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    This Sinister WWII Board Game Taught Kids To Create Their Own Real-Life Monopoly

    Jeu des échange made exploiting other countries look like childs' play.

    In 1941 propagandists working for Phillipe Pétain's wartime French government made an exciting new board game.

    Pétain was a general who had been awarded the country's highest honour - the Legion of Honour - before serving as head of state from 1940-44.

    As an officer in the Army, Pétain he had served in Morrocco - one of France's most highly valued, but also most rebellious overseas territories.

    And instead of teaching kids to become the next Charles Baudelaire, Albert Camus or Edith Piaf, Jeu des échanges told them how to become elite colonial masters.

    At the time France's global colonial empire still rivalled that of Great Britain.

    So the aim of the game was gain and export as much of each country's natural resources as possible.

    The game's makers wanted to stress the importance of the colonies to occupied France's teetering economy - and it's continued place as a global player.

    In 1884 Jules Ferry, a leading supporter of the colonial movement, had declared; "The higher races have a right over the lower races, they have a duty to civilize the inferior races."

    But the reality was very different. In fact "assimilation was always receding [and] the colonial populations treated like subjects not citizens."

    It featured a range of colourful playing cards depicting everyday scene from countries like the Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Niger, Laos and Vietnam.

    It reminded players not to get too comfortable in their new homes - and to make sure they steered clear of tropical diseases.

    Crops, animals, minerals and other goods would be shipped back to France. In return, in country was 'civilised' - so it got a school, a hospital, a church, and a harbour.

    The instruction manual explained:

    Hoist the French flag onto your newfound soil

    Build a hospital

    Erect a school

    Open your harbor

    Reap the benefits of rich natural resources from around the world and sail back to France with goodies in tow

    A surviving copy of the game is currently on show at the Getty Institute in Los Angeles, as part of the exhibition 'Connecting Seas: A Visual History of Discoveries and Encounters'

    The result is a powerful and poignant symbol of a how a far nations were prepared to go to hold onto their colonial empires.