"Discuss the present threats to France's hegemonic role in Africa: Neo-colonialism no longer in demand."

Political Evolution of Africa Department of Political Studies, SOAS London 1998/99

This essay is an attempt to analyse present changes of France's role in Francophone Africa. The post-colonial relationship between France and Francophone Africa will be analysed. Recent changes of this relationship and their consequences for the future of the relationship will be highlighted. At first the political then the economic relationship will be analysed. I will come to the conclusion that many more economic than political changes have been initiated. Most of these changes are reforms rather than threats . The initiatives for these reforms have come almost exclusively from France, because African states want to maintain France's "neo-colonial support". But France is redirecting her foreign interests to other areas.

To understand today's political relationship and the future of Franco-African relations, one has to examine the complex network of personal diplomacy that characterises Franco-African relations. This informal network started to develop during the colonial period and developed continuously in post-colonial times. The prime minister A. Juppé failed to reform the network of informal diplomacy, above all because there was too much resistance from the elements within the network. It is notable that most of the actors in the network are high-ranking powerholders in France and Africa. The president of France is one of the main actors in the network. Due to the French constitution the president of France has been very much engaged in foreign affairs. This has been the way to gain a lot of prestige outside and -much more important- inside France. Elections could be won if the candidate was a "l'homme d'Afrique", as the charismatic C. de Gaulle had been. Therefore the French president has been interested in dictating foreign policy, often disregarding and opposing the views of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, as it was the case with the support for the secessionist Biafran regime in Nigeria, although the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was hostile to the secessionists (Clapham 90). Thus the French president has had much freedom in the formulation of French foreign policies. But he has not been the only dominant element in the network of personal diplomacy.

It has to be mentioned that the president's secretary of Malagasy-African affairs has been one of the very influential officials. Especially J. Foccart was legendary for building up the informal links between Paris and her former colonies. Foccart was secretary under de Gaulle, but still remained adviser to nearly all the presidents of the Fifth Republic. He, above all others, was engaged in building up the network after colonialism. He ran African policy through informal channels due to his contacts to friends, informers and spies. Consequently there developed a friendship between the French president and his officials and the African ruling élites. Formal diplomacy and free commercial relations became to be seen as irrelevant, because decisions could be made between two or more presidents within the Francophone family.

The Francophone children in Africa were on the average economically better off and politically more stable than their anglophone neighbours. That was at least what many French and Francophone politicians might have argued. But if one looks at the situation in more detail, the assumption made above must be amended to a certain extent. France supported their former colonies more than any other former colonial power. But France was to a large extent merely supporting the ruling élite and often a dictatorship. The majority of the population, especially the rural one, was more exploited by than benefiting from the rule of the urban élite supported by France.

Therefore statesmen, such as K. Nkrumah did not hesitate to call the French influence in her former colonies neo-colonial (Chapman 88). But even Nkrumah's Ghana must have been under neo-colonial influence then. Nkrumah was part of an élite that took over state-power in 1957. This élite was still closely connected to Britain and supported by the latter. There were nationalist upheavals in the Gold Coast after the Second World War and there were no comparable ones in Francophone Africa , but the hand-over of the state-power was also a slow constitutional process in Ghana.

Therefore Nkrumah's Ghana was also co-operating with Britain and the country was also under British "neo-colonial" influence after independence. Èlites that were co-operating with their former metropoles were ruling in almost every African state. Support for an African state often meant support for the regime in power. If the former British and French colonies were similarly neo-colonised, why were Francophone states more stable? They were more stable because they received more from Paris than other states did from London. Especially economically and military, as will be shown below, French support was much larger than British. France was more willing to spend more for the élites in her former colonies, because France thought to gain a lot.

France, but especially her president could gain prestige and more votes in the next elections because of his involvement in world politics. During the alignment politics of the Cold War it seemed also important to have some associates, especially as voters in the UN. In political terms the advantages of the Franco-African connection were not only on the side of France. Besides the protected stability of their regime, the friendship with powerful Frenchmen gave the families of the African élite many opportunities, such as a secured place in the French educational system for their children. The informal network is here best imagined as a Francophone family.

But not always was the French president the powerful father. African rulers learned how to manipulate and use the Franco-African connection. Especially the threat of changing to the side of the "Anglo-Saxons" was used excellently by African statesmen, such as S.S. Mobuto. The good connection to Africa correspondents of the media in France was a way to influence public opinion in France (Bayart, 1984 15-17). African statesmen could be presented in the media as left alone by the French president and therefore the latter would lose prestige and votes.

