English Canada/French Carolina: A Timeline

[Deleted member 147978]

Ding ding ding!
I'm not gonna create some sort of lazy analogue with a name like "Hubert Longue" or anything, but that's the general jist of where the country is headed.

How about: Henri Pierre LeGrand? :V

A guy with a larger-than-life personality who desires to do anything to make Le Floride a better place for everyone. He held bombastic rallies about "everyone sharing the wealth for the greater good of Le Floride". Being an articulated savvy boss of his robust political machine, his political opponents call him the "Martin-Pêcheur / Kingfisher*" for nothing.

*I'm positively sure that's the correct translation.

 

[Gabingston]

I'm wondering how New Orleans would develop ITTL, considering its geographic challenges and constraints. I have it at a population of 900,000 in 1930, but I don't think the city could expand outwards indefinitely, even if the Floridians build more densely than the U.S. did IOTL. La Floride doesn't have as much money to control the Mississippi as the U.S. does IOTL, thus meaning that it could end up changing course and leaving New Orleans behind. Add to that the constant risk of a direct hurricane strike, and New Orleans is going to grow harder and harder to keep afloat (pun intended).

 

[PGSBHurricane]

I'm wondering how New Orleans would develop ITTL, considering its geographic challenges and constraints. I have it at a population of 900,000 in 1930, but I don't think the city could expand outwards indefinitely, even if the Floridians build more densely than the U.S. did IOTL. La Floride doesn't have as much money to control the Mississippi as the U.S. does IOTL, thus meaning that it could end up changing course and leaving New Orleans behind. Add to that the constant risk of a direct hurricane strike, and New Orleans is going to grow harder and harder to keep afloat (pun intended).

Not sure if 900,000 is realistic. IOTL, New Orleans only had a metro of 500,000 people in it.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

If the consolidated city-parish of New Orleans had the density of Amsterdam, the population would be just over 4 million people, so 900,000 should be manageable. The long-term survival of the city would still be a problem.

What's the trade and tariff situation between La Floride and the Commonwealth? I ask because even though the Commonwealth's economy is more focused around the Great Lakes and the railroads than the U.S. economy ever was, an easy trade route to the Gulf could only strengthen them. If trade barriers weren't already down by 1950 or so, I can think of two things that could happen:
• The Commonwealth could offer its assistance in building an analog to the Old River Control Structure (the thing that keeps the Mississippi from changing course) in exchange for free trade along the Mississippi.
• At some point between 1980 and 2020, after a particularly bad flood, the Mississippi could drain into the Atchafalaya, turning New Orleans' portion of the river into a tidal channel, meaning however many people still live there would be drinking seawater every time the tide came in. At this point, the Commonwealth could make La Floride a much more ruthless offer: grant free trade along the river and an exclave along the Atchafalaya in exchange for help building aqueducts and desalination plants to keep New Orleans alive.

 

[PGSBHurricane]

If the consolidated city-parish of New Orleans had the density of Amsterdam, the population would be just over 4 million people, so 900,000 should be manageable. The long-term survival of the city would still be a problem.

What's the trade and tariff situation between La Floride and the Commonwealth? I ask because even though the Commonwealth's economy is more focused around the Great Lakes and the railroads than the U.S. economy ever was, an easy trade route to the Gulf could only strengthen them. If trade barriers weren't already down by 1950 or so, I can think of two things that could happen:
• The Commonwealth could offer its assistance in building an analog to the Old River Control Structure (the thing that keeps the Mississippi from changing course) in exchange for free trade along the Mississippi.
• At some point between 1980 and 2020, after a particularly bad flood, the Mississippi could drain into the Atchafalaya, turning New Orleans' portion of the river into a tidal channel, meaning however many people still live there would be drinking seawater every time the tide came in. At this point, the Commonwealth could make La Floride a much more ruthless offer: grant free trade along the river and an exclave along the Atchafalaya in exchange for help building aqueducts and desalination plants to keep New Orleans alive.

Maybe 700,000 would work better as a middle ground? I also anticipate that after Betsy and Katrina, New Orleans should get a more ruthless offer like you said.

