French Sudan elections held in French Sudan in 1957, the African Democratic Rally ("Rassemblement Démocratique Africain", commonly known as the RDA) won the elections in French Sudan, as well as winning majorities in neighboring Ivory Coast, French Guinea, and the Upper Volta. Following the French constitutional referendum of 1958, of which received an overwhelming majority in support, the "République Soudanaise" declared itself a republic with internal autonomy on 24 November 1958. The Sudanese Republic, as the area was now called, was the second colony after Madagascar to join the French Community, which provided it internal autonomy while linking its currency, foreign policy
What Is a Nation? Anderson also points out that the reason many French citizens of Renan's time knew anything of these massacres was because they learned of them in state-run schools. Thus, the state itself preserved the knowledge which needed to be forgotten for national identity. In a 1995 book, "For Love of Country: an essay on patriotism and nationalism", Maurizio Viroli called Renan's essay "the most influential late nineteenth-century interpretation of the meaning of nation", because of its focus on the "spiritual principle" as opposed to race, religion or geography. Other authors, like Joxe Azurmendi, consider that really there is no such opposition