When the Prussians captured Napoleon III at the Battle of Sedan (1870), ending the Second Empire, demonstrations in Algiers by the colons led to the departure of the just-arrived new governor general and the replacement of the military administration by settler committees.
Meanwhile, in France the government of the Third Republic directed one of its ministers, Adolphe Crémieux, "to destroy the military regime ... [and] to completely assimilate Algeria into France."
In October 1870, Crémieux, whose concern with Algerian affairs dated from the time of the Second Republic, issued a series of decrees providing for representation of the Algerian départements in the National Assembly of France and confirming colon control over local administration.
A civilian governor general was made responsible to the Ministry of Interior.
The Crémieux Decrees also granted full French citizenship to Algerian Jews, who then numbered about 40,000.
This act set them apart from Muslims, in whose eyes they were identified thereafter with the colons.
The measure had to be enforced, however, over the objections of the colons, who made little distinction between Muslims and Jews. (
Automatic citizenship was subsequently extended in 1889 to children of non-French Europeans born in Algeria unless they specifically rejected it.)

The loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Prussia in 1871  after the Franco-Prussian War, led to pressure on the French government to make new land available in Algeria for about 5,000 Alsatian and Lorrainer refugees who were resettled there.
During the 1870s, both the amount of European-owned land and the number of settlers were doubled, and tens of thousands of unskilled Muslims, who had been uprooted from their land, wandered into the cities or to colon farming areas in search of work.
When the Prussians captured Napoleon III at the Battle of Sedan (1870), ending the Second Empire, demonstrations in Algiers by the colons led to the departure of the just-arrived new governor general and the replacement of the military administration by settler committees. Meanwhile, in France the government of the Third Republic directed one of its ministers, Adolphe Crémieux, "to destroy the military regime ... [and] to completely assimilate Algeria into France." In October 1870, Crémieux, whose concern with Algerian affairs dated from the time of the Second Republic, issued a series of decrees providing for representation of the Algerian départements in the National Assembly of France and confirming colon control over local administration. A civilian governor general was made responsible to the Ministry of Interior. The Crémieux Decrees also granted full French citizenship to Algerian Jews, who then numbered about 40,000. This act set them apart from Muslims, in whose eyes they were identified thereafter with the colons. The measure had to be enforced, however, over the objections of the colons, who made little distinction between Muslims and Jews. (Automatic citizenship was subsequently extended in 1889 to children of non-French Europeans born in Algeria unless they specifically rejected it.)
The loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Prussia in 1871  after the Franco-Prussian War, led to pressure on the French government to make new land available in Algeria for about 5,000 Alsatian and Lorrainer refugees who were resettled there. During the 1870s, both the amount of European-owned land and the number of settlers were doubled, and tens of thousands of unskilled Muslims, who had been uprooted from their land, wandered into the cities or to colon farming areas in search of work.
French Algeria