In the end, French colonies were basically concentrated in the Indian Ocean region, including Djibouti, Madagascar, India, Mauritius, and other islands.
That was right—France also had colonies in India, though they were not large, not even matching Portugal's colonial holdings in India. Portugal had only three colonies in India, while France had five.
Yet Portuguese Goa alone was far larger than the combined area of France's five colonial outposts in India.
Kaor said, "Among these colonies, we should first consider the Pacific islands. This is no longer an age when France stood at the height of its glory."
"Those islands in the Pacific are practically chicken ribs to our country—tasteless to eat, a pity to throw away. They are already far from the homeland, and neither their area nor population is promising."
"Nor do they have any worthwhile resources. To put it bluntly, if countries along the Pacific truly seized those places by force, there would be little we could do. Sending an expeditionary force would only waste military funds, and the risks would be high as well."
"So we might as well use this opportunity to throw the Pacific islands to East Africans. To us, those colonies are nothing but a heavy burden."
France's Pacific colonies were centered on the three island groups of New Caledonia, the New Hebrides Islands, and Polynesia.
From a global perspective, this was truly a place where birds did not even shit. Deep in the South Pacific, it was not close to Australia, Asia, the Americas, or Africa, and Europe was even more unimaginably distant.
Ambassador Thomson said, "Territories in the Pacific may hold some value for East Africa, but they are not attractive enough. After all, these islands are nearly worthless to us, and the same is true for East Africa. They are