By the 1910s-1920s have France have the biggest colonial empire of all time, with the British in a close, strong, and still pretty influential second place, instead of the other way around.

OTL for comparison;
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The British my Push for a political Union with Canada, Australia in order to balance against the Franch who make their colonies part of France unlike the UK.
 
If the French somehow intervened in 1688 to keep James II on the throne, or invaded England in 1689. Slim chance, but it was possible. If the French had landed an army in England in 1745, it might have triggered a Hanoverian panic, and a Jacobite restoration. France then might have made major gains in the War of the Austrian Succession. There was a slim chance of a French invasion of England in 1779, so France might have gained substantially from the War of the American Revolution, with the Americans taking Canada, and the French Ceylon, and becoming the dominant colonial power in India.
 
This succeeds

Ireland becomes for the British what Spain became for the French.

Wanting a repeat, the French send a major force to the Carribean. With French troops to fight the Spanish in San Domingo, a large chunk of Touissaint's forces and French professionals are landed in Jamaica for a rerun of Touissaints revolt. Slave revolt spreads all accross the Carribean. This makes the expansion of Slavery in the US very difficult so the British Industrial Revolution is slowed to a crawl for lack of Cotton.

In the end, Britain makes a very bad peace where, among other things, The French keep Egypt and establish a major presence in India.
 
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For this to happen, France needs to focus more on a colonial empire instead of trying to conquer parts of Europe. So France should stop trying to gain the southern Netherlands or the Rhineborder, etc. It needs to switch the resources it used in the European war, trying to fight the rest of Europe to its colonial ventures. Also without trying to fight the rest of Europe, France might be able to make some alliances to secure its borders.

Also, it probably needs to make some economic and social changes. The social and economic freedom in England (and the Netherlands) meant that both countries were able to create a better colonial empire than France.
 
I am not a great connoisseur of English history, but for a long time I have doubts about the validity of the map that you show about the British empire, as far as I know, by the time the English colonized Africa, both Canada, Australia and South Africa were independent, different states
 
I am not a great connoisseur of English history, but for a long time I have doubts about the validity of the map that you show about the British empire, as far as I know, by the time the English colonized Africa, both Canada, Australia and South Africa were independent, different states
Technically, they were dominions, i.e technically no longer beholden to britain... just the crown. The last piece of canadian legislation to go through westminister was in 1981 I believe.

Now as for OP. The seven year war is too late. French colonialism didnt have large degrees of settlement. But it also didn't have large native protectorates. The reasons why are long and complicated, and I suspect quite a lot of it comes from how much power and wealth was all concentrated in paris, a more inland city, a strategy employed by the french to keep control of the nobility and the south. All in all probably the right choice.

Regardless, france likely needs to get in on it faster, with the monarchy using it as a good way to get rid of undesirables; rebels, heretics, nobles that don't cover their mouths when they sneeze... it won't entirely make up for how much the french DID NOT want to leave, but it will make the colonies more viable.

France also chose to make allies with the natives instead of effectively wiping them from their area of control. That is good. Keep that up, acting as kingmaker and making vassals/protectorates out of them.

We also need to give scotland a bad time, or a very good time. Otl they went on to disproportionately settle the colonies AND become overrepresented in the ruling class of places like the raj. Giving endiburugh hell would make that harder to do, but giving them a very good time would make it less nessicary or popular
 
Technically, they were dominions, i.e technically no longer beholden to britain... just the crown. The last piece of canadian legislation to go through westminister was in 1981 I believe.

Now as for OP. The seven year war is too late. French colonialism didnt have large degrees of settlement. But it also didn't have large native protectorates. The reasons why are long and complicated, and I suspect quite a lot of it comes from how much power and wealth was all concentrated in paris, a more inland city, a strategy employed by the french to keep control of the nobility and the south. All in all probably the right choice.

Regardless, france likely needs to get in on it faster, with the monarchy using it as a good way to get rid of undesirables; rebels, heretics, nobles that don't cover their mouths when they sneeze... it won't entirely make up for how much the french DID NOT want to leave, but it will make the colonies more viable.

France also chose to make allies with the natives instead of effectively wiping them from their area of control. That is good. Keep that up, acting as kingmaker and making vassals/protectorates out of them.

We also need to give scotland a bad time, or a very good time. Otl they went on to disproportionately settle the colonies AND become overrepresented in the ruling class of places like the raj. Giving endiburugh hell would make that harder to do, but giving them a very good time would make it less nessicary or popular
So my comment is not wrong either, it certainly has some connection but were they not art to the British Empire?
Now, one way to turn France into a great colonial power is that Napoleon had success in his plan to take the Spanish colonies, he had already agreed a treaty with Spain so that it would bless all its territories in North America and Central America. change of territories in Europe, but as some factors on which Napoleon depended to form the colonies failed, he could not close the deal and to turn his defeat into victory he sold Louisiana to the United States, in the following years he placed men as rulers of the Spanish colonies. faithful to him, but it did not go well either, but on many occasions he was very close to taking all his colonies from Spain
 
I am not a great connoisseur of English history, but for a long time I have doubts about the validity of the map that you show about the British empire, as far as I know, by the time the English colonized Africa, both Canada, Australia and South Africa were independent, different states
So that map is actually what Britain held in the aftermath of WW1, as they had just split the Middle East with France in the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The Dominions were semi-independent but were economically and militarily reliant on Britain as well as having exceptionally strong cultural and political ties. The actual relationship was vague but you could consider it that the Dominions had their own independent militaries but Britain could largely dictate foreign and economic policy, although to what extent depended on the relationship between each dominion and Britain.
 
For this to happen, France needs to focus more on a colonial empire instead of trying to conquer parts of Europe. So France should stop trying to gain the southern Netherlands or the Rhineborder, etc. It needs to switch the resources it used in the European war, trying to fight the rest of Europe to its colonial ventures. Also without trying to fight the rest of Europe, France might be able to make some alliances to secure its borders.

Also, it probably needs to make some economic and social changes. The social and economic freedom in England (and the Netherlands) meant that both countries were able to create a better colonial empire than France.
Oddly I was going to say that France needs a soldier order that it could hide behind like the Rhein in order to make its defenses easier. That would allow it to have less resources wasted on wars.

Too many times France was isolated in the games of great power politics and was caught with lesser powers while fighting against some combination of Spain Austria and England. They need a diplomatic partner in Europe so that they don't end up fighting everyone at the same time qll the time.
 
Oddly I was going to say that France needs a soldier order that it could hide behind like the Rhein in order to make its defenses easier. That would allow it to have less resources wasted on wars.
And that is exactly why I mentioned it. France didn't need* the rhineborder and simply trying to get the rhineborder meant that it had to fight all of Europe, meaning that it had to spend resources trying to get the rhineborder, resources it would not be able to use for colonising.

Besides that, I believe the rhineborder was simplyan excuse for French expasionism. Considering that months after it got the rhine border it started annexing land on the other side of the rhine, I don't think I am wrong.

*From the mid of the 17th century Spain was a mere shell of its original power and Germany (and Italy) were completely divided, so they were no longer a threat to France.
 
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