explain the benefits of colonies French
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First of all, you should be aware that the whole colonization period in Africa lasted only around 70 years, not longer than an average human lifespan in the post-industrial world.
Scholars around the world have asked themselves for a long time why the Europeans felt the need to establish colonies in Africa, and the answer is likely a complex web of influences.
Lenin created a theory of imperialism in which he describes imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. Private enterprise had been facing crisis at the end of the 19th century, and markets had been shrinking, creating a need for expansion.
The problem with Lenin’s theory however is that the colonies weren’t particularly economically viable. It would have been easier to simply trade with the indigenous population than to try and establish some form of rule.
The colonial powers tried to establish a “peasant state”11 - a modern state in a rural area based on taxation.
The problem with this plan was that the colonial powers weren’t the first to have tried that. A number of local powers had already attempted to tax the population in the area, failing for a number of reasons.
Low population-density made it difficult to enforce power, meaning strategies of “non-compliance” were easy to enact by the indigenous people.
The indigenous people were mostly autonomous, meaning that they simply felt no need to engage with the colonizers.
Society was incredibly heterogeneous. There was an immense density of different languages and varying loyalties among the people, and the local culture was dominantly passed on orally.
Agriculture was dependent on rainfall, leading to incredibly fluctuating yields.
At the same time, the colonial officials only made up about 0.1–0.2% of the population. So while a classic bureaucratic system was the intention of the colonists, it was hardly enforceable and eventually led to catastrophic models of the so-called “indirect rule”.
Why then, did the French colonize Africa at all?
The hardly known truth is that imperialism never had unambiguous support back at home - it took a great deal of lobbying by the corporations that did profit from the colonies in the national parliaments.
This doesn’t mean that the states themselves didn’t profit in any way at all - the profit simply wasn’t primarily economical, but geo-strategical.
The French had a strategic interest in controlling a corridor from northern Africa through the Sahara desert all the way to the Atlantic coast.

The actual profit the French had from this corridor is debatable. Likely, the “Scramble for Africa” was more about not having less than the others than it was about gaining an actual advantage.
11As defined by Spittler (1981)
Scholars around the world have asked themselves for a long time why the Europeans felt the need to establish colonies in Africa, and the answer is likely a complex web of influences.
Lenin created a theory of imperialism in which he describes imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. Private enterprise had been facing crisis at the end of the 19th century, and markets had been shrinking, creating a need for expansion.
The problem with Lenin’s theory however is that the colonies weren’t particularly economically viable. It would have been easier to simply trade with the indigenous population than to try and establish some form of rule.
The colonial powers tried to establish a “peasant state”11 - a modern state in a rural area based on taxation.
The problem with this plan was that the colonial powers weren’t the first to have tried that. A number of local powers had already attempted to tax the population in the area, failing for a number of reasons.
Low population-density made it difficult to enforce power, meaning strategies of “non-compliance” were easy to enact by the indigenous people.
The indigenous people were mostly autonomous, meaning that they simply felt no need to engage with the colonizers.
Society was incredibly heterogeneous. There was an immense density of different languages and varying loyalties among the people, and the local culture was dominantly passed on orally.
Agriculture was dependent on rainfall, leading to incredibly fluctuating yields.
At the same time, the colonial officials only made up about 0.1–0.2% of the population. So while a classic bureaucratic system was the intention of the colonists, it was hardly enforceable and eventually led to catastrophic models of the so-called “indirect rule”.
Why then, did the French colonize Africa at all?
The hardly known truth is that imperialism never had unambiguous support back at home - it took a great deal of lobbying by the corporations that did profit from the colonies in the national parliaments.
This doesn’t mean that the states themselves didn’t profit in any way at all - the profit simply wasn’t primarily economical, but geo-strategical.
The French had a strategic interest in controlling a corridor from northern Africa through the Sahara desert all the way to the Atlantic coast.

The actual profit the French had from this corridor is debatable. Likely, the “Scramble for Africa” was more about not having less than the others than it was about gaining an actual advantage.
11As defined by Spittler (1981)
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