"After Suez, decolonization sped up, both because of further British and French weakness and because it had become increasingly clear that the future for the two countries lay in Europe and in the transatlantic alliance, not in Africa or Asia. France had been forced out of Indochina in 1954 and was fighting a colonial war in Algeria that was going badly and attracted unwelcome American criticism. Elsewhere the French withdrew reluctantly. The governments of the Fourth Republic were caught among competing priorities: Being anti-Communist (while also wanting to appear radical); resenting US domination (while also fearing US abandonment); and embracing European integration (while also fearing a drop in French independent power and prestige). The French governments wanted US support, and therefore reported on the threat of Communism in independence movements from Senegal to Madagascar to Tahiti. But they also feared that the United States was out to replace France in its former colonies. French intellectuals denounced US imperialism, while some of them found it hard to abandon France’s own colonialism, which—by strange twists of terminology—was supposed to be more moral, involved, committed, and “authentic” than any other. France knew Africa; the Americans did not, was an often underlined perception in French newspapers. But the subtext—that “knowledge” entitled continued exploitation—was as little said out loud in Paris as in London."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Odd Arne Westad, The Cold War: A Global History (2017)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/French_Colonial_Empire
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
French Colonial Empire
1794 – 1815
12 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by French Colonial Empire →
Related Quotes
"Gentlemen, we must speak louder and truer! We must say openly that indeed the higher races have a right over the lowe…"
"These people were of all races, colors, and creeds. French were in the north and in the Carolinas. Dutch had built th…"
"Many of the first voyages landed French Protestant colonists in the midst of Spanish territorial claims in the Caribb…"
"It has been noted with irony that the principal “industry” of many underdeveloped countries is administration. Not lo…"
"Algerian calls for independence from French rule date back to World War I."
"For my ancestors, the arrival of the French was an enormous progress. The door to culture, freedom and emancipation o…"
"Similar points can be made about France, with the focus here being France’s enforced withdrawal from Indochina (Vietn…"
"The first Japanese move was against French Indo-China. In early 1939 the islands of Hainan and the Spratly Islands in…"
"If the same successes had been obtained by the Mexican imperialist army without the help of our soldiers, the future …"
"For three or four Chinese coppers, I could ride in a rickshaw from my home, in England, to Italy, Germany, Japan, or …"