List of French possessions and colonies: Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively

← Previous edit Next edit →

Content deleted Content added

VisualWikitext

Inline

Revision as of 18:54, 12 February 2011

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 {{multiple issues|orphan=February 2011|sections=February 2011|unreferenced=February 2011}}
-The French colonial empire is the set of territories outside Europe that were under French rule primarily from the 17th century to the late 1960s. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the colonial empire of France was one of the largest in the world, behind the British Empire, the Russian Empire, the Spanish Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the Qing Empire. The French colonial empire extended over 12,898,000 km² (4,980,000 sq. miles) of land at its height in the 1920s and 1930s. Including metropolitan France, the total amount of land under French sovereignty reached 13,000,000 km² (5,020,000 sq. miles) at the time, which is 8.7% of the Earth's total land area. Its influence made French a widely-spoken colonial European language, along with English, Spanish, and Portuguese.
-France began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean and India, following Spanish and Portuguese successes during the Age of Discovery, in rivalry with Britain for supremacy. A series of wars with Britain during the 18th century and early 19th century, which France lost, ended its colonial ambitions on these continents, and with it is what some historians term the "first" French colonial empire. In the 19th century, France established a new empire in Africa and South East Asia. Some of these colonies lasted beyond the invasion and occupation of France by Nazi Germany during World War II.
-Following the war, anti-colonial movements began to challenge French authority. France unsuccessfully fought bitter wars in Vietnam and Algeria to keep its empire intact. By the end of the 1960s, much of France's colonies had gained independence, although some territories - especially islands and archipelagos - were integrated into France as overseas departments and territories. These total altogether 123,150 km² (47,548 sq. miles), which amounts to only 1% of the pre-1939 French colonial empire's area, with 2,624,505 people living in them in 2009. All of them enjoy full political representation at the national level, as well as varying degrees of legislative autonomy. (See Administrative divisions of France.)