Token - Exposition Coloniale Internationale Afrique

Reverse

French West Africa pavilion on the left, Madagascar pavilion column on the right and Algeria pavilion in the center.

Script: Latin

Lettering:
EXPOSITION
COLONIALE
INTERNATIONALE
1931

Edge

Plain

Comment

The exposition opened on 6 May 1931 in the Bois de Vincennes on the eastern outskirts of Paris. The scale was enormous. It is estimated that from 7 to 9 million visitors came from over the world. The French government brought people from the colonies to Paris and had them create native arts and crafts and perform in grandly scaled reproductions of their native architectural styles such as huts or temples. Other nations participated in the event, including The Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Japan, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States.

Politically, France hoped the exposition would paint its colonial empire in a beneficial light, showing the mutual exchange of cultures and the benefit of France's efforts overseas. This would thus negate German criticisms that France was "the exploiter of colonial societies [and] the agent of miscegenation and decadence". The exposition highlighted the endemic cultures of the colonies and downplayed French efforts to spread its own language and culture abroad, thus advancing the notion that France was associating with colonised societies, not assimilating them.
Wikipedia

Price

Date	Mintage	VG	F	VF	XF	AU	UNC
1931		-	-	-	-	-	-

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