Yeah I know remnants still exists, France still indirectly controls a lot of african nations' currency etc but why did they have to relinquish direct control?
Yeah I know remnants still exists, France still indirectly controls a lot of african nations' currency etc but why did they have to relinquish direct control?
Europe 1945. Infrastructure gone, everybody is broke, everybody is dead. Your Colonies are rising up and demanding freedom, and administering them is getting more and more expensive. The Red Army is having an extended vacation in Germany. European workers are restless, in some countries they're taking up arms!
What do?
Enter the US, now a military/economic Goliath, with a deal. "If you give your Colonies freedom and enter this new Breton Woods thing, we'll help you get back on your feet and keep away the scary Communists!" You know you'll have a hard time putting down those uppity Colonies, more and more of your workers are radicalized, and the Yankees are probably right about the pre-war European system being suicidal given modern technology.
But then you realize: they're only asking you to give up direct political control. You can keep the existing economic power relation, only now secured primarily with intelligence services/proxies instead of your foreign legion. It sounds too good to be true, until the American starts telling you about his work in Guatemala.
You smile, shake his hand and become part of the liberal international order :)
This is compressing the timeline quite a bit. Bretton Woods happened towards the end of the war (negotiated in '44, effective in '45), but decolinization didn't really happen in earnest for another decade or two. France and Britain definitely tried to hold onto their empires after the war (with the major exception being British India). France fought colonial wars in Vietnam and Algeria, for instance (the latter ending in '62), and a lot of British colonies only achieved independence in the 60s.
It was more of a slow collapse than a deliberate shift to a less direct form of exploitation.
Well yeah of course, I mentioned Guatemala and that wasn't until the mid 50s. I'm trying to give OP a picture of why someone would accept decolonization.
Harry Dexter White, the man who negociated the Bretton Woods treaty, was a communist spy. Why he didn't attempt to wreck the agreement is beyond me. He could have done in the capitalist system right then and there.