THE ECONOMIC history of the DOM-TOMs is one of early ambitions for colonial treasure-troves of exotic products and great profits, and later attempts to confront the difficulties of developing the territories that had been acquired. Proposals for exploiting the potential of colonies were not lacking, but relatively few initiatives bore fruit, at least for a very long season. With few exceptions, the DOM-TOMs in the later part of the twentieth century have failed as sources of great production; their economies are dominated by the tertiary sector. Instead of providing economic largesse for the métropole, they consume vast quantities of imports and subsidies. Critics charge that, in an inversion of the traditional situation in which the mother-country reaped economic rewards from its colonies, the DOM-TOMs now rely on France for the capital and commodities that support an artificially high standard of living — the old producer colonies have become consumer colonies, the old monopolies of the colonial pact replaced by a transfer economy.

COLONIAL ECONOMIES

The European expansion of the 1500s was characterised by the search for raw materials, preferably gold, that would directly contribute to the growth of the colonial powers. In this sense the construction of France's first overseas empire was little different from that of other imperial powers, though strategic interests invariably combined with economic interests and the balance between these varied over time and space.