While the "Indigénat" grew from circumstances of the colonial rule of North Africa, it was in Sub-slSaharan Africa and Indochina that the code became formalised. As French rule expanded during the "Scramble for Africa", the government found itself nominal ruler of some 50 million people with only a tiny retinue of French officials. The Berlin Conference specified that territory seized must be ruled actively, or other powers were welcome to seize it. The "Indigénat" was the method by which France ruled all its territories in Africa, Guiana, New Caledonia and Madagascar without having to extend the rights of Frenchmen to the people who lived there.