Democracy in France offered many opportunities for African statesmen to manipulate French politicians indirectly. Politically both France and her Francophone partners gained from their relationship. The most important gains were prestige and votes on the one side and stability on the other. The Franco-African relationship would have continued and developed to higher sophistication, if there had not been so many international changes in the last ten years. The end of the Cold War was definitely the strongest impulse that led to a change in Franco-African relations.

Economically the change in Franco-African relations is much more advanced, as will be shown below. I will argue that political changes are happening very slowly, because the European integration is by now mainly an economic one. In French domestic politics there has been a struggle between traditionalists that want to maintain the Franco-African network, such as F. Mitterand and J. Chirac, and modernists that want to reform Franco-African relations, such as A. Juppé and L. Jospin. The two latter politicians were less successful than the two former ones. Juppé and Jospin have tried to make Franco-African relations more transparent. Formal diplomacy should be the new channel of Franco-African interaction.

These reforms of the political sphere of interaction have not had much success. Mainly, because foreign relations are still dominated by the prestige-seeking French president and he is not interested in destroying the Franco-African network (Wauthier 21). The Franco-African political relationship may change due to the impulse of the further European integration. France and her president will have to give up their interest in Africa, when the EU starts to define a single European foreign policy. This will very likely be a slow process, but for instance J. Chirac's strong involvement in trying to find a solution for the Kosovo Conflict in February 1999 in Rambouillet shows that the future for attaining prestige might be rather Eastern Europe than Africa. Especially after the two debacles of Rwanda's genocide and Zaire's disintegration new areas to gain prestige have to be looked for. Both times France and her military were supporting a dictator who was overthrown by rebels that were supported by the "Anglo-Saxons". There could not have been a greater embarrassment for the French president than these two involvements.

Because of the events of Rwanda and Zaire, but also because of financial reasons the French military is not willing to interfere in Francophone Africa anymore. Lionel Jospin has already put forward reforms to decrease the number of French soldiers in African bases. France will try to encourage the formation of an African military force run by African states themselves and try to disengage her own soldiers to a minimum of advising African armed forces (Wauthier 21). Therefore the military relationship is going to be abandoned to a minimum in the future. The political relationship between France and Francophone Africa is stable and continuous at the moment. Reforms from inside France have been relatively unsuccessful. But due to the continuing European integration reforms in the field of French and European foreign policy might be inevitable. I did not deal with the threat of the take-over of France's political role in Africa by the USA, because the fear of Anglo-Saxon hegemony is more paranoid than realistic. English speaking L. Kabila attending the Franco-African summits is the best evidence that that fear is not realistic .

The economic Franco-African relationship was connected to the political one and was part of the informal network. Contrary to the political relations, the economic relations have been changing very much. Reforms have been taking place because of pressures from within France and from outside, notably the EU. Reforms of or threats to the relationship are not coming from the African countries. The economic connection is probably best illustrated by the CFA Franc zone. Foccart was one of the founders of the fixed exchange rate for the French Franc and the Francophone African countries' currency, the CFA Franc. The CFA zone meant that the included countries had a stable currency and on the whole a better economic performance (Cruise O'Brien 152-153).

The CFA Franc meant also that France had a lot of influence over the CFA Franc countries. At least the CFA Franc countries had more freedom in the CFA zone than they had under the influence of World Bank and IMF structural adjustment programmes. Furthermore they still had the opportunity to leave the CFA zone and receive help from the World Bank and the IMF. In spite of all the fear of the "Anglo-Saxon take-over", French politicians -especially the ones in the Treasury- encourage the World Bank or the IMF to take over part of the burden caused by the overspending of Francophone states nowadays. The French Treasury has long been for the loosening of the economic Franco-African relationship, because the indebtedness of the CFA Franc means also a indebtedness of the French Franc. The devaluation by half of the CFA Franc in 1994 was the first step to reform the CFA zone. In the coming years or decades the CFA states are going to get less economic support from France, although some of them, such as Gabon and Congo, might be supported for a longer period, because of the oil and mineral reserves of these countries.

With the launch of the European single currency in January 1999, the CFA Franc has remained a separate single currency and been tied to the Euro. With all the opposition to France's African role within the French ministries and within the EU, it is doubtful that the CFA zone is going to exist much longer. French companies, such as Elf, that formerly gained profits from the monopolistic rights that they had in CFA Franc states, are also disengaging themselves from Francophone Africa. These companies, especially their chief executives were part of the informal network of France and Francophone Africa. Nowadays these companies are not using the network anymore, because most African leaders cannot offer them any reasonable and secure deals. The amount of French aid is also already in the process of reduction. Although Juppé and Jospin were not very successful in redirecting French aid through more transparent channels and concentrated on development, in the future the prime ministers might succeed.

