ABSTRACT
Maurice Delafosse supported colonialism and taught many of the administrators who were sent to govern the area, but his lessons raised doubts about the possibility or desirability of implanting French customs in such alien societies. French journalists, encouraged to visit the colonies to report on their progress, often wound up instead denouncing the harsh treatment of native peoples. The ministries of the 1920 to 1924 period were much less successful in dealing with another thorny problem, the reestablishment of France’s public finances. The divisions of the left allowed the Bloc national government to pursue the assertive foreign policy its leaders considered necessary to maintain France’s security after the war. In domestic politics, the Bloc national governments had not only strongly repressed the revolutionary upsurge of 1920, but had reached out to conservatives with policies that broke with the prewar republican tradition.
