France libre et Français libres dans les Établissements Français d’Océanie (1940-1947). Une histoire de la résistance des marges dans l’espace Pacifique

On 2 September 1940, the Établissements Français d’Océanie (EFO, currently known as French Polynesia) sided with General de Gaulle’s Free France movement. They became one of the very first French colonies to do so, alongside two other French Pacific colonies, the New Hebrides on 2 July 1940 and New Caledonia on 19 September 1940. A francophone stronghold in a mostly anglophone Pacific, the EFO maintained themselves within the Allies’ camp until the end of the Second World War. However, despite their early decision to rally to de Gaulle which made them pioneers within the external resistance, the EFO remain largely absent from Free France’s historiography. This thesis examines the EFO’s history during the Second World War and under Free France and discusses its connections with New Caledonia as well as with the regional powers in the Pacific (Australia, New Zealand, the United States, Japan). It defends two major ideas: that the EFO’s ralliement to Free France marks the starting point of the claims for and introduction of political autonomy in the territory, and that Free France’s actors and institutions in the EFO crystallised the colonial society that was then in place. The first chapter of this thesis begins by examining the definition of a Free French and how it does (or does not) apply to the Gaullist partisans in Tahiti. Based on recent works, it proposes a definition relying on four criteria: being a volunteer, enlisting between 18 June 1940 and 31 July 1943, recognizing General de Gaulle’s authority and acting outside of occupied France. The second chapter examines the EFO’s ralliement to Free France. It underlines that it was a local coup, led by local notable figures. While noting some external influences, this coup was led without any kind of external intervention and drawing on a favourable context where latent Anglophilia met a very specific colonial context. Metis businessmen and local administrators found themselves invested with a certain degree of agency which allowed them to act, severing their ties with the metropole and with the Vichy regime while forming new ones with the Allies. The third chapter proposes a political history of the wartime French Pacific, encompassing the EFO and New Caledonia. After the 1940 ralliements, the Free French headquarters felt that they needed people of confidence in the field. They then sent governor general Richard Brunot in an inspection mission; however, Brunot involved himself in the EFO’s affairs, proclaimed himself the colony’s governor and had the sitting governor Émile de Curton and several of his close collaborators jailed, under the false pretext of a Vichy plot against himself. De Gaulle then sent another representative, rear admiral Georges Thierry d’Argenlieu, whom he appointed High Commissioner in the Pacific. Upon arrival in Tahiti, d’Argenlieu had Brunot and de Curton recalled to London and appointed a new governor in Tahiti, lieutenant-colonel Georges Orselli. He then proceeded to Nouméa where he was, in turn, the cause for another grave political crisis by clashing with the governor Henri Sautot, before being himself recalled to London in late 1942. This chapter proposes the idea that both episodes are not separate crises as suggested by the historiography, but, on the contrary, the two phases of a single “Oceanian crisis”. The fourth chapter focuses on the military aspects of the topic. It underscores that the Free French in the Pacific conducted a war without battles, given that the EFO (and New Caledonia) were never attacked by neither the Japanese, the Germans or the Vichy regime. This absence of enemy attack or intervention was a relief for local authorities as the local troops were largely insufficient to repel them. However, the creation of local militias by the colonial authorities and the arrival of large American forces in early 1942, in both New Caledonia and the island of Bora Bora, balanced the situation . Chapter five elaborates on the EFO’s diplomatic and commercial activities during the war. Given the absence of active combat on its soil, the colony was able to focus on developing its relations with the UK, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. It supports the idea of Tahiti as an important diplomatic centre, welcoming consuls and representatives from the UK (the British consulate in Papeete working since 1837), New Zealand and the USA, among others. It also underscores the successful diplomatic campaign led by High Commissioner d’Argenlieu thanks to which Australia and New Zealand broke diplomatic relations with Vichy and agreed to deal only with Free France, even though both countries had supported the Gaullist regime in the Pacific as early as late 1940. It also brings to light the EFO’s commercial health: the colony was able to export vanilla, mother-of-pearl, copra and phosphates to the Allies and to receive in return some very appreciable cash income. The sixth and last chapter focuses on the “sortie de guerre” (literally “war exit”), from the Brazzaville conference in January 1944 to the Ville d’Amiens affair in June 1947, during which Free French veterans led a protest in Papeete to prevent three civil servants coming from France from disembarking, arguing that their positions could have been assumed by Polynesians. It addresses the repatriation in May 1946 of the volunteers who had gone to fight overseas and their return to civilian life. Finally, it engages with how Free France and the Free French have been celebrated, awarded, and commemorated since the end of the war.

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