France’s republican ideals coexisted with colonial domination through a civilizing ideal

Evidence

However misguided, self-deluding, or underfunded-indeed, because they were all these things-these claims merit our attention. As an enduring tension of French republicanism, the civilizing ideal in whose name the nation of the “rights of man” deprived so many people of their freedom deserves to be better understood. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 49

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader pattern of ideals-of-rights states running colonial/imperial systems — e.g. American manifest destiny, Soviet ‘internationalism’. — connects to: Civilizing-mission ideology deflected contradiction between French democratic values and colonial conquest