Not since the days of the great Marshal Lyautey had Frenchmen been so conscious of empire. The consciousness arose from the persistent (and unduly alarming) rumors that France would be asked to put some of her strategic overseas bases under international "trusteeship." To the Consultative Assembly hurried Foreign Minister Georges Bidault to defend his country's colonial record, challenge its critics, and proclaim a new deal for an empire second only to Britain's.
Said Minister Bidault: "We cannot tolerate that anyone should try to dispossess France of her sovereignty of certain territories. . . . There are peoples to whom we owe an...
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