Françafrique
In international relations, Françafrique was France's sphere of influence over former French and Belgian colonies in sub-Saharan Africa. The term was derived from the expression France-Afrique, which was used by the first president of Ivory Coast, Félix Houphouët-Boigny, in 1955 to describe his country's close ties with France. It was later pejoratively renamed Françafrique by François-Xavier Verschave in 1998 to criticise the alleged corrupt and clandestine activities of various Franco-African political, economic and military networks, also defined as France's neocolonialism.
Following the accession to independence of its African colonies beginning in 1959, France continued to maintain a sphere of influence over the new countries, which was critical to then President Charles de Gaulle's vision of France as a global power and as a bulwark to British and American influence in a post-colonial world.
The United States supported France's continuing presence in Africa to prevent the region from falling under Soviet influence during the Cold War. France kept close political, economic, military and cultural ties with its former African colonies that were multi-layered, involving institutional, semi-institutional and informal levels.
Françafrique has been characterised by several features that emerged during the Cold War, the first of which was the African cell, a group that comprised the French President and his close advisors who made policy decisions on Africa, often in close collaboration with powerful business networks and the French secret service. Another feature was the franc zone, a currency union that pegged the currencies of most francophone African countries to the French franc. Françafrique was also based, in large part, on the concept of coopération, which was implemented through a series of cooperation accords that allowed France to establish close political, economic, military and cultural ties with its former African colonies. France also saw itself as a guarantor of stability in the region and therefore adopted an interventionist policy in Africa, resulting in military interventions that averaged once a year from 1960 to the mid-1990s. Finally, a central feature of Françafrique were the personal networks that underpinned the informal, family-like relationships between French and African leaders. These networks often lacked oversight and scrutiny, which led to corruption and state racketeering.
After the Cold War, the Françafrique regime weakened due to France's budgetary constraints, greater public scrutiny at home, the deaths of pivotal Françafrique actors, and the integration of France into the European Union. Economic liberalisation, high indebtedness, and political instability of the former African colonies, as well as the increase in African trade with other countries, have led France to slowly adapt its relations with former colonies.
France facilitated the arrival of young African executives in France so that they could pursue higher education. Once graduated, fluent in French and imbued with European values, these young Africans returned to their countries. Having become senior executives, they joined the state apparatus as senior civil servants. And although they had limited social roots, France provided them with assistance, which propelled them to the highest echelons of power in their countries.
The Defense Agreements between France and French-speaking African countries established close cooperation, particularly in defense and security matters. Often accompanied by secret clauses, they allowed France to intervene militarily: to rescue regimes in order to establish the legitimacy of political powers favorable to its interests, to fight jihadism, particularly in the Sahel, or to put an end to civil wars. The departure of French troops from the African continent signals the end of a world, that of interventions in Chad, Togo, Gabon, Rwanda, Djibouti, Zaire, Somalia, Ivory Coast, Mali, Libya, and Cameroon. It also marks the end of Françafrique.
Etymology
The term Françafrique was derived from the expression France-Afrique. The first known usage is in a 1945 editorial from the pro-colonial politician and journalist in the newspaper L'Aurore. It has often been mistakenly attributed to a 1955 discourse by President Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast, who advocated maintaining a close relationship with France, while acceding to independence. Close cooperation between Houphouët-Boigny and Jacques Foccart, chief advisor on African policy in the Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou governments is claimed by supporters to have contributed to the "Ivorian miracle" of economic and industrial progress.The term Françafrique was subsequently used by François-Xavier Verschave as the title of his 1998 book, La Françafrique: le plus long scandale de la République, which criticises French policies in Africa.
By announcing the end of Françafrique, since the successive governments of the former French possessions in Africa gained independence, France is only proving that the process of decolonization is an unfinished process.
