After delivering a speech on France’s African policy, the French President embarked on an African tour, primarily visiting countries in Central Africa, namely Gabon, Angola, the Republic of Congo, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. These four countries are members of ECCAS[1]. Since taking office, President Macron has been committed to defining a new partnership with Africa. Africa has traditionally been a critical issue for French diplomacy, particularly concerning France’s position within the United Nations. Given France’s declining influence in its former “backyard,” the French-speaking countries of West Africa[2], Emmanuel Macron aims to establish a new partnership with the states in the Central African sub-region, where France faces competition from the United States, China, and Russia. Macron believes that Africa is expected to play a crucial role in global growth in the future and represents a field of enormous investments. Accordingly, he intends to strengthen relations in this area of the African continent, guided by French national interest.
A new African generation uninhibited by North-South relations
The renewed focus on this region of Africa can be attributed to France’s abandonment of its former geopolitical comfort zone in West Africa, following the establishment of military regimes in Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso. This rejection of France is not solely the work of these regimes but also a reflection of the resentment expressed by African public opinion, including its youth, who attacked symbols of French presence in Mali, Senegal, Guinea, Burkina Faso, and Chad during protest movements. This aversion is expressed by a generation that has never experienced the colonial era and feels uninhibited by it, even 60 years after independence.
Over time, with a new generation of African youth who did not experience colonization, it ended up generating frustration and animosity. All the more so since these unbalanced relations between France and Africa have never allowed Africa to initiate a positive dynamic of its emergence, unlike the English-speaking States. An African policy of France – from the dominant to the dominated – perceived by the new African public opinion as being incapable of lastingly solving the vital problems of the continent which obviously remain unresolved. On the contrary, these multidimensional crises become factors that prevent Africa’s political and economic resilience in order to enable it to take charge of itself.
An illegible African policy
France, despite the voluntarist speeches made from La Baule[3] on June 10, 1990 after the end of communism, is struggling to get rid of Françafrique with its illegitimate African satraps. The country continues to support or militarily intervene in support of autocratic leaders such as Blaise Compaoré, Idriss Déby Itno, Denis Sassou Nguesso, Paul Kagame[4], Joseph Kabila[5], the Bongos, father and son, as a snub to the populations martyred by these autocrats, refuses to look himself in the face. On what new bases could it concretely initiate its new political dynamics in Central Africa?
Although France has a rich common history with African countries, it has struggled to redefine its postcolonial African policy, unlike the British, Spanish, and Portuguese who have opted for economic-based relations. Instead, France has continued to interfere, often insidiously, in the internal policies of several countries of its former colonial empire within the framework of Françafrique. While on paper the French colonial empire no longer exists, all post-colonial French policies have remained condescendingly unilateral and paternalistic, considering French-speaking sub-Saharan Africa as a zone of influence to be controlled at all costs: politically, militarily, and economically, without considering the opinions of Africans. The dubbing of autocratic presidents, the permanence of French military bases, the control of the CFA franc, and Africa’s dependence on development aid are the most eloquent illustrations of this.
By way of illustration, on the military level, since the independence of the African States, France has intervened militarily on nearly 30 occasions on the African continent. France has until recently deployed about 11,000 soldiers in sub-Saharan Africa. In addition to military interventions, France has maintained a pre-positioned military force of more than 6,000 soldiers deployed in six countries (Djibouti, Senegal, Côte d’Ivoire, Gabon, Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad) [6] .
Fashoda syndrome: the tree that hides the forest
Let’s stop dreaming, Macron’s sub-regional tour does not aim to satisfy the interests or meet the expectations of the populations of the countries visited. Progressively driven out of West Africa by Russia, as during the Fashoda War in 1898 on the White Nile (South Sudan) which ended in Great Britain’s victory over France, France is in search of a new strategic pole to pursue its imperialist policy. Indeed, from a geo-economic and strategic point of view, with the end of the Cold War – the end of History according to Francis Fukuyama – and because of globalization, since the 1990s we have witnessed the advent of « New scramble for Africawhere world powers and emerging countries (BRICS and Turkey) are rushing to useful and profitable Africa. The mining issue is inseparable from the military geopolitical issue in Africa[7] .
Consequently, it is inevitably at zero point and zero degrees of Africa, where the Equator crosses, that is to say the soft belly of the continent, that Macron falls back quite naturally and sometimes in complete relaxation to try to counterbalance or contain the Russian expansionism which is already in the Central African Republic and even in Uganda and the Chinese or even Turkish economic invasion in Africa.
