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Among the many problems posed by colonial citizenship laws regulating Algerians was the special case of people born within the confines of Algeria and their descendants who had emigrated outside of the country. Algerians in Algeria already inhabited an imprecise place of incomplete French citizenship. And those living abroad, the ‘Originaires d'Algérie’, had to contend with the decisions of French consular authorities, who laboured to interpret and implement the rules established by the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Justice to define the legal status of Algerians living abroad. The French state claimed this category of people as « French » according to the legal theory of State succession. Then, the Indigenat served as an Algerian nationality. This paper argues that this Algerian nationality was an imperial nationality for internal use. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]