The ghost of the Indigénat regime : From colonialism to contemporary French law.

The aim of this thesis is to explore the so called “Régime of the indigénat” as a central mechanism of legal production that, far from being a simple colonial parenthesis, keeps shaping contemporary policies and legal systems. This continuity is not analyzed under the principle of an identical copy, but as permanent mechanisms that allow the state to fragment the population, differentiate status levels, and treat certain groups separately. Emerging from the French conquest of Algeria in 1830, the Régime of indigénat created a permanent differentiation between populations by establishing a specific legal status for the colonized. Thus, the proclaimed universalism of French law collides with concrete forms of government in the colonial space. Therefore, the aim of the dissertation is not only to describe political domination, but to show how the law itself produces it. The dissertation insists on the gradual formalization of a hierarchical legal order, with the transition from judicial to administrative justice, the creation of special crimes, the strengthening of the police competencies of the administration and the trivialization of measures taken without contradictions or real debate. From this perspective, indigeneship seems like a way to rule by law, creating unequal populations, rather than simply suspending legal principles. Through the 3 chapters, the analysis follows the developments of this logic from the strict colonial framework to its expansion into other parts of the empire, and then to contemporary security systems, foreign control, and the administrative management of specific parts of the population. This analysis is grounded in the works of Isabelle Merle, Lauren Benton, Michel Foucault, Gary Wilder, and Étienne Balibar, as well as in key juridical texts, notably the 5 July 1830 convention, the 1865 Sénatus-consulte, and the 28 June 1881 law. The first chapter focuses on the colonial emergence of the Indigénat as a legal and administrative framework, showing how French rule in Algeria gradually produced a differentiated order of rights, status, and jurisdiction. The second one traces the circulation and transformation of these logics across the twentieth century, particularly through emergency legislation, special jurisdictions, and the normalization of security-based governance, highlighting their broader continuity beyond the colonial setting. Finally, the core of the third chapter is the contemporary persistence of these mechanisms in current practices of classification, surveillance and population management, showing how colonial forms of legal differentiation continue to structure modern state practices.