A new utopian partnership in a framework of unbalanced relations between France, Africa and the DRC
Is a fair and balanced partnership between France and the DRC possible? The partnership supposes that the protagonists are on the same footing on the same structural and psychological levels. However, the conceptual framework of this partnership is basically biased between the powerful and neocolonial state that is France, on the one hand, and the non-state in the grip of balkanization that is the DRC, on the other side, whose ungovernability Macron did not hesitate to tackle in condescending but true terms: “ Since 1994, you have never been able to restore the military, security or administrative sovereignty of your country. It is also a reality. Do not look for culprits outside . »
Indeed, the balance of power between the two countries is so unfavorable to the DRC that France would not allow itself to deal as equals on economic, military, and diplomatic levels with a country whose state’s non-existence it criticizes, along with the illegitimacy of its rulers. On the one hand, there is France which dominates and takes advantage of its relationship with Africa/DRC to make its economic interests prosper; on the other, the African leaders who hope to benefit from French support to keep them in power. Between the two, there are African populations excluded from these deals.
The partnership therefore requires the recognition of the other as actor and subject of the relationship. It targets the relationship of equality and equity, the complementarity of actions and is based on the sharing of decisions (co-shared power). It is accompanied by reciprocal actions of cooperation and collaboration, as well as operations favoring the exercise of consensus in a number of practical applications. This does not seem to be the case in relations between France and Africa.
The reality on the ground leads us to affirm that the partnership desired by France is an illusion. I can even say that, concretely, the France-Africa partnership almost never exists and will not exist in the medium term as it is hidden behind a halo of good intentions that have never been applied. More specifically, if the idea of partnership is often pronounced in the recent speeches of Western authorities, the principle of partnership is almost always absent from the relational and psycho-emotional realities that can be observed between strong states and African failed states. How to define an equitable partnership between the hand that gives and the one that is predisposed to receive the crumbs? Indeed, in these unbalanced relationships, it is Africa – or rather its leaders – which always reaches out and eternally needs help. However, those who depend on aid are not entitled to respect, their opinion and their interests do not count at all.
Help yourself and heaven will help you !
Jean-Jacques Wondo Omanyundu
Analyst of socio-political, security and military issues.
References
[1]The Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) was created in 1983 and brings together ten countries (Angola, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sao Tome and Principe, Chad). It is one of the five development areas on which the African Union intends to build continental cooperation and integration. ECCAS’s mission is to foster political dialogue in the region, create the regional common market, establish common sectoral policies, promote and strengthen harmonious cooperation and balanced and self-sustaining development in the fields of industry, transport and communications, energy, agriculture, natural resources, trade, customs, monetary and financial matters,
[2] https://www.jean-jaures.org/publication/le-rapprochement-france-rwanda-droits-de-lhomme-et-interets-nationaux/ .
[3] The La Baule speech was delivered by President François Mitterand on June 20, 1990 , as part of the 16th Conférence of Heads of State of Africa and France which took place in the French commune from La Baule-Escoublac ( Loire-Atlantique ). This speech will mark an important date in relations between France and Africa. 37 African countries were invited there in 1990. According to Roland Dumas, the man of the network, freemason and the man of the total confidence of President Mitterand who embodied Françafrique mitterandienne by carrying out in particular, outside official functions, secret missions for the benefit of François Mitterand in Africa and the Middle East, [ the speech of La Baule can be summed up as follows: “ The wind of freedom which blew in the East will inevitably have to blow one day in the direction of the South (…) It does not there is no development without democracy and there is no democracy without development ”.
[4] https://www.jean-jaures.org/publication/le-rapprochement-france-rwanda-droits-de-lhomme-et-interets-nationaux/ .
[5] JJ Wondo, Jusqu’où Macron veut aller dans son soutien militaire au régime de Kabila ? – Desk Africain d’Analyses Stratégiques, 2 décembre 2017. In https://afridesk.org/jusquou-macron-veut-aller-soutien-militaire-regime-de-kabila-jj-wondo/;
[6] Séphora Wondo, La France, le super gendarme d’Afrique francophone ? – Desk Africain d’Analyses Stratégiques, 2 octobre 2020. In https://afridesk.org/la-france-le-super-gendarme-dafrique-francophone-sephora-wondo/.
[7] Gérard Chaliand, L’Enjeu Africain. Géostratégies des puissances, Bruxelles, éditions Complexe, 1981.
