The imperialism of a great nation like France was helping to keep empire resspectable -- to the extent that it was respectable. And the French were feeling the need for more respect for themselves. French pride had been injured by Germany's defeat of France back in 1871, and French pride had also been hurt too by the minor role they were playing in European affairs. There was a tendency in France to associate empire with national worthiness. Some in France saw themselves as descendants of the Roman Empire and held up the Roman Empire as a model for France, and clinging to such glory they wished not to be outdone in empire by the British.
Already, since the early 1840s, the French had been ruling in Algeria, having conquered that country militarily. They had extended their rule into what is now Tunisia, which they were ruling indirectly, preserving local institutions and collaborating with local ruling elites. The French had followed their Catholic missionaries to Tahiti and their military had fought a four-year war against the Tahitians, defeating them by 1847, creating what they called a protectorate over Tahiti and surrounding islands. They had acquired New Caledonia, near Australia, and in 1853 they turned it into a penal colony. They had annexed the Marquesas Islands. In the 1870s the French had pushed into Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. And they had established rule in Madagascar -- a sparsely populated island off the southeastern coast of Africa -- where, at the turn of the century they pacified a rebellion and unified the island politically.
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