 

[Gabingston]

Maybe 700,000 would work better as a middle ground? I also anticipate that after Betsy and Katrina, New Orleans should get a more ruthless offer like you said.

I'm not sure whether the butterfly effect would change meteorological history, but I'm sure New Orleans would get smashed by a hurricane sooner or later.

 

[PGSBHurricane]

I'm not sure whether the butterfly effect would change meteorological history, but I'm sure New Orleans would get smashed by a hurricane sooner or later.

Meteorologically, I think the butterfly effect wouldn’t have much effect on those types of storms. You’d be messing with science which is actual ASB.

 

[Lycaon pictus]

Assuming that CO2 buildup in the atmosphere happens at roughly the same rate, the general number and average intensity of hurricanes hitting land per year should be about the same. What would change would be where and when they landed.

 

[Gabingston]

Assuming that CO2 buildup in the atmosphere happens at roughly the same rate, the general number and average intensity of hurricanes hitting land per year should be about the same. What would change would be where and when they landed.

I actually think global warming could be accelerated ITTL if China industrializes sooner.

 

[Gabingston]

Here's my guess for the ethnic demographics of La Floride circa 2020:

• 60-65% White (Mostly or entirely European descended)
• 25-30% Black (Mostly or entirely African descended)
• 5-10% Multiracial (White/Black, White/Amerindian etc.)
• 5-10% Other (Amerindian, Asian, Mestizo etc.)

Some parts of the country will be over 75% European, others will be majority African while a lot will be similar to the country on whole.

 

[Gabingston]

How about: Henri Pierre LeGrand? :V

A guy with a larger-than-life personality who desires to do anything to make Le Floride a better place for everyone. He held bombastic rallies about "everyone sharing the wealth for the greater good of La Floride". Being an articulated savvy boss of his robust political machine, his political opponents call him the "Martin-Pêcheur / Kingfisher*" for nothing.

*I'm positively sure that's the correct translation.

You know what, maybe I will do a Huey Long analogue. Well, a Huey Long/Juan Peron analogue, considering that Huey Long was basically an American version of Juan Peron and that I've compared La Floride to Argentina in the past (specifically saying that Richelieu would resemble Buenos Aires). I was also considering at the beginning of this TL making it a French Argentina timeline, so that was a thing.

 

[Gabingston]

Hey guys, I just realized that I'd never given Finland independence from Sweden. By this point in the TL, it's almost certain that Finland would be independent, even if it did share a monarch with Sweden (or have a cadet branch governing Finland). I'll have to get that in at some point.

 

[Gabingston]

On another note, I'm writing up that Floridian update, which is turning into one of the longest posts in this series (1,480 words so far, the longest post is Part 94 with 1.8K words, so this next update is probably going to pass it). However, I realized that I didn't give any details as to whether La Floride is a two party or multi party system. I could just go and say that La Floride has a similar electoral system to OTL's France (considering that I did give it a semi-presidential system similar to modern France, and it's a French-speaking Republic), but I'd like to hear some ideas.

 

[Deleted member 147978]

@Gabingston

Did Republican La Floride engaged in a conflict with the American Commonwealth?

'Cause I hadn't thoroughly looked into your TL.

 

[Gabingston]

@Gabingston

Did Republican La Floride engaged in a conflict with the American Commonwealth?

'Cause I hadn't thoroughly looked into your TL.

No, it was as a French colony.

 

[Deleted member 147978]

No, it was as a French colony.

No, what I meant did Le Floride fought the Commonwealth at one time?

 

[Gabingston]

No, what I meant did Le Floride fought the Commonwealth at one time?

Yes, multiple times. Not as an independent country, though.

 

[Deleted member 147978]

Yes, multiple times. Not as an independent country, though.

I see now.

