'Transfer of Destinies', or Business as Usual? Republican Invented Tradition and the Problem of 'Independence'at the End of the French Empire

Details of independence ceremonies in French sub-Saharan Africa in 1960 are sparse. Republican France had no place for monarchist pageantry and ornamentalism, although there was some borrowing from the British rhetoric and iconography of the end of Empire. This article explores differences between French and British decolonization with particular attention to the French experience in Vietnam and the French West and Equatorial Africa 1958-60.