Abstract
This study examines the implantation and the removal of french banking in the Caribbean during the period of 1880-1920/24. It considers the specific strategies that French banks utilized to settle in the different countries of the region and the difficulties which they had to face in the last decade of the 19th century to consolidate their position. The latter part of the study shows the various economic and financial factors as well as political and diplomatic ones which undermined the activities of these banks in this region and that led to their total displacement during the period of the Great War for the benefit of the major US banks.
The study relies on two major archival sources: archives of the United States and French archives including public documents and those of «merchant banks »