The French amount of aid has also decreased, because the World Bank and IMF have taken over parts of this burden. Due to the Lomé Conventions of the EU, the latter has also relieved France from parts of his burden for aid to his Francophone partners. If one follows the development of the contents of the various Lomé Conventions, one can see that the amount of European aid decreases and democracy and human rights issues become built into aid agreements. Furthermore, since the 1980s the commissioners responsible for associated territories of the EU were most of the time from Southern Europe. These Southern European countries were keen on receiving that post, because they wanted to protect their agricultural production from the cheaper imports from Africa. Before the 1980s France had always received that post in the commission and supported her Francophone partners in Africa (Chapman 100-103).

This example of the distribution of responsibilities in the European Commission shall illustrate the shift in the EU's and France's priorities. The new territorial priorities for the EU are now definitely located in Eastern Europe. But are there any threats to the Franco-African relationship coming from African countries? Except for threatening France with the higher degree of co-operation with the "Anglo-Saxons", there are no threats to the relationship coming from the African side. One could argue that the bad African economic performance and the increase of corruption are threatening the relationship indirectly. Many Francophone and non-Francophone countries want to tighten France's grip on their country. Especially the CFA zone also seems to be very attractive for many lusophone and anglophone African states (Cruise O'Brien 153). The devaluation by half of the CFA Franc in 1994 was definitely not wanted by the members of the CFA zone. On the whole one can see that African leaders are not keen on threatening the Franco-African relationship, especially at a time, when support from Paris is needed very much. It is the African leaders' wish to continue the aid flows, at least to decrease aid and protection slowly. In that way the Francophone states could be slowly integrated into the world market (Mouradian 7).

To conclude and to sum up the analyses from above, one can say that politically the Franco-African relationship has not changed very much. The African informal connection is still very important for the French president. I argued that it will take a long time until France will totally disengage herself from her former colonies. However, although the present French president, J. Chirac wants to maintain the political framework with Francophone Africa, he also states that the economic involvement shall be reduced. The impulses for the economic disengagement are coming from the French Treasury and the continuing European integration. Reforms of the military presence in Africa have already been initiated in France mainly due to the two disastrous interventions in Rwanda and Zaire. Therefore the most significant changes have taken place within the economic sphere of the Franco-African relationship. These changes have been characterised as reforms rather than threats. Leaders of African states neither want to reform nor threaten the French connection. They want France to keep a supportive grip on them. The only threat that could be figured out was the American threat. However, I have argued that that threat is more imagined than real. The American involvement is still insignificant in Francophone African states. On the whole there are many more reforms of than threats to the Franco-African relationship. Neo-colonialism is still very much in demand, but it is no longer supplied, as it was decades ago. The future of French foreign policies lies in Eastern Europe and the Middle East rather than Africa. The future of African foreign policies lies in Asia, if one believes in J.F. Bayart's account (Bayart,1999 2-6).

References

J.F. Bayart, La Politique africaine de François Mitterand: Essai (Paris, Karthala 1984).

J.F. Bayart and S. Ellis and Béatrice Hibou, The Criminalization of the State in Africa (Oxford, James Currey 1999).

J.F. Bayart, The State in Africa: The Politics of the Belly (London, Longman 1993).

J. Chipman, French Power in Africa (Oxford, Basil Blackwell 1989).

C. Clapham, Africa and the International System (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press 1996).

D.B. Cruise O'Brien, "The Show of State in a Neo-Colonial Twilight: Francophone Africa", in J. Manor (ed.), Rethinking Third World Politics (London, Longman 1991), pp. 145-165.

A. Kirk-Greene and D. Bach, State and Society in Francophone Africa since Independence (New York, St. Martin's Press 1995).

A.M. Mouradian, "Menaces sur la convention de Lomé", in Le Monde diplomatique (June 1998), p. 7.

L.A. Villalon and P.A. Huxtable (eds.), The African State at a Critical Juncture: Between Disintegration and Reconfiguration (Boulder/London, Lynne Rienner 1998).

C. Wauthier, "La coopération française entre ravalement et réforme", in Le Monde diplomatique (March 1998), pp. 20-21.

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