French colonial empire

The French colonial empire was constituted of the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 17th century onward. A distinction is generally made between the "First colonial empire", that existed until 1814, by which time most of it had been lost, and the "Second colonial empire", which began with the conquest of Algiers in 1830 and came for the most part to an end with the granting of independence to Algeria in 1962 (the last territory to reach independence was Vanuatu in 1980).

Wikipedia