Abstract
After the First World War, France became one of the main colonising powers in the Middle East, along with Britain. In the study of colonial policies, there is general consensus among historians that while Britain had more economic and strategic interests in the region, the French were more radical in their objectives in that they sought to convert colonial subjects into Frenchmen as part of larger France, through a "civilising mission" or mission civilisatrice. The cultural expansion of France generated an extensive corpus of argument and reflexion, and colonial historiography provides a useful framework for the study of conceptions and ideas of colonialism. It has been argued that the French were altruistic in their policies in that they believed any colonized person could become French, and the feeling of a secular mandate to bring civilisation and modernization to the Middle-Eastern colonised territories; however, another point of view exposes that these attitudes were always premised on a belief in European cultural superiority. This, along with the pursuance of rigorous assimilation and francisation (Frenchification), did sow the seeds for discontented among the colonized populations and for concepts for nationalist independence movements.
...
