THE WINDS of change that blew through Africa and Asia, sweeping a variety of colonies to independence, did not avoid the French colonies. Yet decolonisation was never a process that France embraced enthusiastically. In protectorates such as Syria and Lebanon, France had little choice but departure. In Indo-China and Algeria, however, only sustained warfare forced it to relinquish its colonies. In sub- Saharan Africa, France's departure was much more like that of Britain. Though it unsuccessfully sought to weld the future independent states into a French commonwealth, the new black African states remained closely tied to France; a neo-colonialist relationship replaced colonialism and the political basis for Francophonie was established. For France decolonisation was virtually over by the early 1960s, yet already there had been demands for independence in the Pacific territories, and elsewhere in the DOM-TOMs the French presence was contested in more muted form. Efforts to transform islanders into Black Frenchmen had been more successful in Réunion and the Caribbean. At that time, few observers believed that small island colonies, such as the present DOM-TOMs or the remaining British colonies, possessed the resources or capabilities for independence.

For the two decades to 1990, France took little interest in further decolonisation.