 

[Gabingston]

Part 118: A New Era In La Floride​

After a sizable absence, it is finally time to return to one of the main subjects of this TL, The Land of Flowers, La Floride. After being a French colony for nearly three centuries, La Floride was broken off as a separate country in the aftermath of the Second Global War. As a part of the independence negotiations, La Floride was made into a Republic in order to maintain neutrality between France and Britain (or, more specifically, to keep the Bourbons out of North America). By 1930, it’d been around a decade since Florida had become independent, and the country was starting to become more and more distinct and unique.
First off, Floridian politics. As a French colony, La Floride was dominated by the aristocratic, slave-owning planter class, known as the Grand-Blancs. While they were only around
5% of the Floridian population, the planters formed the political and economic elite in Floridian society, even after slavery was phased out between the 1870s and 1890s. Many of La Floride’s top politicians were from the planter class, and the children of the planters were still being sent overseas (mainly to France) for education and to make political and social connections to European elites.
However, there were two other groups that were beginning to challenge the Floridian aristocracy in the new Republic. First, the working class, rural Petit-Blancs who made up the largest chunk of the Floridian population at this time. These people were largely farmers or worked in small-scale industry like forestry or mining. Most Petit-Blancs were devout Catholics, and were thus very socially conservative, but also held economically Center-Left views. A more odious thing about the Petit-Blancs is that, despite their resentment of the Planter class, most were also quite racist against Black Floridians. Now that all adult White men had the vote, Petit-Blanc populist candidates were elected en masse across the country, but I’ll get back to that later.
The other interest group that was starting to make an ascent in Floridian politics was the nascent urban Nouveau-Riche. Not coming from an old money background but having accrued wealth and prosperity recently, the Nouveau-Riche ranged from middle-class employees to wealthy business owners. While there were nowhere near as many Nouveau-Riche as there were Petit-Blancs in La Floride in the decades following independence, they did prove an economic competitor to the traditional aristocracy (while adopting many of their fashions and norms). In contrast to the populist, quasi-socialist and devoutly Catholic Petit-Blancs, the Nouveau Riche were generally more liberal (in the classical sense) on economic issues and, while still mainly Catholic, weren’t always as devout in their faith as their rural counterparts, with some being quite secular. However, as mentioned previously, the Nouveau-Riche didn’t have the numbers to make a big impact on Floridian politics… yet, so Liberal candidates popular with the Nouveau Riche only won a small percentage of the seats.
Now that I’ve gone over the Politics of La Floride, it’s time to go over the Economic situation in the country. As mentioned in the last section, the Floridian economy during the colonial days had been agriculturally oriented, especially towards growing cash crops like cotton, sugar, tobacco, fruit and rice. Post-independence, however, things began to change. Both the Populists and Liberals supported Floridian industrialization, and the country wasn’t lacking in the resources needed to support it. The country had sizable coal reserves scattered across the country and iron production around Mons. However, it was the newly discovered oil reserves in the western part of the country that really sparked industrial growth. The provinces west of the Mississippi River turned out to have sizable oil reserves, and drilling soon began en masse. In the midst of the economic crisis of the 1930s, the oil and gas industry gave young Floridian men an opportunity to get a new start and find a job. Cities and towns near the oil fields like Peuplier, Petites Chutes, Vertberge and Normandie grew rapidly due to the oil boom.
Back out east, the old east coast cities continued to grow, expanding well past their colonial era cores. The urban boundaries of Richelieu, the country’s largest city, had grown into a metropolis of over three million by 1950, far beyond the old quarter and covering most of the nearby islands and peninsulas. Places like Île Saint-Jacques, Péninsule Obcau (usually shortened to just Obcau), Île Éminence, Point Cardinal and Île Saint-Jean that were once rural were now mostly or entirely part of the greater Richelieu metropolitan area. This urban expansion came at the expense of the local environment, as forests were cleared and marshes drained to make way for the extension of the dense urban core into the hinterland and coastal islands. This also wasn’t always a pretty process, as shantytowns sprang up in the less desirable parts of the newly developed areas, with a sizable part of Richelieu’s population (often recent migrants and/or Afro-Floridians) living in squalor. New Orleans continued to expand out into the swamps and bayous of the Mississippi River Delta, thanks to land reclamation and Dutch-style dykes and levees (although it very well could come back to bite the city in the ass someday), growing to 1.3 Million by 1950. The capital city, Villeroyale, grew to 1.2 Million, almost surpassing New Orleans as the second largest city (which it’d likely do in the 1950s or 60s), while other cities like Ville-Marie, Chatoca, Saint-Germain, Fort Caroline, Saint-Augustine, Saint-Esprit and Saint-Hyacinthe having populations in the hundreds of thousands by mid-century. By 1950, the population of the Republic of Florida had grown from 31.85 Million in 1930 to 42.56 Million in 1950. The total demographic profile of the country was fairly similar to that in 1930, with about 65% of the population being White, 30% Black and 5% other (mainly mixed White/Black, and I might tweak the numbers around a bit regarding the mixed population). While most of the population lived east of the Mississippi River, the oil boom accelerated an existing trend of westward migration into the wheatbelt and cattle country that was the great plains, but I’ve gone over that before. However, I’m gonna discuss something I haven’t really gone over before: culture.
