Moral-civilizing doctrine mattered more than economic in French colonial policy.

Evidence

A more local factor, however, also helps to account for the rigidity of French ideology in this domain. Before World War I, ameliorating Africans through “superior” French science constituted only one aspect of Dakar’s civilizing doctrine. Of equal if not greater importance was an emphasis upon ensuring the moral progress of their subjects. Given this other preoccupation, it is hardly surprising that French ideas of mise en valeur did not change after the final reorganization of the Government General. How to improve Africans morally, in contrast, proved a more dynamic concept in Dakar between 1904 and 1914. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 248