Capital: Saint Peter
Population: 6316 inhabitants (August 2000)
Official language: French
Majority group: French (100%)
Minority groups: none
Political statute: territorial collectivist of the French Republic
Constitutional articles (language): art. 2 of the Constitution of 1958 (modified by the Law constitutional no 92-554 of June 25, 1992
Linguistic laws: all linguistic laws of Republic of which the Toubon law of 1994 (or law of August 4, 1994, relative to the use of the French language); the law n° 75-620 of July 111975 relative to the education; the law n° 84-52 of January 26, 1984 considering the higher education; the law of orientation n° 89-486 of July 10, 1989 considering the education; the decree n° 93-535 of March 27, 1993 carrying approval of the notebook of the missions and the loads of the national Society of broadcasting and French television overseas for the (RFO).

I GEOGRAPHICAL DATA
The islands of Saint Peter and Miquelon constitute a small archipelago of 242 km2 situated to a few 25 km in the southwest of the Canadian province of Newfoundland (surface of 112 200 km²), to 300 km of Sydney (Nova Scotia) and to 1800 km of Montreal (Quebec). This archipelago counts two main islands, Saint Peter island to the southeast and the island of Miquelon (bound to the island of Langlade by an isme of sand), to which are added some islets (look at the enlarged card). Saint-Pierre-Et-Miquelon got the French department statute of overseas (DOM) in 1976 and the statute of territorial collectivity of the French Republic in 1985. Two cities only exist: Saint Peter, the county seat with 5800 inhabitants, and Miquelon with 710 inhabitants.

II HISTORIC DATA
Before all official exploration, some Breton and Norman fishers settled toward 1504 on a seasonal basis to Saint Peter and came to fish in the waters of Newfoundland where the cod was abundant; some Basques came to hunt the whale on the benches of Newfoundland to the same time. But it is the Portuguese navigator José Alvarez Faguendes that, after having approached the coasts of Nova Scotia, the gulf Saint-Laurent and the coast south of Newfoundland, discovered officially, October 21, 1520, the archipelago of Saint-Pierre-Et-Miquelon that it called the island of the Eleven Thousand Virgins then in to remember a legend assigned to Ursules saint and its companions. The Portuguese kept these islands very little a long time that, besides, didn't keep their original name ("archipelago of the Eleven Thousand Virgins"), because in 1530 the appellation of Saint Peter islands appeared on the navy cards.
2.1 a French possession
The archipelago passed quickly under French sovereignty when, June 5, 1536, Jacques Cartier landed there with two boats, the Big Ermine and the Emérillon, to the return of his second journey to Canada. He stayed there six days and noted the presence of several ships "so much France that of Brittany". He took advantage of his stay to take possession officially of it in the name of François Ist, king of France. However, it is only toward 1604 that of the sedentary establishments were founded, of which Saint Peter city, by Breton, Norman and Basque fishers. After the passage of Cartier, many Bretons, especially of Saint-Malo, continued to use Saint Peter as seasonal fishing basis.

To this time, Saint-Pierre-Et-Miquelon was under a governor's administration that resided, since 1662, to Pleasure in the island of Newfoundland, which formed a distinct entity of Canada and Acadia then in New France. The islands of Saint Peter and Miquelon were part of the colony of Newfoundland therefore. Situated to the southwest of the peninsula of Avalon, Pleasure (today Placentia) was chosen by Louis XIV to act as administrative capital at the island of Newfoundland (to see the card) in order to not to let this big island to the English. At that moment, French and English fishers lived in a certain harmony; the French especially occupied the north and the south, the Basques had reserved the west coast, while the English exploited the coast is where they had founded St. John's. The baron of Lahontan summarizes the importance of Pleasure thus:
To the apogee of their presence in Newfoundland, either between 1678 and 1688, the French (including the Basques) dedicated to the fishing about 20 000 people (about the quarter of all sailors of the New France) and a few 300 ships, what represented the double of the effort of the British on the whole on the island. But the colony of Newfoundland proved to be of a big fragility and, in spite of the king's financial and military efforts, it was considered like lost since 1690. In fact, of the problems of order economic interns, the incompetence of the French governors, the skinny agricultural resources of the territory, as well as of the ethnic tensions between Basques, Malaises, Rochellaises and Norman contributed to weaken the Newfoundlander colony, therefore of the small archipelago of Saint-Pierre-Et-Miquelon. The loss of Newfoundland will constitute the first phase of encircling of the colony of Canada by the British.