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Re-sourcing Dependency: Decolonisation and Post-colonialism in French Overseas Departments

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2010

Fred Réno
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Extract

When speaking of decolonisation and post-colonialism, it is essential to avoid the generalising approach which sometimes leads to a distortion of the real. Decolonisation is generally seen as accession to sovereignty. For the elites and the populations of the French Overseas Dependencies it represents a reforming of the bond with France. It is a conversion of what was political subordination into dependence on social and economic resources. This conversion is a rational process based on the following idea: Independence would be costly compared to the advantages of dependence. In other words, Guadeloupe, Guyane and Martinique would be decolonized without becoming independent. Therefore, the transition from the status of colony to that of ‘departement’ is not a legal contrivance. Even if local populations did not choose their political status through the electoral process, they did vote for the parties which were in favour of French citizenship.

Type
Conference: ‘Costs and Benefits of Independence in the Caribbean’
Information
Itinerario , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , July 2001 , pp. 9 - 22
Copyright
Copyright © Research Institute for History, Leiden University 2001

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References

Notes

1 See for instance Murch, A., Black French Men: The Political Integration of French Antilles (Cambridge 1971).Google Scholar

2 Interview with a leader of ‘Asé Pléré An nou Lite’ (Don't cry let's fight).

3 Interview with a top-ranking member of Martinican Movement for Independence.

4 Interview with a leader of MIM.

5 Ibid.

6 Framework Law for the overseas territories no 200–1207, December 13, 2000.

7 Meeting of the Presidents of Regions of the Antilles and La Guyane, ‘Political Courage for Development’, December 1, 1999.

8 Rassemblement pour la République.

9 Meeting of the Presidents, ‘Political Courage’, 9.

10 Bernabé, Jean, Chamoiseau, Patrick, Confiant, Raphael, In Praise of Creoleness (Paris 1989)Google Scholar; Glissant, Edouard, Poétique de la relation (Paris 1990).Google Scholar

11 See Réno, Fred, L'exportation de modèles d'administration opposés: le cas de la Barbade et de la Martinique (PhD thesis, University of Paris I, 1987).Google Scholar

12 Article 73 of the October 4th 1958 French Constitution.

13 Balandier, Georges, ‘Introduction’ in: Francis Affergan, Anthropologie a la Martinique (Paris 1983).Google Scholar

14 The fact that in Martinique social agents vote for and accept being represented by ‘mixedblood’ leaders like separatist Marie-Jeanne, blacks like MP Turinay or former Mulatto MP Lise, regardless of ethnic origins shows that political life is colour blind thanks to the Creole culture. The failure of the Trotskyst group ‘Combat Ouvrier’ (Workers Struggle) to racialise politics by advocating a State of poor Blacks is telling.

15 See Geertz, Clifford, The Interpretations of Cultures (New York 1973).Google Scholar

16 Jean Bernabé, Promouvoir l'identité cutturelle? Eléments d'écolinguistique et de gloltopolitique appliqués aux aires créolophones in: Fortier, Jean-Claude, Questions sur l' Administration des DOM: décentraliser outre-mer? (Paris 1989) 343.Google Scholar

17 Days before the adoption of the law which made the colonies into departments, the communists of Martinique declared: ‘We want fully-fledged assimilation, we are ready to endure whatever it takes, we shall willingly share the tax burden of the French Citizen and whatever burdens that befall us, but we want our country to be administered with the same care as a French departement’, Justice (5 January 1946).