France-India-Britain, (post)colonial triangles: Mauritius/India and Canada/India, (post)colonial tangents

This article argues for a thoroughgoing comparative approach in the study of French representations of India, which includes the British colonial hegemony. It tracks the discourses of the non-real which characterize French representations, including the rewriting of history, nostalgic evocations of heroes and discussion of hypothetical situations. These discourses have their roots in 1763, a highly ambivalent situation, when the French were forced to disengage from an idea of an empire in India and yet continued to maintain five trading concessions there.