French Mexico?

[westvirginiarebel]

WI France had gained Mexico at some point during the Napoleonic Wars?

[orvillethird]

There might have been some form or two of guerilla campaigning. I could see Mexican leaders continuing the fight. Natives might fight for their own independence or autonomy. Laicite being enforced in Mexico might lead to an earlier Cristero War.

[contraindicative]

France did have Mexico? - the problem was that Emperor Maximilian got installed but Napoleon III didn't commit the necessary troops or maintain attention there long enough.

[oyid]

Well, the whole Maximilian debacle happened until 1862, and really it was also a proxy war with the US so France didn't really have a chance.

As for Napoleon, keep in mind that half the justification for the uprising was the Viceroy's loyalty to Joseph Napoleon, the occupation king of Spain. Mexico's best-known founding father, Miguel Hidalgo, famously invoked Ferdinand VII's name when he took up arms, shouting "Viva el Rey de España!" among his other slogans.

In a sense, then, Napoleon did have Mexico for a while, and the Mexican War for Independence started out as another Spanish rebellion against French rule, which eventually morphed into a full-on independence war, so even if at the end of it all France did manage to keep it, the popular revolt and power struggle among the colonial military would've still developed the struggle to the point it did IRL.