The "scramble for Africa" was my first thought too....it's wild to think how multiple African countries finally gained independence from europe in the 1970s, not that long ago at all!
Not to mention that it is a bridge between the many different ethnic groups in some of these countries and/or the prestige language (like in Morocco). It makes me wonder how important French will become in future as some of these countries continue to grow at incredible speeds.
Wasn't just the French and the Portugese, the British and Germans took a lot of land, although Germany lost most of theirs after WW1. Plus, Spain, Italy and some others got a little bit of land too
Me who then remembers how much colonizing of the African continent the French and Portugese did: Oh...