The French Union
By the 1960's, the importance of France's colonies had significantly declined. In 1954, 70% of France's agricultural imports came from its "overseas countries", while the majority of its industrial exports went to its colonies as well.[1] By the 1960's, increasing integration into a (Western) European common market quickly reduced France's economic dependence on trade with Africa. One major journalist, Raymond Cartier, was a vociferous critic of the French colonial empire, arguing that the African colonies were economic sinkholes for spending. In a famous article published after the war in 1957, Cartier quipped "Corrèze before the Zambezi." The debate sparked a total break among the Poujadists, as Poujade himself agreed with the arguments, although the radical youth wing, led by Le Pen, rejected the notion that France should focus at home. Charles de Gaulle, who was not a Poujadist but desired Poujadist support for his government, more or less played the two groups off against each other. De Gaulle wanted out, but the Opportunist Gaullists didn't.
As a result of France's leading role in the European Economic Community, De Gaulle was able to eventually secure preferential access of all French colonies to the European market. Many observers theorized that De Gaulle's support for British entry into the EEC was to gain an ally in this endeavor, as the Italians notably objected. With British support, British colonies were included as well, while Somalia and Libya were allowed to sign association agreements that gave them a backdoor into the European market.
De Gaulle was a believer in the idea of a French empire, but he was notoriously reticent to spend much blood on it. Moreover, his opinions on race and ethnicity were complex. De Gaulle's famously stated in writing that:
"'It's a very good thing that there are yellow French people, black French people and brown French people. It's a sign that France is open to all races and that it has a universal vocation. But on condition they stay a minority. If not, France wouldn't be France anymore. After all, we are an European people from white race, Greek and Latin culture, and Christian religion. Try to mix oil and vinegar together. Shake the bottle. After a while, they get separated again. The Arabs are the Arabs, the French are the French. Do you believe that the French nation is able to integrate ten million Muslims who shall be twenty million tomorrow and forty million the day after? If we integrated them, if all the Arabs and Berbers were considered French, how could we prevent them from moving to our home country where the standard of living is so much higher? My village wouldn't be named Colombey-les-Deux-Églises (Colombey of the Two Churches) anymore, but Colombey-les-Deux-Mosquées (Colombey of the Two Mosques)!"[2]
De Gaulle was sympathetic to the stated goals of the French Union and the many African intellectuals who supported such an ideal of racial equality, while being deeply unsympathetic to what he saw as an oppressive, racist settler society in Algeria. In addition, he had established a true bond of friendship with the late Félix Éboué, the black Governor of French Equatorial Africa who was the first major politician to declare for Free France. However, he was also deeply fearful of a truly multiracial, multiethnic France. His vision for the French Empire was truly neocolonial - the idea that most Africans would be largely self-governing and ostensibly free, but France would retain its influence, including strategic territory and access to rare natural resources. A consensus emerged in the government to decolonize most of the nations with the highest populations (under close French tutelage), but to retain low-population colonies where the local leaders (or even better, local residents, though this was unlikely) could be convinced to stay.
After an inter-government quibble, the decision was made to tinker with the French Union (most of the Opportunist Gaullists who fled the mainstream center-right to support De Gaulle were okay with his overall plans, but opposed an outright constitutional revision for fear that De Gaulle would become a strongman). Overseas countries, overseas territories, as well as the UN trust territories, were required to choose between becoming 1) French overseas departments, 2) protectorates of France (a status held by Tunisia, Vietnam, Cochinchina, and until 1955, Cambodia), or just 3) independence. In short, 6-tier system of the French Union (metropolitan departments -> overseas departments -> overseas territories -> overseas countries -> protectorates -> UN trust territories) was compressed to three tiers. Notably, citizens of protectorates did not enjoy French citizenship.
French special services and colonial administrators tried their best to make sure the results would end out just the way De Gaulle wanted. It quickly became obvious that French officials couldn't stop Ahmed Sékou Touré from voting the French out, and it was decided to have Guinea vote first, whereupon it voted for independence. Immediate sanctions from France followed in hopes of scaring the rest into line. All of the Overseas Territories voted to become overseas departments under French muscling. The UN Trust territories all had to go simply because De Gaulle didn't want to openly flaunt international law and because Cameroon had a growing insurgency against the French that De Gaulle did not want to develop into outright war. The various colonies of French West Africa all chose to become protectorates, starting a process of independence under French tutelage. Madagascar, still stinging over the brutal crushing of the 1948 Malagasy uprising, opted to be a protectorate, but would unilaterally declare independence a few years later.
In the end, only one colony chose to become overseas departments: French Equatorial Africa. At the time, French Equatorial Africa was actually a unified colony. The French found significant local interests, especially in Gabon and Brazzaville, who sought to remain with France. To De Gaulle, their population seemed minor enough. At the time, Gabon had under 500,000 people, the Congo around 1,000,000, Chad somewhere under 3,000,000, and Ubangi-Shari around 1,300,000. Five and a half million Africans, compared to nearly fifty million white Frenchmen, seemed a perfectly acceptable ratio to De Gaulle (he quipped it was about equal to the % of blacks in the United States). In addition, he personally went to bat for French Equatorial Africa, claiming that their support for the Free French made them "fully French by blood." Ironically, in the largest region, Chad, it was primarily the Muslim and Ouaddaïan nobility that voted to become French, largely because they feared atheist socialism arising from France leaving (the list of eligible voters in all of these departments was very low, as it required literacy and an address, which disenfranchised almost all of the nomads).
Interestingly, the new Department of Dijibouti was one of the few regions that genuinely voted for French integration - ethnic Afar (roughly 40%) voted en masse to become part of France, in fears of ethnic Somalis (55%) dominating an independent Djibouti. Similarly, in Comoros, the smaller islands all voted en masse for integration out of fears that the residents of Grande Comore (the largest island) would dominate the other islands. In many cases, the vote was driven not by love of France, but fear of what might replace her. When the radical right was told that many colonies had been retained, they generally endorsed the decolonization of West Africa, placating them, for now.
De Gaulle seemed perfectly content that he had settled most colonial issues for France. Except for the Algerian War, where the death toll continued piling up.[3] De Gaulle personally was fine with leaving, but he knew that he would be eaten politically alive - pretty much everyone else on the French right was loathe to part with Algeria. However, De Gaulle saw no path out. With French deaths piling up, De Gaulle sought to open peace negotiations with the insurgents. However, there were now two major insurgent groups, roughly equal in strength, the FLN (National Liberation Front) and the PCA (Algerian Communist Party) - and his own supporters in France would never allow him to talk to either. In 1962, with the British facing an absolute disaster in the Middle East, De Gaulle saw a path out of the morass - and that path led him directly to Moscow.
---
[1] Cited
here.
[2] An OTL
quote.
[3] Death toll is pretty OTL.