France and Francophone Africa Jhensen Ortiz
Fall, 2009, Prof. J. Lewis 11/11/2009
Essay # 2
Herbet Luethey gave a very in depth analyzes into the past and post world war history of the France overseas empire in his book France Against Her Self. He said that France overseas empire was no longer kept a secret and many of these colonies now wanted retribution for serving France and helping France keep an identity after its occupation by Germany. Many of its colonies like Algeria were now consider the capital of free France and the only source of hope and survival of the French government. The post war world made many countries also hostile towards France many threatened the French Union by succession. France after the war was in a unique position with its colonial colonies pressuring France to do something for them as French citizens on their behalf Luethey shows that in his book.
France has always had a unique legacy when it came towards their overseas empire and ambition to somehow assimilate those colonies into France and make them a part of France. That was easier said then done because France before the war was allowing this process to take place in places like Algeria. One of the oldest and most assimilated parts of the empire inherited from the ancient regime was the Antilles. In the Antilles a black man a civil servant by the name of Felix Eboue who had become governor of Chad. He was a many who hoisted the falg of General de Gaulle’s free France in the heart of Africa. Luethy referred to him as the embodiment of France he was the great exception to the rule. This was the type of legacy that France wanted to show around the world. Luethy said that France questionably possess the oldest and greatest colonial tradition of all the European nations. Its traces can be found all over the world they opened up central North America to European colonization before the English. France is very unique because it was a nation that built up it...