The French Colonial Mind, Volume 1: Mental Maps of Empire and Colonial Encounters

11 Recycling Empire: French Colonial Administrators at the Heart of European Development Policy

251 11 Recycling Empire French Colonial Administrators at the Heart of European Development Policy véronique dimier When I arrived at the European Commission (dg VIII, development), the style was very colonial indeed. If French colonial officers had not implemented indirect rule during colonial times, they certainly did so while at the dg VIII. c. cheysson, commissioner for development, 1973–81, interview with author, 21 December 2001 It is hard to find more fitting words than Monsieur Cheysson’s to describe the influence and role of ex-colonial officers on the newly minted development policy of the European Economic Community (eec) from its inception in the early 1960s through the mid-1970s. So far this role, and the centrality of colonial minds to it, have been largely neglected. The circumstances are now well known in which, during the 1957 negotiations leading to the Treaty of Rome, France, then still a colonial power, imposed on its European partners what was then called the Association with Overseas Territories.1 The history of that association, which was subsequently transformed, first into the Yaoundé Convention and then the Lomé Convention with African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries, has also been related in depth.2 However, scholars have yet to examine the manner in which this development policy—its procedures and principles—were shaped. Nor has much attention been given to the means by which the European Commission’s Directorate General VIII Administrators and the Colonial Mind After WWII 252 (dg VIII)—the administration responsible for implementing development —came to be institutionalized. More generally, we have yet to see much systematic analysis of the second career of ex-colonial officers, focusing on the ways in which they transferred their colonial experience back to Europe.3 As far as French colonial administrators were concerned, since 1887 they had been part of a unified colonial administrative service run by the Colonial Ministry, whose personnel were trained at a dedicated colonial school in Paris. Faced with decolonization, these specialist bureaucrats were offered several solutions.4 They could request reassignment to one of the branches of the French civil service, which, for many, would prove a long and difficult process. Or they could ask for a period of “special leave,” paid for five years by the government, which would either tide them over prior to retirement or provide the wherewithal to find employment elsewhere in the private sector. Anticipating these alternatives, as early as 1958 some colonial officials sought transfers to Brussels, hoping to work within the framework of the future European Economic Community and, more specifically, within that new French governmental initiative: the association with the overseas territories. Before proceeding further, it is worth recalling the context in which this association was first approved. While negotiating the Treaty of Rome, French representatives made clear to their future European partners that France would not “sacrifice her African vocation for a European one.”5 Colonial territories were an integral part of the Republic , so leaving them outside the European common market would simply be unconstitutional and would surely lead them to what was still dubbed “secession,” code for independence.6 Moreover, in economic terms, France had already created a form of “common market” with her overseas territories, an economic system that was more highly integrated than the future European one, based as it was on commercial preferences and a Fonds d’Investissement pour le Développement Économique et Social (fides), created in 1946 and intended to underpin the development of these dependencies. (See Tony Chafer’s contribution to this volume for further details.) Forcefully defended by the French delegation, the adaptation of these existing mechanisms to the eec was eventually accepted by fellow negotiators albeit with considerable reluctance on the part of Recycling Empire 253 Germany and the Netherlands. Certain arrangements were agreed upon and were soon to be dubbed “association” with overseas territories, a term with decidedly French colonial connotations. These arrangements, as inscribed in the Treaty of Rome, included trade agreements (which effectively preserved commercial preferences) and a foreign grant in aid named European Development Fund for Overseas Territories and devised in accordance with French colonial principles. Initially, at least, these provisions were largely confined to Francophone territories in sub-Saharan Africa, those that had longstanding “special,” not to say “colonial,” attachments with France and Belgium.7 Ironically, although French overseas territories in sub-Saharan Africa...