Down with the Exposition!

There were dissenting voices, however, even in France. This mission civilisatrice, said the leading left-wing newspapers of Paris, L'Humanité and Le Populaire, was merely a cover for exploitative foreign conquest, calling the event ³The Imperialist Fair of Vincennes.² Even the Surrealist writers took to distributing tracts entitled ³Do Not Visit The Exposition.² 10 Aragon, one of the leading Surrealist writers, even organized a "counter exposition," housed in one of the pavilions left over from the Art deco fair of 1925. Drawing on the personal collections of his friends, Aragon brought together sculptures from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, so that the people could see the artwork of these countries on their own terms, away from the atmosphere of imperialism that pervaded the ³Permanent Museum of the Colonies² at Vincennes. As for Angor Wat itself, the socialist leader Léon Blum commented acidly: ³Here we have rebuilt the marvelous stairway of the temple of Angor Wat, and we watch enthralled the sacred dancers; but, in Indo-China, we are shooting, we are deporting, we are imprisoning these people.²11

In spite of the attitude of French superiority that prevailed at the colonial exposition, one of its major goals was to demonstrate to the people that the colonies were not simply the homes of exotic peoples and strange customs: they were the source of vital resources contributing to the health of the French economy. The relationship of France toward her colonies, as argued in all the official documents for the exposition, was one of reciprocity: in exchange for the benefits of French civilization, the colonies would provide material goods to France.

With respect to the colonial presence in Paris, there is a decided difference in the major objective of this exposition and the previous five expositions universelles. From 1855 to 1900, colonial pavilions were set up with an eye toward impressing the natives. Representatives from Senegal, Tunisia, or Vietnam would come to the Queen City, experience the power and glory of La France at the exposition, and hopefully return home with a sense of pride in belonging to such a benevolent and puissant enterprise. But in 1931, the exposition organizers, backed by Minister of the Colonies Léon Perrier, were not primarily out to impress the natives: they were attempting to impress upon French people the importance of the colonies for the health of France, and the humanitarian good the empire was bringing to her subject nations. The inscription on the wall of the Museum of African and Oceanic Art makes clear the French sense of purpose behind the exposition. It reads: ³To her sons who have extended the empire of her genius and made dear her name across the seas, France extends her gratitude.²12

In many important respects, the Exposition Coloniale Internationale de Paris could be counted a success. The total number of visitors to the fair ‹ 33,489,902 paid admissions, plus an estimated one million free tickets ‹ made this the second largest attendance of any Parisian exposition. And, according to one tally of the final receipts, the colonial exposition made a substantial profit of some 33 million francs.

In addition to the cash profit, the exposition coloniale left behind two permanent legacies to the city of Paris. The section of the fairgrounds that housed the display of exotic animals became the basis for the zoo in the park of Vincennes. The art gallery for the exposition, designed by Jaussely and Laprade, with decorative murals by the Prix de Rome winner Alfred Janniot, became the ³Permanent Museum of the Colonies² (today called the Museum of African and Oceanic Art). In 1931, this museum displayed not only the art from French colonies, but also works by renowned French artists, such as Cezanne and Gauguin, who at some point in their careers had drawn on non-Western art for inspiration and subject matter.

There still remains the question, however, of whether or not the exposition coloniale achieved its major goal: to educate the French people as to the importance of the colonies to France. For at least a century, the French nation, even and especially the intellectuals and artists, regarded the colonies as mysterious, far-away places where incomprehensible people practised their inscrutable ways. What attracted people to the Turkish baths of Ingres, the harem scenes of Gérôme, or the island village women of Gauguin was precisely their strangeness. And it was this same exotic allure that drew people to Vincennes in 1931. Thomas August, commenting on the decision of the commissioners to use this exoticism to attract people to the fair in order to educate them, asks rhetorically, ³Will masses of people at any time line up to read statistics about groundnut production and new approaches to rubber cultivation?² 13

Most people, it seems, came to the exposition coloniale to enjoy themselves. They came away satisfied, much in the same way that people come away from a meal in a foreign restaurant. People opposed to colonialism did not change their minds; people already in favor of the enterprise could feel that their convictions were further reinforced. The vast majority of visitors went about their business as before. Governmental colonial policy went unchanged.

