French Empire: 4. Third Republic

Abstract

Abstract For reasons of national prestige, France created the second largest colonial empire in the world between 1870 and 1920. Colonies were often created by officials on the spot rather than the uninterested government in Paris. Algeria and Indochina were the most important colonies, the former being the only true settlement colony and the latter becoming the most economically important possession. West Africa and Equatorial Africa captured more popular interest but were far less significant. French colonialists believed in their civilizing mission, understood variously as assimilation or association of colonial peoples with France; what was actually experienced by the colonized was tutelage. After 1898, France accepted British control of Egypt in return for Morocco. After 1918 a new area of French rule opened up in Syria. Nationalism in the Maghreb and Syria and communism in Indochina began to threaten French rule in the interwar period, and by 1939 the French Empire was vulnerable to these forces.