Pondichery: the town of nostalgia - India, Tamil Nadu

In Pondichery, the buildings are painted vibrant colours. Here we find the ambassadors, the cars built by the English at the time of the British colonisation, still in use today and made in India. The streets are large and lined with trees. They still have their French names duplicated in Sanskrit. Pondichery entered French history when the «Compagnie francaise des Indes orientales» (the French East India company) bought a small coastal village in 1673 from the sultan of Bijapur. Pondichery therefore became the commercial centre of France in India. But the English took over Pondichery on 16th January 1761 and practically destroyed it. France only recovered its trading post in 1765, after the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763). © Photography: Virginie Lebrun