Overseas Department - History

History

France's earliest, short-lived attempt at setting up overseas départements was after Napoleon's conquest of the Republic of Venice in 1797, when the hitherto Venetian Ionian islands fell to the French Directory and were organised as the départments of Mer-Égée, Ithaque and Corcyre. In 1798 the Russian Admiral Ushakov evicted the French from these islands, and though France regained them in 1802, the three départments were not revived.

Under the 1946 Constitution of the Fourth Republic, the French colonies of Algeria in North Africa (independent since 1962), Guadeloupe and Martinique in the Caribbean, French Guiana in South America, and Réunion in the Indian Ocean were defined as overseas departments.

Since 1982, following the French government’s policy of decentralisation, overseas departments have elected regional councils with powers similar to those of the regions of metropolitan France. As a result of a constitutional revision that occurred in 2003, these regions are now to be called overseas regions; indeed the new wording of the Constitution gave no precedence to the terms overseas department or overseas region, though the latter is still virtually unused by the French media.

Following a yes vote in a referendum held on March 29, 2009, Mayotte became an overseas department on March 31, 2011 after previously being an overseas collectivity.

The overseas collectivity Saint Pierre and Miquelon was an overseas department from 1976 to 1985.