Saint Pierre and Miquelon

Saint Pierre and Miquelon, officially the Territorial Collectivity of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, is a self-governing territorial overseas collectivity of France in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean near the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Saint Pierre and Miquelon is the remaining vestige of the once vast territory of New France.

In 1903 the colony toyed with the idea of joining the United States, but in the end nothing came of the idea. During the early 1910s the colony suffered severely as a result of unprofitable fisheries, and large numbers of its people emigrated to Nova Scotia and Quebec.

Smuggling had always been an important economic activity in the islands, but it became especially prominent in the 1920s with the institution of Prohibition in the United States from January 1920. The end of Prohibition in 1933 plunged the islands once more into economic depression.

During World War II, despite opposition from Canada, Britain and the United States, Charles de Gaulle’s forces seized the archipelago from Vichy France, to which the local government had pledged its allegiance. In a referendum on 26 December 1941, the population endorsed the takeover by Free France. The colony became a French Overseas Territory in 1946.

After the 1958 French constitutional referendum, the territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon was asked to choose one of the three options: becoming fully integrated with France, becoming a self-governing state within the French Community, or preserving the status of an overseas territory; it decided to remain a territory.