Having such a varied heritage, Floridian culture became famous and renowned in multiple fields. While the cultural and political center of the Francophone world was still obviously Paris, Richelieu was comfortably the second city of the Francosphere. Floridian cuisine, for example, was an eclectic blend of French, other European (particularly Italian), Amerindian and African influence, and having such a rich culinary heritage made Floridian cuisine world renowned, with Richelieu becoming a culinary capital of the Americas. This was also true of music, with the various musical traditions and sounds from the ancestral homelands of the Floridian population meshing together to form entirely new styles of music (think something like Jazz, which came from New Orleans and was to a large extent a blend of French and African influences). Floridian distinctness was also seen in the language itself, as La Floride kept an R sound more similar to the rolled R in Spanish and Italian even as the Parisian throaty R sound was more standardized across France.
Anyway, it’s time to go full circle and get back to politics. You know how I mentioned that Petit-Blanc populist politicians were elected en masse across La Floride? Well, there’s one chap in particular that I’d like to talk about. His name was Henri-Pierre LeGrand. Born to a Petit-Blanc family in the backwoods of Haut-Louisiane, Henri-Pierre excelled in school (albeit schooling in the Floridian backcountry at the turn of the 20th Century would’ve been pretty rudimentary) and made it into university, which was quite an achievement for a provincial country boy. After dabbling in law, he soon found his interest in politics, becoming highly popular with Petit-Blancs in his home province of Haut-Louisiane shortly after the establishment of the Floridian Republic. In 1930, he was elected the provincial premier of Haut-Louisiane, and soon gained a national audience as a populist, and a possible contender to run for the national premier. As it turns out, that’s exactly what he did, and soon LeGrand was holding rallies all across the country. In front of thousands of loyal supporters, LeGrand railed against the planter elite’s political dominance and promised to bring the political power to the Petit-Blancs, the ones who spilled their blood, sweat and tears for la patrie during the war 20 years earlier, and who believed that they were entitled to the lion’s share of political representation. To this end, he formed a new political party, the Parti National-Populaire, or the National People’s Party (PNP for short). By the time the 1935 Floridian election came around, LeGrand was the clear front runner, and when election day came, LeGrand was the ultimate winner, as LeGrand won an outright majority of the votes, which considering that there were multiple candidates was quite an achievement. Similarly, the PNP won a majority of the seats in the Floridian parliament, which pretty much gave LeGrand a carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. Thus, the LeGrand era in Floridian politics began.
The first area of LeGrand’s premiership I’m gonna talk about is infrastructure. Floridian infrastructure was subpar in many more rural parts of the country, so during LeGrand’s first term between 1935 and 1940, massive amounts of money and manpower was invested into infrastructure. A new national roadway network, the Routes Nationales (try to guess what that translates to) was introduced, with the centerpiece being the Route Premiere from Richelieu to New Orleans, running through several other cities like Saint-Gauthier, Oconis, Ocmulqui, Palluau, the capital Villeroyale, Bienville, Saint-Stéphane, Bilocci and Phélypeaux. New railways were also constructed, as well as other infrastructure like dams and flood controls, which were both important in regulating the flow of the Mississippi River, as well as providing hydroelectric power. LeGrand also invested in the education system, aiming to provide textbooks for every Floridian child. Veterans of the Second Global War also got a veteran’s pension, which made him very popular among that large segment of Floridian men. This massive spending was paid for by ludicrous taxes on the Floridian upper class, which made him quite disliked among both the old aristocracy and the nouveau-riche alike. Foreign policy wise, LeGrand was a Floridian nationalist, and maintained that the country shouldn’t get into any alliance with any other country, whether that be with France or the Anglo-Americans, which led to relations with their behemoth of a neighbor to the north to be ambivalent at best.
LeGrand was also notorious for his corruption and nepotism, sacking political opponents in the bureaucracy and replacing them with his supporters. LeGrand appointees in the bureaucracy were also expected to repay some of their salary into his 1940 re-election campaign, at risk of being canned if they didn’t. Speaking of that 1940 election, in spite of his corruption and unpopularity with the traditional elite, LeGrand easily won a second term as Premier, winning around 60% of the vote (albeit with some suspicions of corrupt ballot practices on LeGrand’s part), with his second term from 1940-1945 turning out similarly to his first. In his second term, he even entered into secret talks with the Ligue Noire, or Black League, a group of Afro-Floridian leaders who campaigned for the equal status of Afro-Floridians in the broader Floridian society. While there wasn’t much that came out of it, the talks alone showed that LeGrand was open to reconsidering the second-class status of the Black minority in the country. However, married White women got the vote in 1942, while there were active discussions of giving all White women plus the mixed-race Creoles the vote, so the franchise was expanding. Either way, Henri-Pierre LeGrand was easily the most influential figure in the early post-independence history of La Floride, and Grandisme will remain an influential ideology in the country for years to come. This is the new longest update in the series, and this took a while to write, so I’m glad to have it done now. As always, I’ll see you guys next time and have a great day!

