Republicans saw no contradiction between democracy and colonialism because they deemed Africans barbarians.

Evidence

On the crudest level, the French forcibly “pacified” those West African groups who resisted colonization. On a more subtle level, French rule rested upon a set of coercive practices that violated their own democratic values. Africans were designated as subjects, not citizens. They had duties, but few rights. In neither case, however, did French republicans identify any contradiction between their democratic institutions and the acquisition and administration of their empire. This was because they viewed Africans as barbarians, and were continually undertaking-or claiming to undertake, as the case may be-civilizing measures on behalf of their subjects that appeared to make democracy and colonialism compatible. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 48

There can, of course, be little doubt that colonization under the Third Republic was in large part an act of state-sanctioned violence. On the crudest level, the French forcibly “pacified” those West African groups who resisted colonization. On a more subtle level, French rule rested upon a set of coercive practices that violated their own democratic values. Africans were designated as subjects, not citizens. They had duties, but few rights. In neither case, however, did French republicans identify any contradiction between their democratic institutions and the acquisition and administration of their empire. This was because they viewed Africans as barbarians, and were continually undertaking-or claiming to undertake, as the case may be-civilizing measures on behalf of their subjects that appeared to make democracy and colonialism compatible. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 48

Categorization

• CANDY: A sharp, quotable irony: the nation of the ‘rights of man’ designated whole peoples as non-citizen subjects of colonial rule.
• DEFINE: Clarifies the ‘subjects not citizens’ distinction central to understanding French colonial legal categories.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 48