The paradoxical empire

Although it spanned the long century from the Algiers Expedition of 1830 to Algerian independence in 1962, and covered an area only surpassed by the British Empire, France's modern colonial edifice was, throughout its existence, built on sand. This weakness was both structural and conceptual:

This lack of territorial integrity was exacerbated by an evident failure of imperial will. For the French colonial enterprise was only ever the preoccupation of a relatively small group of activists, with the great majority of the metropolitan population disinclined to invest their savings, still less their lives, in la France d'outre-mer [Overseas France]. Such imperial reluctance is underlined by the emergence, even before the First World War, of significant opposition to colonialism, including the socialist leader Jean Jaurès and the celebrated novelist Anatole France. Nevertheless, between 1918 and at least 1945, a broad if essentially tacit consensus may plausibly be said to have existed in favour of France's self-appointed ‘civilizing mission’ – an imperial vocation celebrated in spectacular fashion by the 1930 Algerian Centenary and the 1931 Paris Colonial Exhibition.