 

[Deleted member 147978]

Part 118: A New Era In La Floride​

After a sizable absence, it is finally time to return to one of the main subjects of this TL, The Land of Flowers, La Floride. After being a French colony for nearly three centuries, La Floride was broken off as a separate country in the aftermath of the Second Global War. As a part of the independence negotiations, La Floride was made into a Republic in order to maintain neutrality between France and Britain (or, more specifically, to keep the Bourbons out of North America). By 1930, it’d been around a decade since Florida had become independent, and the country was starting to become more and more distinct and unique.
First off, Floridian politics. As a French colony, La Floride was dominated by the aristocratic, slave-owning planter class, known as the Grand-Blancs. While they were only around
5% of the Floridian population, the planters formed the political and economic elite in Floridian society, even after slavery was phased out between the 1870s and 1890s. Many of La Floride’s top politicians were from the planter class, and the children of the planters were still being sent overseas (mainly to France) for education and to make political and social connections to European elites.
However, there were two other groups that were beginning to challenge the Floridian aristocracy in the new Republic. First, the working class, rural Petit-Blancs who made up the largest chunk of the Floridian population at this time. These people were largely farmers or worked in small-scale industry like forestry or mining. Most Petit-Blancs were devout Catholics, and were thus very socially conservative, but also held economically Center-Left views. A more odious thing about the Petit-Blancs is that, despite their resentment of the Planter class, most were also quite racist against Black Floridians. Now that all adult White men had the vote, Petit-Blanc populist candidates were elected en masse across the country, but I’ll get back to that later.
The other interest group that was starting to make an ascent in Floridian politics was the nascent urban Nouveau-Riche. Not coming from an old money background but having accrued wealth and prosperity recently, the Nouveau-Riche ranged from middle-class employees to wealthy business owners. While there were nowhere near as many Nouveau-Riche as there were Petit-Blancs in La Floride in the decades following independence, they did prove an economic competitor to the traditional aristocracy (while adopting many of their fashions and norms). In contrast to the populist, quasi-socialist and devoutly Catholic Petit-Blancs, the Nouveau Riche were generally more liberal (in the classical sense) on economic issues and, while still mainly Catholic, weren’t always as devout in their faith as their rural counterparts, with some being quite secular. However, as mentioned previously, the Nouveau-Riche didn’t have the numbers to make a big impact on Floridian politics… yet, so Liberal candidates popular with the Nouveau Riche only won a small percentage of the seats.
Now that I’ve gone over the Politics of La Floride, it’s time to go over the Economic situation in the country. As mentioned in the last section, the Floridian economy during the colonial days had been agriculturally oriented, especially towards growing cash crops like cotton, sugar, tobacco, fruit and rice. Post-independence, however, things began to change. Both the Populists and Liberals supported Floridian industrialization, and the country wasn’t lacking in the resources needed to support it. The country had sizable coal reserves scattered across the country and iron production around Mons. However, it was the newly discovered oil reserves in the western part of the country that really sparked industrial growth. The provinces west of the Mississippi River turned out to have sizable oil reserves, and drilling soon began en masse. In the midst of the economic crisis of the 1930s, the oil and gas industry gave young Floridian men an opportunity to get a new start and find a job. Cities and towns near the oil fields like Peuplier, Petites Chutes, Vertberge and Normandie grew rapidly due to the oil boom.
