Cercle (French colonial) would still fall under the Indigénat. The "Lamine Guèye law" of 7 April 1946 formally extended citizenship across the empire, indigènes included. Third, the law of 20 September 1947 removed the two tier court system and mandated equal access to public employment. Reduced to a political subdivision roughly equivalent to a French department and stripped of the personal power of the Cercle Commander system, the Cercle name retained enough imperial connotations to be changed by most nations upon independence to Departments or Sub-Prefectures. Mali is the only nation in Sub-Saharan Africa to retain the name Cercle for its second level
French Colonial Union French Colonial Union The French Colonial Union () was a group of French merchants established for the purpose of ensuring continued French colonialism, as well as solidifying their own commercial interests. It was founded in 1893 and published "The Colonial Fortnightly" ("La Quinzaine coloniale"). The French Colonial Union served as a pivotal colonial organization that greatly aided in commercial and foreign French affairs. Though from its initial establishment, the French Colonial Union was never major, its members set out with a mindset of expressing its ideas, being vocal, and then placing those ideas into reality. The foundations of the French