All French colonies had no own flag over a long period. It had to be hoisted the French tricolor. This in principle usual until today. The status of the colonies changed over the years. Some of them are now overseas departments, and thus a ultraperipheric part of France and of the EU; others are overseas communities, autonomous, and not a part of France or the EU. Overseas departments belong – in contrast to the departments of the motherland – to no administrative region of France, they are a separate region. The territorial entity has therefore officially to use the flag of France. However, the General Council as the highest elected collegial body of a French Department and the Regional Council as the highest elected collegial body of a French Region can have their own flags. These flags of departments and regions, however, have oftenly the appearance of company flags with logos or even stylized images, appear carelessly, ahistorical, technocratic and modernist, because in the strictly centralist France is avoided any regionalism or even a historical subscription. Because of that these logo flags of regions are unpopular and are rarely used. In Wallis and Futuna exists for local purposes an unofficial flag, for which it is allowed to hoist it next to the flag of France. It was modeled on the design of the coat of arms and it is red with the French tricolor in the upper corner and in the flying end is placed a white stylized cross, which is made up of four triangles. These stand for the three kingdoms on the islands and the French administration. The three Kingdoms Alo, Sigave and Uvea have each its own flag, which show as a common feature the flag of France in the upper corner.
The coat of arms of Wallis and Futuna shows a red shield with the French tricolor in the upper corner and a white,sideways moved, stylized cross in the lower part of the shield, which is formed of four triangles. These stand for the three kingdoms on the islands and the French administration.
The Wallis Islands were discovered in 1767 by the Englishman Wallis, and they got its name. The Futuna Islands were discovered in 1616 by the Dutch navigators Jacob Le Maire and Willem Schouten, who called them "Hoorn Islands". Then they fell into oblivion and the islands were rediscovered in 1768 by the French navigator Louis Antoine de Bougainville, who calls them "Futuna", exactly: "Futuna - the lost child of the Pacific".