Back out east, the old east coast cities continued to grow, expanding well past their colonial era cores. The urban boundaries of Richelieu, the country’s largest city, had grown into a metropolis of over three million by 1950, far beyond the old quarter and covering most of the nearby islands and peninsulas. Places like Île Saint-Jacques, Péninsule Obcau (usually shortened to just Obcau), Île Éminence, Point Cardinal and Île Saint-Jean that were once rural were now mostly or entirely part of the greater Richelieu metropolitan area. This urban expansion came at the expense of the local environment, as forests were cleared and marshes drained to make way for the extension of the dense urban core into the hinterland and coastal islands. This also wasn’t always a pretty process, as shantytowns sprang up in the less desirable parts of the newly developed areas, with a sizable part of Richelieu’s population (often recent migrants and/or Afro-Floridians) living in squalor. New Orleans continued to expand out into the swamps and bayous of the Mississippi River Delta, thanks to land reclamation and Dutch-style dykes and levees (although it very well could come back to bite the city in the ass someday), growing to 1.3 Million by 1950. The capital city, Villeroyale, grew to 1.2 Million, almost surpassing New Orleans as the second largest city (which it’d likely do in the 1950s or 60s), while other cities like Ville-Marie, Chatoca, Saint-Germain, Fort Caroline, Saint-Augustine, Saint-Esprit and Saint-Hyacinthe having populations in the hundreds of thousands by mid-century. By 1950, the population of the Republic of Florida had grown from 31.85 Million in 1930 to 42.56 Million in 1950. The total demographic profile of the country was fairly similar to that in 1930, with about 65% of the population being White, 30% Black and 5% other (mainly mixed White/Black, and I might tweak the numbers around a bit regarding the mixed population). While most of the population lived east of the Mississippi River, the oil boom accelerated an existing trend of westward migration into the wheatbelt and cattle country that was the great plains, but I’ve gone over that before. However, I’m gonna discuss something I haven’t really gone over before: culture.
Having such a varied heritage, Floridian culture became famous and renowned in multiple fields. While the cultural and political center of the Francophone world was still obviously Paris, Richelieu was comfortably the second city of the Francosphere. Floridian cuisine, for example, was an eclectic blend of French, other European (particularly Italian), Amerindian and African influence, and having such a rich culinary heritage made Floridian cuisine world renowned, with Richelieu becoming a culinary capital of the Americas. This was also true of music, with the various musical traditions and sounds from the ancestral homelands of the Floridian population meshing together to form entirely new styles of music (think something like Jazz, which came from New Orleans and was to a large extent a blend of French and African influences). Floridian distinctness was also seen in the language itself, as La Floride kept an R sound more similar to the rolled R in Spanish and Italian even as the Parisian throaty R sound was more standardized across France.
Anyway, it’s time to go full circle and get back to politics. You know how I mentioned that Petit-Blanc populist politicians were elected en masse across La Floride? Well, there’s one chap in particular that I’d like to talk about. His name was Henri-Pierre LeGrand. Born to a Petit-Blanc family in the backwoods of Haut-Louisiane, Henri-Pierre excelled in school (albeit schooling in the Floridian backcountry at the turn of the 20th Century would’ve been pretty rudimentary) and made it into university, which was quite an achievement for a provincial country boy. After dabbling in law, he soon found his interest in politics, becoming highly popular with Petit-Blancs in his home province of Haut-Louisiane shortly after the establishment of the Floridian Republic. In 1930, he was elected the provincial premier of Haut-Louisiane, and soon gained a national audience as a populist, and a possible contender to run