The former French colonies have sculpted this word to their own social and economic reality.

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After the war, the British and French refused to give up their colonies without a fight, and the Soviet Union fueled a Cold War by attempting to restore, and build upon, the older czarist empire in eastern Europe and southern and western Asia.

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When Roosevelt was planning to invade North Africa in 1942, key to his strategy was to minimize French resistance to the seizure of these African colonies before the Germans could grab them.

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Likewise, the 18th-century French and Indian Wars were fought by militia troops from all the Colonies.

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Unlike states that began as British colonies with some representative government, democracy bypassed Louisiana under French and Spanish rule.

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Others in former colonies continue to embrace France, saying the current security situations that have spurred reluctant French interventions on the continent don't amount to neo-colonialism.

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Some 40-50 years after emigrants from its north African colonies stepped off the boat in Marseille, there is no hyphenated term for their French-born children or grandchildren.

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