Mission Civilisatrice Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

Mission civilisatrice (“civilizing mission”) was the French colonization policy that emphasized efforts to transfer French political, social, and linguistic norms to subjected peoples. The approach was officially designed to “uplift” the lesser developed peoples of the world and convert them into French citizens. The Portuguese empire also utilized a similar approach to its colonial territories.

The mission civilisatrice emerged in the late 1800s, concurrently with a renewed period of European imperialism that included the acquisition by France of new territory in Africa and Indochina. French political leader and two-time prime minister Jules Ferry was one of the foremost advocates of the mission civilisatrice. French citizenship was conferred on inhabitants of several colonies, including Dakar and Saint-Louis in modern Senegal. These territories were subsequently incorporated along with other West African colonies into French West Africa, and the new formation was granted the right to elect representatives to the French National Assembly in 1946. The French view of colonialism differed from that of other colonial powers, who emphasized governance rather than integration of colonial peoples. The policy of assimilation was ultimately replaced by “association” in the late 1940s and early 1950s, in which the colonies were granted an increasing degree of autonomy in an effort to preserve the empire.

This example Mission Civilisatrice Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.