108 J.-A. PEMBERTON
colonies of Algeria, Corsica, the French Indies, Guadeloupe, Indochina,
Madagascar, Martinique, Morocco, Réunion and Tunisia as well as those
of the territories under French mandate, including the states of the
Levant.^81 Yet according to Jonathan M. Woodham, although acknowl-
edging France’s ‘imperial leanings,’ the Centre of Colonies, which was
reportedly difficult to access, seemed to suggest that France’s ‘com-
mitment to her colonies...[was]...less vibrant’ than it had been several
years earlier.^82 As Lemoine observes, the grand Colonial Exposition of
1931 had been an emphatic reaffirmation of French ‘supremacy over her
possessions d’outre mer’.^83 That the staging of the Centre of Colonies
(which as it turned out would be the last time a French colonial exhi-
bition was staged), may have communicated the message that France’s
commitment to its colonies was less enthusiastic than it had been some
years earlier, may be explained in part by the following consideration:
within the Socialist Party ‘some groups and individuals were avowedly
colonialist while others were anticolonialist,’ a consequence of this being
a ‘Socialist overseas doctrine’ lacking in ‘forcefulness’.^84 The same con-
sideration may help explain why the Centre of Colonies sought to depict
the local cultures of the French colonies as ‘part of the greater French
family’ and tended to eschew the contrived exoticism which was part of
the ambience of the 1931 Colonial Exposition.^85 That said, the follow-
ing description of the scene on the island is worth noting: on the ‘île
des Cynges and seated amidst totem poles and ‘newly-planted banana
trees, palms, and cacti,’ artisans from the colonies ‘weaved fabrics and
(^81) Challet-Bailhache, ed., Paris et ses expositions universelles: architectures, 1855–1937,
- See also Woodham, ‘Paris Exposition des Arts et Technqiues dans la Vie Moderne,’ in
Woodham, ed., A Dictionary of Modern Design.
(^82) Wooodham, ‘Paris Exposition des Arts et Technqiues dans la Vie Moderne,’ in
Woodham, ed., A Dictionary of Modern Design. See also Catherine Hodeir, ‘La France
d’outre-mer,’ in Lemoine, ed., Paris 1937: Cinquantenaire de l’Exposition internationale
des arts et des techniques dans la vie moderne, 291.
(^83) Lemoine, ‘Paris 1937: Exposition coloniale internationale,’ 63.
(^84) William B. Cohen, ‘The Colonial Policy of the Popular Front,’ French Historical
Studies 7, no. 23 (1972): 368–93, 372–74. See also Hodeir, ‘La France d’outre-mer,’ 291.
Catherine Hodeir points out that the colonial exhibition in Paris in 1937 was the last such
exhibition.
(^85) Lemoine, ‘Paris 1931: Exposition coloniale internationale,’ 63. See also Hodeir, ‘La
France d’outre-mer,’ 287. See also Jay Winter, Dreams of Peace and Freedom: Utopian
Moments in the Twentieth Century (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 94–5.