Some Sources of Australian History in the Diplomatic Archives (French Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

The archives produced and maintained by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs speak to the different phases of the history of French-Australian relations: the exploration era, the period of the development of the colony’s economic resources, that of the development of institutional relations between France and a territory advancing towards independence, the world wars, and the tensions of the second half of the twentieth century. The archives of the central administration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are now preserved in the Paris region, at La Courneuve. Those of the French embassy and consulates in Australia are regularly repatriated to France to ensure their conservation and availability to researchers at the Centre des Archives diplomatiques in Nantes. The resources of the two sites are presented here in turn, following which the particular case of the archives resulting from World War I will be examined.