THE 1930s was the golden age of colonialism, and France and its empire, despite the effects of the Depression, seemed secure. However, the expansionism of Nazi Germany and the invasion of France endangered the very survival of the nation and its colonies. The war years brought dramatic upheaval to France and its overseas domains, and the political and economic reconstruction of the late 1940s set in place new institutions under the Fourth Republic. Little more than a decade later, in the midst of the Algerian war of independence, another change of regimes, and the foundation of the Fifth Republic, meant that the relationship between the métropole and its DOM-TOMs was again recast. The constitutional and institutional history of France and its colonies since the Second World War shows the changes of attitude and policy that occurred during a phase of decolonisation and explains provisions of the constitution of the Fifth Republic, still in force, which are the legal framework for the links between France and its overseas outposts.

THE SECOND WORLD WAR

The Second World War cut off metropolitan France from its overseas empire. After only six weeks of fighting, France capitulated to the German invaders and was subsequently divided into a German-occupied sector and the Vichy zone, under the rule of the collaborationist Marshal Pétain.