The community was marked by significant divisions of social class: in particular, French men in the colonial administration looked down on the rest of the European population.
[3] Administrators expressed frustration with the influx of criminals and other "undesirables" from metropolitan France, which ran counter to what they saw as the French "civilising mission" to present "morally upright" role models for Africans to emulate.
[4] When Senegal achieved independence in 1960, there were estimated to be 40,000 French people in the country, three-fourths in Dakar alone.
Taking advantage of low-cost air travel, they arrived in Senegal as sight-seers but then remained in the country due to the relatively lax entry requirements, and cut off their ties with French society.
Some of them developed health issues such as meningoencephalitis, staphylococcal infection of the skin, and the like, worsened by their failure or inability to seek medical attention.