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
What Is a Nation? What Is a Nation? "What is a Nation?" ("Qu'est-ce qu'une nation?") is an 1882 lecture by French historian Ernest Renan (1823–1892), known for the statements that a nation is "a daily referendum", and that nations are based as much on what the people jointly forget, as what they remember. It is frequently quoted or anthologized in works of history or political science pertaining to nationalism and national identity. Renan wrote "What is a Nation" in order to symbolize the nationalism which was born in France as a result of the French Revolution of 1789. Renan begins his essay by noting