The one exception is the effect of the exposition on a sizeable portion of the French youth who attended the event. The colonial office was concerned that France needed the talents of bright young men to administer the Empire. As a consequence, there was a concerted effort on the part of exposition officials to attract students of all ages to the fair. Pupils from primary and secondary schools, trade schools, and teacher training institutions participated in the ³Tour the World in Four Days² program, which involved an intensive study of all the major exhibits at the exposition. In a later study of this effort, William Cohen remarked:

For the six months of its duration the exposition continued drawing visitors, especially school children. It inspired a large number of them to aim at overseas service. Many of the men who entered the colonial school in the 1930s mentions the Vincennes exposition as having had an important influence on the choice of a career.14

In the long run, of course, the effort was futile. France, like all other European countries, lost partial or complete control over her possessions. In some cases, such as Vietnam and Algeria, the struggle against French colonialism was especially tragic, and cost both sides tens of thousands of lives before the conflict was ended. And indeed, France without her Empire seems to have survived tolerably well without the forced importation of colonial products to bolster the quality of life. But as the 1930s progressed, other events were taking shape that would have far greater immediate effect on France than the loss of her empire. The great Depression, the bitterly divisive election in 1936, and the acting out of the ambitions of Hitler and Mussolini. By the time of the next and last great Parisian exposition in 1937, France would find herself on the brink of losing far more than her overseas empire.

NOTES
1 l¹Illustration, November, 1931, n.p.
2 l¹Illustration, May, 1931, n.p.
3 Cited in Philippe Bouin & Christian-Philippe Chanut, Histoire Française des Foires et des Expositions Universelles (Paris, 1980), p. 179. Note the similarity in tone with Victor Hugo's claim for the universality of France in 1867.
4 Ibid., page 180
5 Lyautey succinctly stated what he saw as the basic difference between the Moroccan expositon and the Paris event: ³The exposition at Morocco gave to our colonials confidence in the designs of France and their proper role in those designs.... The exposition assured them that France was, in spite of enemy [German] propaganda, a nation sure of iteself and confident of victory.² ‹ l¹Illustration, November, 1931, n.p.
6 So far had the North African nations advanced in their imitation of French ways that they were now launching their own expositions: in Egypt, the Exposition Française au Caire presented French culture in the colonial setting at Cairo; in Algeria, the Exposition générale du Centenaire de l'Algerie marked the 100th anniversary of the military occupation of Algeria by French troops (one wonders about the spirit into which the Algerians entered in celebrating the conquest of their own country).
7 Histoire Française, page 189
8 ³L'Ankor et l'Indochine,² in l'Illustration, May, 1931, n.p.
9 l¹Illustration, May, 1931, n.p.
10 André Breton, Paul Eluard, Aragon, Maxime Alexandre, ³Ne visitez pas l'Exposition Coloniale² (Paris, 1931)
11 ³Moins de fêtes et de discours, plus d'intelligence humaine,² in Le Populaire, May 7, 1931
12 The inscription is followed by a list of names of Frenchmen, from the Crusades down to the colonial wars of the twentieth century. It may be difficult for the reader today to grasp the frame of mind which, in 1931, saw the names of Crusaders and colonial governors as men who made the name of France beloved in distant lands.
13 l¹Illustration, November, 1931, n.p.
14 ³The Colonial Exposition in France: Education or Reinforcement?² in Proceedings of the Sixth and Seventh Annual Meetings of the French Colonial Society, 1980-81. Washington, D.C., page 153
15 Rulers of Empire: The French Colonial Service in Africa, Stanford, 1971, pp. 105-106

STATISTICAL APPENDIX
Opening Date: May 4, 1931
Closing Date: November 4, 1931
Size of Site: 500 acres
Official Paid Attendance:33,489,902
Exhibitors: 12,000 (including vendors)
Expenses (estimated): 285,181,652 francs
Receipts (estimated): 318,378,938 francs
Profit to Government (estimated): 33,197,286
Top Official: Maréchal Lyautey, Commissaire général de l'Exposition coloniale

BIBLIOGRAPHY

August, Thomas. "The Colonial Exposition in France: Education or Reinforcement?" in Proceedings of the Sixth and Seventh Annual Meetings of the French Colonial Society, 1980-81. (Washington, D.C., 1982).
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