French Colonial Empire and the Popular Front

In revisiting the Popular Front some sixty years on, this book explores the link between metropolitan France and the empire at a defining moment in their history. One of the most significant events of the twentieth century is the end of empire, yet the importance of the empire in shaping contemporary France has traditionally been ignored by historians. By extending our perspective to empire, this book widens our understanding of the Popular Front experience and shows that it represents an important watershed in French history, marking the beginning of an irreversible process of reform that was ultimately to lead to decolonisation and the end of empire.

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MICHEL BROT Teaches at the Institute for American Universities in Aix-en-Provence and member, Institut d'Histoire Comparée des Civilisations, Université de Provence ALEJANDRO COLAS PhD candidate, Department of International Relations, London School of Economics and Political Science CATHERINE COQUERY-VIDROVITCH Professeur d'Histoire Contemporaine de l'Afrique, Université de Paris VII and Director of the research group 'Dynamiques comparées des sociétés en Développement' GILLES DE GANTES agrégé d'histoire JOHN HARGREAVES Emeritus Professor of History, University of Aberdeen JEAN KOUFAN Lecturer in History, University of Yaoundé, Cameroon DON LACOSS Department of History, University of Michigan GHISLAINE LYDON Graduate Assistant, Department of History, Michigan State University PANIVONG NORINDR Associate Professor of French and Comparative Literature, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee MARTIN SHIPWAY Lecturer in Twentieth Century French Studies, Birkbeck College, University of London FRANCE TOSTAIN GARY WILDER Teaches Modern European History at Pomona College

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Abbreviations Glossary Acknowledgements Introduction PART I: THEORY AND BACKGROUND The Politics of Failure: Historicizing Popular Front Colonial Policy in French West Africa; G.Wilder Reforming Reformatory Technologies: the Example of New Caledonia; D.LaCoss The Africanist International and the Popular Front; J.Hargreaves The Popular Front and Internationalism: The Tunisian Case in Comparative Perspective; A.ColProtectorate, Association, Reformism: the Roots of the Popular Front's Republican Policy in Indochina; G.de GantReformism and the French 'Official Mind': the 1944 Brazzaville Conference and the Legacy of the Popular Front; M.Shipway PART II: DIVERSITY OF OUTCOMES The Popular Front and the Colonial Question, French West Africa: an Example of Reformist Colonialism; C.Coquery-Vidrovitch Women, Children and the Popular Front's Missions of Enquiry in French West Africa; G.Lydon Did the Popular Front have any Significant Impact in Guin; M.Brot Socialism in the Colonies: Cameroon under the Popular Front; J.Koufan Algeria: the Popular Front and the Blum-Viollette Plan, 1936-7; F.Tostain The Popular Front's Colonial Policies in Indochina: Reassessing the Popular Front's 'Colonisation Altruiste'; P.Norindr Bibliography Index List of Figures