The French Southern and Antarctic Lands have formed a territoire d’outre-mer (an overseas territory) of France since 1955. Formerly, they were administered from Paris by an administrateur supérieur assisted by a secretary-general; since December 2004, however, their administrator has been a préfet, currently Cécile Pozzo di Borgo, with headquarters in Saint-Pierre on Réunion Island.
On 29 January 2010, the general council (departmental council) of the overseas department of French Guiana unilaterally adopted a flag for the department of French Guiana. This was not recognized by the superior regional council. Both councils were disbanded in late 2015 and replaced by the French Guiana Assembly within the framework of the new Territorial Collectivity of French Guiana. Moreover, only the French flag is officially recognized by the French constitution as the national flag. The green and yellow flag is still used by the French Guiana national football team.
The flag of Corsica was adopted by General of the Nation Pasquale Paoli in 1755 and was based on a traditional flag used previously. It portrays a Moor’s head in black wearing a white bandana above his eyes on a white background. Previously, the bandana covered his eyes; Pasquale Paoli wanted the bandana moved to above the eyes to symbolize the liberation of the Corsican people from the Genoese.
It was used by the Corsican Republic and fell out of usage after 1769, when France forced the island’s former masters to sell it to settle the debts contracted by Genoa with France. This was to pay the costs of the French expeditionary corps which should have helped Genoa to secure its control on Corsica; French troops put down the long-standing rebellion on the island. During this period under French rule, 1769–1789, Corsican patriots again used the version of the flag with blindfolded eyes, as a mark of protest.
The unblindfolded version, quartered with the British coat of arms, was used as the official flag during the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom of 1794-1796. It then fell into disuse until 1980, when it was officially re-adopted as the regional flag.
The Moor’s head is also used on the coat of arms of Corsica, the flag of the neighboring Sardinia, the coat of arms of Aragon, and on the crest of Clan Borthwick.
Blue and red are the traditional colours of Paris, used on the city’s coat of arms. Blue is identified with Saint Martin, red with Saint Denis]. At the storming of the Bastille in 1789, the Paris militia wore blue and red cockades on their hats. White had long featured prominently on French flags and is described as the “ancient French colour” by Lafayette. White was added to the “revolutionary” colours of the militia cockade to “nationalise” the design, thus creating the cockade of France. Although Lafayette identified the white stripe with the nation, other accounts identify it with the monarchy. Lafayette denied that the flag contains any reference to the red-and-white livery of the Duc d’Orléans. Despite this, Orléanists adopted the tricolour as their own.
The Sami flag was inaugurated during the Sami Conference in Åre, Sweden, on 15 August 1986. It was the result of a competition for which many suggestions were entered. The winning design was submitted by the artist Astrid Båhl from Skibotn, Norway.
The motif was derived from the shaman’s drum and the poem “Paiven parneh” (“Sons of the Sun”) by the South Sami Anders Fjellner describing the Sami as sons and daughters of the sun. The flag has the Sami colours, red, green, yellow and blue, and the circle represents the sun (red) and the moon (blue).
The flag of Åland is the Swedish flag defaced by a red cross symbolizing Finland. Today, blue and white are considered the Finnish colours, but in the early days of Finnish nationalism, red and yellow from the Finnish coat of arms was also an option.
The flag has been the official flag of the autonomous Finnish province of Åland since 1954. It was first hoisted on 3 April 1954.
Prior to autonomy, an unofficial horizontal bicolour triband of blue-yellow-blue was in use. That flag was made illegal in 1935.
The flag of Finland, also called siniristilippu (“Blue Cross Flag”), dates from the beginning of the 20th century. On a white background, it features a blue Nordic cross, which represents Christianity.
Like Sweden’s, Finland’s national flag is based on the Scandinavian cross. It was adopted after independence from Russia, when many patriotic Finns wanted a special flag for their country, but its design dates back to the 19th century. The blue colouring is said to represent the country’s thousands of lakes and the sky, with white for the snow that covers the land in winter. This colour combination has also been used over the centuries in various Finnish provincial, military, and town flags.
The first known “Flag of Finland” was presented in 1848, along with the national anthem Maamme. Its motif was the coat of arms of Finland, surrounded by laurel leaves, on a white flag.
The national flag of Estonia is a tricolour featuring three equal horizontal bands of blue (top), black, and white. In Estonian it is colloquially called the “sinimustvalge” (lit. ”blue-black-white”), after the colours of the bands.
First adopted on 21 November 1918 after its independence, it was used as a national flag until 1940 when the Soviet Union occupied Estonia. After World War II, from 1944 to 1990, the Soviet Estonian flag consisted first of a generic red Soviet flag with the name of the republic, then changed to the red flag with a band of blue water waves near the bottom. The Estonian flag, which was also used by the Estonian government-in-exile, was officially re-adopted 7 August 1990 one year before its official restoration of independence.
To honour the tenth anniversary of the Erfalasorput, the Greenland Post Office issued commemorative postage stamps and a leaflet by the flag’s creator. He described the white stripe as representing the glaciers and ice cap, which cover more than 80% of the island; the red stripe, the ocean; the red semicircle, the sun, with its bottom part sunk in the ocean; and the white semicircle, the icebergs and pack ice. The design is also reminiscent of the setting sun half-submerged below the horizon and reflected on the sea. In 1985, the public was made aware that Greenland’s flag had exactly the same motif as the flag of the Danish rowing club HEI Rosport, which was founded before Greenland’s flag was chosen. It is not clear whether this is a case of plagiarism or just a coincidence, but the rowing club has given Greenland permission to use their flag.
The modern Faroese flag was devised in 1919 by Jens Oliver Lisberg and others while they were studying in Copenhagen. The first time Merkið was raised in the Faroe Islands was on 22 June that year in Fámjin on the occasion of a wedding. On 25 April, 1940, the British occupation government approved the flag for use by Faroese vessels, during the tenure of Carl Aage Hilbert as Danish prefect. Britain did not want the same flag as German-occupied Denmark to be used. April 25 is still celebrated as Flaggdagur and it is a national holiday. With the Home Rule Act of 23 March, 1948, the flag was recognized by the Danish Government as the national flag of the Faroes. The original flag is displayed in the church of Fámjin in Suðuroy.