This presentation would remain incomplete without mention of certain economic aspects of the colonial problem.
From 1927, good minds considered it necessary to considerably develop mining prospecting in overseas countries and to transform the raw ore on the spot in order to create a beginning of local industry. For them, it is a question of leaving the economy of the previous century to enter that of the 20th century and preparing for that of the year 2000.
It would be stupid, they say, to neglect any longer a very valuable source
of wealth. This is also the way to have a harmoniously balanced economy and to provide remunerative work to the North African and Indochinese populations in full demographic expansion. Moreover, this increase in the industrial potential of the Empire would be precious, both for the metropolis, which, in this area, is lagging worryingly behind Germany, and for the needs of national defense in France and in the territories of France. 'overseas. Doesn't progress in aviation and the motorization of armies lead to an in-depth staggering of our means of defense and production?
Among the promoters of these boldly new ideas figure prominently Eirik Labonne who already gave, with appreciable results, a vigorous impetus to mining research in Morocco and to the constitution in this country of semi-public companies for the development and exploitation of recognized deposits.
It also seemed scandalous to these pioneers that France did not produce more than 150,000 tons of oil per year in the whole of its Empire. It was therefore urgently necessary to prospect and probe. But they came up against the ironic skepticism of official augurs and licensed engineers. The pejorative epithets of poet and utopian were attached to their names, and nothing serious was done before 1939. was twenty years earlier.
From this set of facts, of observations, where the truth has not been disguised, a certainty clearly emerges. If the work of France in its Empire presented, in various domains, shortcomings, often serious, as all human work inevitably contains, it also offers many positive aspects which deserve sympathy and even respect. The attitude of the overseas territories during the terrible turmoil that saw the metropolis succumb in June 1940 is irrefutable testimony to this. Because none of them seceded, none revolted. This is a fact remarkable enough to be extolled.
In France , the abolition of slavery was voted for the first time in 1794 during the Revolution, and became effective by the decree of April 27, 1848 initiated by Victor Schoelcher . The abolitionist movement began in the 18th century, and it quickly became international, even if it first affected