CONFIDENTIAL
necessary for one man to double this role with that of the local
representative of the British Government. So long as his relation to the local government was a purely advisory one the double role should not prove too difficult to sustain it would after all be
closely similar to that of a colonial governor or administrator in an advanced territory.
Integration
17. The word 'integration' could be used to describe any union
between two or more territories, but it has now become a term of
art for a voluntary union between a metropolitan state and a former dependency. Theoretically the dependency could no doubt be a
contiguous territory, but we are concerned here with overseas
territories and as it happens there have been several unions of
this kind in recent years involving overseas territories.
18. The classic instance of 'integration' in this sense are the four French Departments d'Outre-mer, Guadaloupe, Martinique, Guyane and Reunion. For constitutional and governmental purposes they are treated exactly as if they were departments of metropolitan France. Their people are represented in the French Parliament and
have full equality of rights with the netropolitan population -
including free entry to France. Political institutions in these
territories are identical in form with those of a netropolitan department, as regards both the elective Conseil General and the Prefet appointed by the central Government. Integration is formally complete in all aspects of govemment except in the economic and social
sectors where neasures to achieve equivalence with metropolitan France are being applied ncre gradually. It is important, however,
to note that the integration of these territories was the culmination
of a long historical process: they have been in French hands since the seventeenth century, and had been represented in French Parliaments for 75 years when they received their present status in 1946.
19. Further examples were provided by the admission of Alaska (population 211,000) and Hamsii (population 575,000) to full statehood in 1959. As States of the American Union they of course enjoy very considerable autonomy coupled with full citizen rights and full
**
*
/representation
'The constitutions of the Fourth and Fifth Republics
were confirmed by referendum in the Departements'.
(Haytor, T. French
ребе
'Bronchobic'
.7.