Pun
Verschave also noted the pun in the term Françafrique, as it sounds like "France à fric", and that "Over the course of four decades, hundreds of thousands of euros misappropriated from debt, aid, oil, cocoa... or drained through French importing monopolies, have financed French political-business networks, shareholders' dividends, the secret services' major operations and mercenary expeditions".History
Charles de Gaulle's presidency (1958–1969)
When Charles de Gaulle returned to power as French President in 1958, France had already been severely weakened by World War II and by the conflicts in Indochina and Algeria. He proceeded to grant independence to France's remaining colonies in sub-Saharan Africa in 1960 in an effort to maintain close cultural and economic ties with them and to avoid more costly colonial wars. Compared to the decolonisation of French Indochina and Algeria, the transfer of power in sub-Saharan Africa was, for the most part, peaceful. Nevertheless, de Gaulle was keen on preserving France's status as a global power and as a bulwark against British and American influence in a post-colonial world. Thus, he saw close links with France's former African colonies as an opportunity to enhance France's image on the world stage, both as a major power and as a counterbalancing force between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. The United States supported France's continuing presence in Africa to prevent the region from falling under Soviet influence. Similarly, the United Kingdom had little interest in West Africa, which left France as the only major power in that region.On 24 August 1958, in Brazzaville, President Charles de Gaulle recognized that African states had legitimate demands in terms of independence, but that they should go through a period of political learning in the French Community, an organization encompassing France and its colonies. A referendum was organized on 28 September 1958, to decide on the fate of the African states in question. Voting "yes" meant joining the French Community and engaging on a path to independence, while voting "no" meant immediate independence. De Gaulle had also warned that states voting "no" would commit "secession", and that France would pull out their financial and material aids. All voted yes but Guinea, led by Ahmed Sékou Touré, head of the Democratic Party of Guinea. On 2 October 1958, Guinea proclaimed its independence, and Sékou Touré became its first ever president. At the time, France was still processing its defeat in Indochina, and feared uprisings in Cameroon and other African nations. Paris feared that Guinea could incite similar movements in the region, so they decided to engage in political and economic retaliation. Though Sékou Touré had sent a letter to de Gaulle on 15 October 1958, asking for Guinea to stay in the CFA franc zone, France banished them from the monetary union in the wake of their independence. Resolutely isolated, Guinea got closer to Eastern Bloc countries in the context of the Cold War. They started working on a new currency with the help of foreign experts, but France saw this as a threat to the stability in the region and its influence there. Therefore, in 1959, France launched operations to undermine the regime in place. Among the methods of destabilization used, one called "Operation Persil" involved introducing a large quantity of fake bills of the new currency in the country to cause inflation and disturb the economy. Nevertheless, with the help of the USSR and China, Sékou Touré's regime held on power until his death in 1984.
To implement his vision of France's grandeur, de Gaulle appointed Jacques Foccart, a close adviser and former intelligence member of the French Resistance during World War II, as Secretary-General for African and Malagasy Affairs. Foccart played a pivotal role in maintaining France's sphere of influence in sub-Saharan Africa as he put in place a series of cooperation accords that covered political, economic, military and cultural sectors with an ensemble of African countries, which included France's former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, former United Nations trust territories, former Belgian colonies and ex-Portuguese and Spanish territories. France's relationship with this whole ensemble was managed by the Ministry of Cooperation, which was created in 1961 out of the old colonial ministry, Ministry for Overseas France. The Ministry of Cooperation served as a focal point for France's new system of influence in Africa and was later merged with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1999. Foccart also built a dense web of personal networks that underpinned the informal and family-like relationships between French and African leaders. These accords and relationships, along with the franc zone, allowed France to maintain close ties with its former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa that were multi-layered, involving institutional, semi-institutional and informal levels.
Foccart continued to serve as chief adviser until he was replaced with his younger deputy, René Journiac, by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. Upon becoming President of France in 1995, Chirac again sought Foccart's counsel and even brought him on his first trip to Africa as French President. Foccart continued to play a role in Franco-African relations until his death in 1997.