Only republican France elevated the civilizing mission to official imperial doctrine.

Evidence

Civilization is a particularly French concept; the French invented the term in the eighteenth century and have celebrated the achievements of their own ever since. At no point in modern history, however, did the French make more claims for their civilization than during the “new” imperialism of the Third Republic. Of course all European powers at the end of the nineteenth century claimed to be carrying out the work of civilization in their overseas territories; but only in republican France was this claim elevated to the realm of official imperial doctrine. From about 187o, when France began to enlarge its holdings in Africa and Indochina, French publicists, and subsequently politicians, declared that their government alone among the Western states had a special mission to civilize the indigenous peoples now coming under its control-what the French called their mission civilisatrice. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 24

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines mission civilisatrice as the distinctive French official imperial doctrine, positioned against other European imperial claims.
• XREF: Connects to broader debates on French republican universalism vs. empire, echoing the reader’s own reading program on republicanism in West Africa.