THE DOM-TOMs are a diverse groups of islands and continental A territories scattered around the globe in every ocean from the tropics to the poles. They are, however, united by their attachment to France; the influence of French control on the development of their economy and society, politics and culture; the role they play in France's global policy; and the very fact that they are grouped into an administrative unit by the French government. The nature of France's presence in every ocean is both critical to the understanding of France's overseas possessions and a unique element of its contemporary policy. Even to speak, for example, of ‘France in the South Pacific’ distorts a situation where French attitudes and strategies are global rather than regional.

Many observers do not hesitate to label the DOM-TOMs ‘colonies’, referring to them as the ‘confetti of empire’ and France's last overseas imperial domains. The argument that ‘while most constituents of the old empires had been shunted into the post-colonial age, there were always enough awkward survivals to keep alive befuddling myths and rhetoric’ is nowhere more apparent than in this vestigial empire, even if ‘from the man-in-the-street to the politician, French decolonisation has been completed.’ Such judgments are both hasty and simplistic, yet indicate the seemingly anomalous status of the DOM-TOMs in a post-colonial world.