THREE MUSKETEERS: 1941
France's Colonial Empire
France had colonies in:
It still has colonies -- the below map is of the colonies from 1532-1980.
France had colonies in:
- Africa (Mauritania, Senegal, Guinea, Mali, Ivory Coast, Benin, Niger, Chad, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, Gabon, Cameroon, Djibouti, Madagascar, Morrocco)
- Indochina (territories in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia)
- Polynesia (Society Islands, the Marquesas, the Tuamotus)
- India (Ile Bourbon/Reunion, and other small territories)
- The Caribbean and South America (French Guiana, Haiti, Guadalupe, Martinique)
It still has colonies -- the below map is of the colonies from 1532-1980.
Black Parisians
Between the two world wars, a cultural movement started in Paris which became known as "Negritude". It was based on the initiative of three young intellectuals who came together to create the journal, The Black Student. They were the Senegalese Léopold Sédar Senghor, the Guyanese Léon Gontran Damas, and the Martinician Aimé Césaire (who coined the term Negritude in a poem and was also a communist).
Césaire rejects assimilation and articulates the concept in his Cahier d'un retour au pays natal:
My Négritude is not a stone, its deafness hurled against the clamor of the day
my Négritude is not a leukoma of dead liquid over the earth's dead eye
my Négritude is neither tower nor cathedral
it takes root in the red flesh of the soil
it takes root in the ardent flesh of the sky
it breaks through opaque prostration with its upright patience.
In other words, black personality is not the lifeless object French society has reduced it to; instead, it is a vibrant creative force that confronts racism, colonialism, and other forms of domination.
More here and here.
During the war, Hitler used racism to fuel Germany's national fervor ("The Black Horror on the Rhine"). The short version of this is that French black national soldiers remained after WWI and fathered children along the Rhine, which caused a whole interracial panic. However, Jews were prioritized in deportation or extermination - black Parisians were not targeted specifically by the SS or Nazi Occupiers.
Between the two world wars, a cultural movement started in Paris which became known as "Negritude". It was based on the initiative of three young intellectuals who came together to create the journal, The Black Student. They were the Senegalese Léopold Sédar Senghor, the Guyanese Léon Gontran Damas, and the Martinician Aimé Césaire (who coined the term Negritude in a poem and was also a communist).
Césaire rejects assimilation and articulates the concept in his Cahier d'un retour au pays natal:
My Négritude is not a stone, its deafness hurled against the clamor of the day
my Négritude is not a leukoma of dead liquid over the earth's dead eye
my Négritude is neither tower nor cathedral
it takes root in the red flesh of the soil
it takes root in the ardent flesh of the sky
it breaks through opaque prostration with its upright patience.
In other words, black personality is not the lifeless object French society has reduced it to; instead, it is a vibrant creative force that confronts racism, colonialism, and other forms of domination.
More here and here.
During the war, Hitler used racism to fuel Germany's national fervor ("The Black Horror on the Rhine"). The short version of this is that French black national soldiers remained after WWI and fathered children along the Rhine, which caused a whole interracial panic. However, Jews were prioritized in deportation or extermination - black Parisians were not targeted specifically by the SS or Nazi Occupiers.
East Asians in France and England
France was the first Western country to have Vietnamese migrants settle after they assisted Vietnam in 1777. These migrants were mostly high-class elites and students. (I use Vietnamese people here, but we can extrapolate their experience to the larger East Asian population - only Japanese and Korean people were virtually unknown to France and England.)
During WWI, about 50,000 Vietnamese migrated to France - these migrants were more blue-collar and started rice farms after the war. At the same time, the British sent Chinese soldiers to the French western front during the war; afterwards, some remained.
During WWII, about 20,000 Vietnamese migrated to France. As before, these people were largely blue-collar workers, soldiers, or students.
England, on the other hand, mostly had immigrants from China and Hong Kong. Chinese people (same disclaimer as above) first settled in London in the early 19th century in the Limehouse area. These people were mostly blue-collar and tended to work in the laundry business. England had less diversity than France, with less than 20,000 non-white people living within the borders of the kingdom by the middle of the 19th century. Even during its height in the 1930s, London's Chinatown had less than 300 residents.
England had a more obvious race problem, called "Yellow Peril" by historians. Throughout the 1910s, politicians manipulated local fears about cheap Chinese labor. Novelists started to capitalize on stereotypes from the Opium Wars (1840s-1860s) that the Chinese were plotting revenge against the British and would sexually ensnare young white women. In 1911 an unknown number of Chinese people in South Wales were stoned to death by a mob of 3000 after allegedly insulting white women.
France was the first Western country to have Vietnamese migrants settle after they assisted Vietnam in 1777. These migrants were mostly high-class elites and students. (I use Vietnamese people here, but we can extrapolate their experience to the larger East Asian population - only Japanese and Korean people were virtually unknown to France and England.)
During WWI, about 50,000 Vietnamese migrated to France - these migrants were more blue-collar and started rice farms after the war. At the same time, the British sent Chinese soldiers to the French western front during the war; afterwards, some remained.
During WWII, about 20,000 Vietnamese migrated to France. As before, these people were largely blue-collar workers, soldiers, or students.
England, on the other hand, mostly had immigrants from China and Hong Kong. Chinese people (same disclaimer as above) first settled in London in the early 19th century in the Limehouse area. These people were mostly blue-collar and tended to work in the laundry business. England had less diversity than France, with less than 20,000 non-white people living within the borders of the kingdom by the middle of the 19th century. Even during its height in the 1930s, London's Chinatown had less than 300 residents.
England had a more obvious race problem, called "Yellow Peril" by historians. Throughout the 1910s, politicians manipulated local fears about cheap Chinese labor. Novelists started to capitalize on stereotypes from the Opium Wars (1840s-1860s) that the Chinese were plotting revenge against the British and would sexually ensnare young white women. In 1911 an unknown number of Chinese people in South Wales were stoned to death by a mob of 3000 after allegedly insulting white women.