David Prashker's World Hourglass: Wallis and Futuna

Welcome back to Global France. Though Futuna was discovered by the Dutch in 1616, and Wallis by the British in 1767, the French declared it one of their protectorates in 1842, and this became legitimate in 1886 and 1888 respectively. Like Wake Island, you won't see it from an airplane (or aeroplane, as we still like to say in Britain); but on a map you will find it about two-thirds of the way south from Hawaii to New Zealand.

Coconuts and vegetables, fish and livestock, are all the island has to feed itself, with most of its population working in New Caledonia, though some income is generated from fishing rights licensed to Japanese and South Korean fishermen, and French subsidies do the rest, which is sadly not much. But loyalty to the French is never more certain than on Wallis and Futuna, which will carry for all time the distinction, the honour, the glorious nobility indeed, of being the only French colony to side with the Vichy regime during World War II, so it served them right when they were overrun by American troops in May 1942.

Marks for: Tres peu, je regrette.

Marks against: 5 (V for Vichy, in Latin)