The French Overseas Departments and Territories (French: départements et territoires d'outre-mer, colloquially referred to as the DOM-TOM [dɔmtɔm]) consist of all the French-administered territories outside of the European continent. These territories have varying legal status and different levels of autonomy, although all (except those with no permanent inhabitants) have representation in the Parliament of France, and consequently the right to vote in elections to the European Parliament. The French Overseas Departments and Territories include island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans, French Guiana on the South American continent, and several periantarctic islands as well as a claim in Antarctica.
The French Overseas Departments and Territories have an exclusive economic zone (EEZ) of 9,821,231 km² (3,791,998 sq. miles), and account for 17.8% of the land territory and 96.7% of the EEZ of the French Republic (excluding the district of Adélie Land, part of the French Southern and Antarctic Territories, where the French sovereignty is effective de jure by French law, but where the French exclusive claim on this part of Antarctica is frozen by a mandatory international cooperation since the signing of the Antarctic Treaty in 1959).
An overseas department (French: département d’outre-mer or DOM) is a department of France that is outside metropolitan France. They have the same political status as metropolitan departments. As integral parts of France and the European Union, overseas departments are represented in the National Assembly, Senate, and Economic and Social Council, vote to elect members of the European Parliament (MEP), and also use the euro as their currency. Each overseas department is also an overseas region.
As of March 2011, the overseas departments of France are the following:
France's earliest, short-lived attempt at setting up overseas départements was after Napoleon's conquest of the Republic of Venice in 1797, when the hitherto Venetian Ionian islands fell to the French Directory and were organised as the départments of Mer-Égée, Ithaque and Corcyre. In 1798 the Russian Admiral Ushakov evicted the French from these islands, and though France regained them in 1802, the three départments were not revived.