In the period just before independence, French West Africa was made up of a federation of 8 colonies, termed Overseas Territories, which acted as a single administrative entity under the control of a high commissioner (Haut-Commissaire de la Républic). French Togo was a trusteeship territory and governed under a different set of conditions.
Three communes (Dakar, Rufisque, and St. Louis), all found in present day Senegal, were centers for white and black French citizens in French West Africa. They participated in the political and electoral life of the colonies. Outside these three communes people were considered to be "colonial subjects" with little say in the region's governance. (Less than 1% of the indigenous population was entitled to a vote.)
Towards the end of the second world war a conference held at Brazzaville (La Conférence Africaine Française, 30 Jan to 8 Feb 1944) nixed any hope of independence for the French West African colonies. What it did promise was a limited participation in 'the management of their own affairs'. In 1945 five deputies were elected to the French Constituent Assembly – these included the lawyer Lamine Gueye, and the poet Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Felix Houphouët-Boigny. With the creation of the Fourth Republic in France, African colonies gained a couple of concessions (ending of forced labor and the granting of citizenship) but the door remained closed on the prospect of independence.
Initially political parties in French West Africa were merely offshoots of major political parties in France, such as the Rassemblement du People Français (RPF, Rally of the French People), Mouvement Républicain Populaire (MRP, Popular Republican Movement), and the Communist Party. In 1946 several African deputies called for a conference to be held in Bamako in October. While France applied heavy pressure to halt the conference, and delegates from French Equatorial Africa were 'unable to attend', the conference was hailed as a success with the creation of the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA, African Democratic Rally) with Felix Houphouët-Boigny as its leader. The RDA represented various African political parties active in the anti-colonial struggle, and it affiliated with various communist groups in the French Constituent Assembly.
