeria by force.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blum-Viollette Proposal
1936 in Algeria
1936 in the French colonial empire