Description

April – May 1942 – Exchanges of letters between the Commissioner General for Jewish Questions, the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the Interior, Justice, the Prefecture of Police in Paris and the Resident General in Rabat, concerning the cases of individuals having asked to receive or keep French nationality. It should be noted that the file does not contain any correspondence in March 1942.

On April 2, the Resident General in Rabat wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs that he fully shared Xavier Vallat’s point of view (letter of July 12, 1942) of not granting French nationality to Moroccan Israelites who married French people. [He] « notes, however, that more often than not, the goal sought by these Israelite women is to escape the jurisdiction of the Shereefian courts and to place themselves under the protection of French courts. But, although their accession to French nationality can only have an effect on their national status and not on their situation vis-à-vis the status of Jews, there is no doubt that they would use this process to mitigate the prohibitions which strike them as Moroccan Jews ». He adds « that the ban should be extended […] also to non-Moroccan foreign Israelites, whose integration into the French community does not seem more opportune ». Finally, he specifies that the General Residence « has formulated an unfavorable opinion on all requests for the acquisition of French nationality […] subscribed by Israelites, whether Moroccan or of another nationality, wishing to acquire French nationality by way of marriage ». On April 28, the Head of Government, Minister of Foreign Affairs, wrote to the Ministers of Justice and of the Interior, as well as to the Commissioner General for Jewish Questions : « I fully associate myself with the point of view expressed by the Resident General in Rabat as regards at least the indigenous Israelite women of our North African Protectorates ». On May 27, he communicated to them the opinion of the Resident General in Tunis : he « is clearly unfavorable to the maintenance for the benefit of Tunisian Jewish women of the possibility, reserved by French law for foreigners who marry French people, of acquiring French nationality. Admiral Esteva believes, however, that when it comes to unions between French Jews and Tunisian Jews, the acquisition of our nationality by the latter not only would not present the same drawbacks as when it results from marriage with a French citizen by common-law, but still would have the advantage of maintaining the unity of the family from the point of view of nationality ». The Head of Government added : « However, one can wonder whether it would be acceptable for the mixed union in question to produce more favorable effects for the Israelite spouse when the husband is Jewish and not common-law French”.

On April 19, the Minister of Justice wrote to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, who transmitted on April 25 to the Resident General in Rabat, to find out the number of « naturalization applications concerning Spanish women residing in Morocco, who failed, at the time of their marriage with French people, to subscribe to the declaration provided for [by the law of 1927] ».