France Still Has An Empire

Unlike US's treatment of Puerto Rico, US Virgin Islands, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands and American Samoa, all of the French overseas territories that has a civilian population have full representation to the French Parliament. So French Guyana, French Polynesia, New Caledonia, etc. are to France what Hawaii is to the US. And that's one reason why half the population of these territories want to remain with France. They have representation. France subsidizes their government. The French military and science programs create jobs on their islands. And perhaps the most important thing, the French citizenship and passport. They can go to mainland France (and EU by extension) and work there and all they'll need is the plane ticket. They don't need visas nor work permits to do that. The French passport is very powerful too. They can visit most of the nations in the world visa-free.

2:15 That’s not correct: Only 6 French overseas territories are part of the European Union as either fully part of the French Republic (Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane, Mayotte, Reunion) or under a special status (St Martin). The other overseas territories are associated and often administered directly by France but are not part of the EU. For example French Polynesia where my family lives, I can live there as a French Citizen but someone from Germany or Italy would not have an automatic right to live there as it is not part of the EU.

From french Guiana, currently living in nyc. Thanks for the shedding some light on french Guiana. Even though we are a continent away, we identify ourselves strongly as french.

It sounds so awkard to speak on behalf of 3 million people, without knowing them, and telling they are under "the rule of France". The fact that there is no territorial continuity does not mean that people who live in these territories have no rights or no pride in being citizen from the same country. I recommend you travel in these places and meet people before you talk on their behalf. You will most likely be surprised on how much the connections between "Metropole" and these territories are strong and how long is the History in common.

France has 12 time-zones while Russia has 11.

I'm from Reunion Island and we actually are patriotic to France. We consider ourselves and we are French citizen. We can vote for the president and all kind of stuff so it's not like France conquered us or what not. The French discovered this Island with nobody and sure they bought slaves and plantations to here but the Creoles here hold no anger against the "Europeans". Actually this island is so mixed that we have a strong Asian (Indian and Chinese) community too! Edit: 20/12 was actually the annual Slavery Remembrance Day( Abolition of Slavery) of Reunion. It shows how we still remember our past and understand it but we don't go beat up white people or the descendants of slave traders for it. It's in the past and we continue moving forward. Being French is a nationality, and not a ethnicity. We are French. Now I cannot say the same for the other "outre-mer territoires" because there were indigenous people living there before colonization but keep in mind that there were nobody living in Reunion island before the Europeans came.

Ironically those territories that remain part of a European nation have enjoyed greater freedoms, far better democratic representation, and more prosperous livelihoods than those that sought independence. It turns out that being a single island does not provide much in the nation building without extensive natural resources or a developed-nation sugardaddy.

This video geographically accurate , historically not so much

2:20 "France should have decolonized 6 centuries ago" 6 centuries ago was 1420 and they did not even start to colonize places let alone decolonize places. I think you meant 6 decades ago. Edit: Thank you for so many likes!

I can't sleep at night peacefully anymore knowing that France has a whole army of King Penguins.

Just two things to point out: - Greenland is presented in the map as part of the EU, but it is only an associated territory due to the fact that it's part of Denmark. To represent it as part of the EU in the map is a bit questionable. - France hadn't even begun colonising six centuries ago, it certainly couldn't have started decolonising before colonisation

Decolonization isn't "leave or it's still a colony". That's a rather simplistic way to look at it and a bit patronising toward the native people of those places who made a choice for themselves. And while this is also going to be simplified, I think it's better to look at it in the sense of local population having a right to self-determination. All of those area have voted many times for their independance. In the case of New Caledonia, only a very specific group of people even has a right to vote in this referendum (I think they need to have lived in NC since the nineties so it's not like France can just send new people to skew the result), and it will be voted 3 times over. All of that to say that the tone of this video seem a bit disingenous to me, implying France still has colonies it won't let go of just like in the ninteenth century isn't true, and saying "locals living under France's rule" is downright insulting when those are french citizens living in France (some of those places have been French for longer than Nice, and yet nobody would say Niçois are "locals living under french rule"). Decolonization can take many shapes, and that include people from those places chosing more integration and gaining the same citizenship status as in the mainland (which is the case here, it's not the same as what Puerto Rico is to the USA). Mayotte is an interesting case to look at in that sense; a tiny island off the coast of Madagascar who decided to remain with France unlike its three neigbouring sister islands and has voted for even more integration within France in 2009. Just to be clear, I'm not saying France has been an angel here, I'm saying that this issue is more complex than this video implies as it seems to view decolonization in only one way.

Those territories have voted many times against independence and all of their citizens have French citizenship and rights (as opposed to American territories like Puerto Rico or guam)

Coming from a Dutch island (Aruba), regardless of history, I must say there comes a lot of benefits to being part of these European countries. You get a European passport, meaning you can work freely in Europe, and you are also protected militarily. If there will ever be a vote on leaving The Netherlands, I would vote to stay in.

I usually love your videos, but this one is sadly full of bias and misinformations... As a french person, I can tell you that most, if not all of those territories voted to stay french instead of being independant. The citizens of those places are french and feel french, nobody is forcing them.

It is wrong to say french empire France respect all of its citizens. Love from India 🇮🇳

Imagine going to Antarctica and saw a bunch of penguin 🐧 Argue in French

I just think your video was very incomplete. First you didn’t mention that those territories elect their local gouvernement and also vote directly for the french president and assembly. I also didn’t like your ton of speaking when referring at « they want to » or other thinks like this. Those people have total right to vote, to demonstrate or even to form political parties. They also joy from the same liberty of speech than France metropolitan citizens, something that hasn’t always been liked everywhere. You also mention Guyana as a touristic destination which is not right, yes they are tourist but the island are more widely recognised as touristic destinations. Lastly, you have talked about lost of this island without mentioning their name such as the Réunion or others. You also didn’t mention that every big develop country share a part of Antarctica. At the end I just think you tried to tell the story you wanted it to be and not the complex history that lies between France and it’s overseas territories.

We feel a touch of bitterness in his words. France does not leave indifferent we love it or hate it. US President Thomas Jefferson said ,Every man has two countries his own and France.

As an official Saint Pierre et Miquelon 🇵🇲 expert there's a few things wrong with this video i would like to clarify: -The french spoken there has nothing to do with European french even though is not 100% super quebecoise (i would say 85%) , so it's the only EU place where Quebec french is spoken. Even though the majority of the people living there are ethnically Basque and they have that culture there, Basque is not spoken on the archipelago, probably because the French area of the Basque country speak a lot more french than basque, unlike in the Spanish part of the Basque country where Basque is spoken normally. -Saint Pierre et Miquelon is an archipelago and oddly enough the big island pointed out in this video is not Saint Pierre, is Miquelon-Langlade, and only 100 people out of the almost 6000 that live on the whole archipelago, live on that big island, the small one, Saint Pierre, where the capital is located is where most people live. - You forgot to mention in this video that Saint Pierre et Miquelon is probably one of the few places in the world (not only in Overseas France) where there was no colonization, due to the fact that there was not an original population there when the french arrived. If you take a look at the flag you can see it's made up of a bunch of flags, including The Basque flag, the Norman flag and the Brittany flag. People (mostly fisherman) from those regions of France went on to populate the island and there was nothing there when they came so they started from the bottom! -It is a very french place... To a degree. If you Google pictures or whoever visits there will soon realize that the houses are very colorful and are built in a Nordic sort of danish style... Just like the houses in rural areas of Canada, such as Newfoundland. So it's a very interesting mix of both cultures! ☺️