Their plight must by now be obvious to the good people who currently occupy French Loisianna. Their part of the world, since desperate financial problems forced the Republic to sell the remaining parts of French North America to Washington, has been one of exploitation of their natural resources to the sole benefit of the replacement colonising power.
I would therefore like to suggest a solution which may very well find favour with those citizens. That is that they collect the amount paid by Washington, suitably adjusted to take account of inflation in the Franc and Euro, and repurchase the area to return it to France on the understanding that there will be a program agreed between them and guaranteed by the UN Anti-Colonisation Committe to grant independence following a referendum, which would take place within five years and every five years thereafter if a “Non” vote results.
First of all you would of course need to know what your immediate status was. Unless of course the individual chose otherwise, you would immediately gain French and therefore EU citizenship. Those wishing to retain their previous citizenship would of course be free to do so and be granted special residence rights in the new French Overseas Departments of North America. Unusually these would be semi-self governing and therefore only have representation in the Senate in Paris and not in the European Parliament. Full re-integration back into France would also be offered at a later stage if the Frennas (French North Americans) wished it or alternatively accession as an independent nation to the EU (providing of course the other 33 or so agreed and the candidate fully met the acquis and other conditions of entry)
There would also be guarantees that the income from the exploitation of the Departments’ natural resources would not be repatriated but would be used to establish the health, social services and infrastructure that every French citizen has come to expect. Payroll and income taxes would also rise to pay for this but these would offset the huge sums paid to buy insurance from companies based outside the region. Adoption of the Euro would protect them from the imminent collapse of the dollar. With the associated off-shore oil and fisheries that would of course be part of the resources of the Departments and the income from providing sea port facilities to Washington, the mone available to purchase these infrastructure projects would be enormous.
SNCDA (the Societe National de Chemin de fer des Departments Americain) would be charged with building high speed rail links between the major cities and local metros or light rail systems within them. The Dutch would be asked to use their expertise to build defences round New Orleans sufficient to withstand any force 5 hurricane’s impact. Civilised lawa regarding the siting of casinos would mean they were no longer vulnerable off-shore barges but situated well inland behind the natural barriers to storm surges like forests and swamplands that would be re-established. Those civilised laws of course also include proper investigations carried out under the direction of qualified examining magistrates before trial. The and judges would of course be appointed on the basis of their experience and skill rather than being political appointees.
They would of course benefit from the structure of the French school system and have access to Universities in the same was as their fellow countrymen. University education would be provided at the existing (US) state establishments or they could go elsewhere within the EU like the UK or Ireland. Suitably brought up to date, French schoolbooks can be rapidly translated. Others will tell you the details but free education is available from an earlier age than in the USA. The Frennas would have a more highly educated workforce than the countries to the north or south of them and therefore be more likely to get skilled highly paid work than before.
Now this may at first seem unviable as there are obvious language difficulties but these could easily be overcome. Television would change though the national channels would still buy in some Hollywood made programs, there would be locally made programs to reflect the lifestyle of the Departments. The National Channels (TFA/E1 and TFA/E2, the initials standing of course for Television Francais Anglais/English) would be in English. Major series brought from the BBC would not of course need to be dubbed for broadcast as they are in metropolitan France.
You will realise there are some problems in that one of the existing US states has adopted the name of the whole area. There is already a precdent over what to do in this event. “Great Britain” is so called to distinguish it from the French region Breteyne. “Great Louisiana” is thereforethe obvious choice.
(With some apologies to George Bernard Shaw)
