French Sudan like agriculture, religion, and slavery. Following World War II, the African Democratic Rally (RDA) under Modibo Keita became the most significant political force pushing for independence. French Sudan initially retained close connections with France and joined in a short-lived federation with Senegal in 1959, but ties to both countries quickly weakened. In 1960, the French Sudan formally became the Republic of Mali and began to distance itself further from Senegal and France. French Sudan originally formed as a set of military outposts as an extension of the French colony in Senegal. Though the area offered France little economic or strategic
French Colonial Union on the proper path to increasing France's colonial possessions' worth. Indeed, the Union Coloniale Francaise (UCF) organized five hundred talks between 1897 and 1906 with the intention of promoting the emigration of bons colons or "good colonists" to French colonial destinations, and in the case of French colonial IndoChina, as noted by historian Marie Paule Ha, among the benefits of including women as colonists was the charge of putting an end to the “highly undesirable practice of concubinage between Frenchmen and native women,” and an unloading of the large “stock” of metropolitan single females. French Colonial Union The French Colonial