ABSTRACT
The history of the French empire, like that of most processes of colonizing activity, is a complex and fundamentally uneven one. Characterized by expansion and contraction, decline and resurgence, instability and yet startling longevity, the French colonial enterprise lasted over four centuries and encompassed territories spread across five continents. At its height, in the inter-war period, the empire affected the lives of over one hundred million colonized people, living in an area that exceeded eleven million square kilometres. Although the empire is seen to have come to a formal conclusion with the peace treaty that ended the Algerian War (1962), evidence of its afterlife is still clear: in France’s continued relationships (political, cultural and linguistic) with its former colonies; in the various territories (such as Martinique, Guadeloupe and Reunion Island) that have been integrated constitutionally and administratively into France; and in France’s slow and often reluctant adjustment to its own status as a postcolonial nation state.