for the national premier. As it turns out, that’s exactly what he did, and soon LeGrand was holding rallies all across the country. In front of thousands of loyal supporters, LeGrand railed against the planter elite’s political dominance and promised to bring the political power to the Petit-Blancs, the ones who spilled their blood, sweat and tears for la patrie during the war 20 years earlier, and who believed that they were entitled to the lion’s share of political representation. To this end, he formed a new political party, the Parti National-Populaire, or the National People’s Party (PNP for short). By the time the 1935 Floridian election came around, LeGrand was the clear front runner, and when election day came, LeGrand was the ultimate winner, as LeGrand won an outright majority of the votes, which considering that there were multiple candidates was quite an achievement. Similarly, the PNP won a majority of the seats in the Floridian parliament, which pretty much gave LeGrand a carte blanche to do whatever he wanted. Thus, the LeGrand era in Floridian politics began.
The first area of LeGrand’s premiership I’m gonna talk about is infrastructure. Floridian infrastructure was subpar in many more rural parts of the country, so during LeGrand’s first term between 1935 and 1940, massive amounts of money and manpower was invested into infrastructure. A new national roadway network, the Routes Nationales (try to guess what that translates to) was introduced, with the centerpiece being the Route Premiere from Richelieu to New Orleans, running through several other cities like Saint-Gauthier, Oconis, Ocmulqui, Palluau, the capital Villeroyale, Bienville, Saint-Stéphane, Bilocci and Phélypeaux. New railways were also constructed, as well as other infrastructure like dams and flood controls, which were both important in regulating the flow of the Mississippi River, as well as providing hydroelectric power. LeGrand also invested in the education system, aiming to provide textbooks for every Floridian child. Veterans of the Second Global War also got a veteran’s pension, which made him very popular among that large segment of Floridian men. This massive spending was paid for by ludicrous taxes on the Floridian upper class, which made him quite disliked among both the old aristocracy and the nouveau-riche alike. Foreign policy wise, LeGrand was a Floridian nationalist, and maintained that the country shouldn’t get into any alliance with any other country, whether that be with France or the Anglo-Americans, which led to relations with their behemoth of a neighbor to the north to be ambivalent at best.
LeGrand was also notorious for his corruption and nepotism, sacking political opponents in the bureaucracy and replacing them with his supporters. LeGrand appointees in the bureaucracy were also expected to repay some of their salary into his 1940 re-election campaign, at risk of being canned if they didn’t. Speaking of that 1940 election, in spite of his corruption and unpopularity with the traditional elite, LeGrand easily won a second term as Premier, winning around 60% of the vote (albeit with some suspicions of corrupt ballot practices on LeGrand’s part), with his second term from 1940-1945 turning out similarly to his first. In his second term, he even entered into secret talks with the Ligue Noire, or Black League, a group of Afro-Floridian leaders who campaigned for the equal status of Afro-Floridians in the broader Floridian society. While there wasn’t much that came out of it, the talks alone showed that LeGrand was open to reconsidering the second-class status of the Black minority in the country. However, married White women got the vote in 1942, while there were active discussions of giving all White women plus the mixed-race Creoles the vote, so the franchise was expanding. Either way, Henri-Pierre LeGrand was easily the most influential figure in the early post-independence history of La Floride, and Grandisme will remain an influential ideology in the country for years to come. This is the new longest update in the series, and this took a while to write, so I’m glad to have it done now. As always, I’ll see you guys next time and have a great day!