Instead of letting their Muslim subjects freely carry out their religious duty in the Holy Shrines of Islam, the French colonial authorities in Algeria chose, from the very first years of the conquest, to organize and to supervise the travels of their pilgrims to Mecca. This interference was first motivated by reasons relating to colonial policing and was intended to protect the Algerian territory from political and sanitary threats. However, the very restrictive nature of the Algerian pilgrimage earned it many criticisms. It was therefore under pressure from both colonial and diplomatic circles, invoking the freedom of pilgrimage at work in other empires that the Algerian hajj was forced to adapt. Under the influence of the Quai d’Orsay, the Algerian organization of pilgrimage gradually spread throughout the empire to become, during the First World War, a vector of diplomatic influence in the Middle East and then, over the decade of the 1930s, a promotional tool of the empire so as to counter two new threats: the rise of pan-Arabism and the fascist propaganda in the Red Sea.