French Colonialism Unmasked: The Vichy Years in French West Africa (review)

Until the 1990s metropolitan France and the French empire tended to be regarded as discrete fields of historical enquiry. A number of historians have challenged this separation in recent years and have developed the notion that France and its colonial empire constitute a single analytic field. The resulting shift in the framework of analysis has helped to transform our understanding of the history of both metropolitan France and its colonial empire. Exemplifying this new approach, the author shows in this book how an understanding of Vichy's colonial ideas and policies can only be grasped by relating them to the nature of the regime in France, while at the same time showing how any appreciation of the Vichy period in France is incomplete without an understanding of its colonial dimension.

The book is divided into four parts. The first, French West Africa and its Place in the Vichy Colonial Idea, emphasises the central place occupied by the empire in Vichy ideology. The second part, the National Revolution in French West Africa, discusses the implementation of Vichy ideology: administrative changes and continuity; propaganda, education and social organisations; and Vichy economic plans. The focus of the third part, Vichy Encounters with African Society, is on the regime's policy towards, and treatment of, "modern" and "traditional" elements within African society. The first chapter covers the originaires of the Four Communes, who held French citizenship, French-educated Africans—évolués as they were called in French colonial parlance—and Africans who converted to Christianity, while the second chapter in the section deals with chiefs (real and "invented"—i.e., appointed by France), Muslim leaders, and colonial soldiers. The author carefully avoids the traditional dichotomy of "resistance" and "collaboration" in her treatment of African reactions to Vichy rule and shows the diversity of African responses, that were often subtle and nonviolent. Since the area of French West Africa was so vast, covering eight territories from Mauritania in the north to Dahomey in the south, it would have been interesting to know if there were any significant differences in Vichy policy in the different territories. A short concluding section provides an assessment of the importance of the Vichy period for African history: comparisons are made with Vichy rule in other parts of the French empire and the significance of the Vichy period for the decolonisation process in French West Africa is evaluated. Based largely on colonial archives in France and the archives of the Government-General of French West Africa in Dakar, the focus is political and social history. The military dimension—for example, defence planning—is not covered, nor are relations with British West Africa.

The author argues that the Vichy period had two kinds of impact on postwar political developments in French West Africa. Firstly, it cemented the idea of "two Frances": a racist France that promoted an exploitative form of colonialism and a "true," republican France that espoused the values of liberty, equality, and fraternity. The dichotomy was not of course entirely new, as the Popular Front had promoted the notion of a progressive and modernising colonial humanism of the left, in opposition to the overt racism and exploitation that characterised the colonial policy of the right. After Vichy, however, it was vital for republican governments, whatever their political hue, to demonstrate that this difference was not simply rhetorical. As a consequence of this, the second impact of Vichy was the way in which it provided a framework for anticolonial struggle after the war, as African leaders used the language of republicanism to demand the establishment of a genuine French Union—as the empire was now to be called—based on the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity.

This is the first study to focus on the Vichy period in French West Africa. As such, it usefully complements existing studies of the Vichy period in metropolitan France and in other parts of...