Does the transition from “Ministry of Overseas France” to “Ministry of Cooperation” represent a break or a continuity? In this paper, we interpret the Ministry’s post-colonial transition through the career paths of its officials, all of whom share a strong preference for fieldwork dating from the colonial period. These civil servants — for the most part graduates of the National Overseas School of France, and trained as experts and technicians — mistrusted the traditional administrative bureaucracy that was emerging at the time, considering it too distant from the realities on the ground.