Introduction to France of Overseas

The Ministry for France of Overseas

Here how in 1948, the Ministry for France of Overseas promoted the latter near the collectors of stamps.

    France, is not only the beautiful country where you were born, where you live, the Western end of the continent of Europe; it is also a vast empire, beautiful, rich, with the varied aspects, powerful contrasts, the many and various resources.

    All the races, all the religions, all the cultures mix with there fraternally. In many places, France was made the guide and the tutor of the less advanced people.

    Of any of the five continents our country is not absent. Grace as well to its genius as with this vast empire, France acquired and will be able to preserve its influence and its radiation in the world.

    We are indeed installed on one and the other bank of this Mediterranean which saw to open out Antiquity, mother of our thought; we conquered and pacified this inhospitable Sahara, considered insuperable during centuries: regular automobile services cross it in the two directions and the plane flies over it constantly.

    Our flag floats as well on the low plains of the Indochinese deltas as on the edges of broad rivers like Niger and Congo, on banks of the inland seas like Chad, in the middle of the Equatorial forest of the center of Africa or America.

    The Pacific Islands bathe clans the sunny calm their lagoons, while our compatriots of the islands Saint-Pierre and Miquelon are lost in the frozen fogs of the North Atlantic, last vestige of our penetration in the New World.

    In all these areas, since our often peaceful installation, more internal wars, plunderings, massacres, famines. We brought to all peaces and a better life.

    The large ones and fatal epidemics which, too often, devastated these territories, are everywhere in regression marked thanks to the effort of our scientists, with the devotion of our doctors. Everywhere, the indigenous population increases; in one century, the number of the Arabs of Algeria doubled.

    Be proud of this great empire which, of 1814 to 1915, bold pioneers, valorous soldiers gave us, and which civils servant, colonists and missionaries pacified and emphasized.

    But this empire of yesterday will not be that of tomorrow; it is worked out under your eyes a great French Union, within which still tons the people subordinates will become our equal and our associates.

    Because, you should never forget that it is banks of Congo and edges of Chad which be-part this army which was to pare the German out of our France and to release the crowned ground of the Fatherland oppressed during five mortals years.

French union

The French Union constituted in surface one of the great empires of the world. Extended on more than 12 million square kilometers, that is to say more than 20 times the surface of the Metropolitan France, it counted less than 65 million inhabitants in 1948.

It is on the African continent that our installation is most considerable. With the means of communication of which we laid out, Brazzaville in the middle of Africa, was at three days of Paris. The Mediterranean was not any more one solution of continuity, but on the contrary an element of junction between the two continents.

With our possessions of the Indian Ocean, “the Black Africa” and “White Africa” represented nearly 10 million square kilometers.

In Asia, we were installed in the five counters of India. During the 19th century, we had gained a foothold in the oriental party of the Indochinese peninsula, in 750,000 square kilometers.

Our departments of America were oldest. Hadn't we already celebrated the tercentenary one of their fastening in France? They were however only islands disseminated in the North Atlantic and the Caribbean Sea. On the continent, our only possession was Guyana.

The small small islands of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon are the only remainders of this News-France which extended from the frozen edges of Hudson Bay to the mouths of the Mississippi.

Lastly, in the Pacific, this ocean with the growing importance, our presence was felt on the islands and archipelagoes grouped in distinct administrative formations, New Caledonia, Wallis & Futuna, New Hebrides and the French Establishments of Oceania.

We will try, through several articles, to make you discover all the wealth and the interest of the stamps of the French Union.

    North Africa
    The West Africa
    Togo and Cameroon
    Equatorial Africa
    The Indian Ocean
    Asia
    Oceania
    America