Acronym for départements et territoires d'outre-mer, overseas territories (mainly islands) administered by France. They are the last surviving remnants of France's former colonial empires. The four départements d'outre-mer, Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana (Guyane), and La Réunion, date back to the earliest stages of French colonization, and are treated in many, though not all, respects as ordinary départements within metropolitan France. The territoires d'outre-mer are more diverse in their administrative structures. They include another of France's earliest colonial acquisitions, Saint-Pierre et Miquelon, off the coast of Newfoundland, mineral-rich New Caledonia (the scene of violent conflicts between French settlers and other ethnic groups during the 1980s), and Polynesia, where France has her atomic-weapons test sites.
[Alec Hargreaves]
