Examines how the modern French Republic came into being through state efforts to assimilate Christians, Muslims, and Jews across France and colonial Algeria.

In The Republic Estranged, Yuval Tal studies three religious communities—Christians, Muslims, and Jews—and their interactions with French settlers in colonial Algeria. While each of these groups wanted to “become French” without abandoning their communal identities, the French system had its own ideas about what kind of assimilation was possible or desirable. It welcomed Christians, excluded Muslims, and enfranchised Jews while insisting that Jews could never become as naturally French as Christians could. The result, Tal shows, was a “republican ethnic common sense” that continues to shape French politics today.

Tal argues we must understand France’s deeply entrenched anti-Muslim rhetoric as part of a larger strategy that selectively privileges Christians over and against Muslim and Jewish minorities. He focuses on a period between 1870 and 1919, in which we see how France’s supposedly universalist project of national assimilation was predicated on the notion that some ethnically and religiously defined communities were more capable of “becoming French” than others. Working with sources in Arabic, French, Spanish, and Italian, including literary, political, and legal texts, this book speaks to readers across French studies, Jewish studies, and Middle East and North African studies, showing the ongoing relevance of this important period in French history.