Unlike any other French leader Macron has openly expressed remorse for aspects of France’s colonial past. His election rhetoric suggested that he viewed France’s neo-colonial dominance with some embarrassment, preferring to loosen France’s hold on its former colonies. [...]
France also propped up francophile leaders, in particular Senegal’s Leopold Sédar Senghor and Cote d’Ivoire’s Felix Houphouet-Boigny. Both saw themselves as the guardians of a paternalistic order that kept Francophone Africa under French tutelage. [...]
During Francois Mitterrand’s term in office (1981 – 1995) 60,000 French troops were stationed in Francophone Africa. They supported several unsavoury governments, including the Hutu regime presided over by Juvenal Habyarimana in Rwanda, which went on to murder 800,000 Tutsis and some Hutus in the 1994 genocide. French soldiers did little to stop the bloodbath. [...]
Chirac was the last of the paternalistic, Gaullist French leaders. After his presidency, France became unapologetically mercantilist: it remains in Francophone Africa to protect its nationals, to guard its assets and to counter Chinese competition for natural resources and markets. [...]
But, nearly 60 years after African independence, France and Francophone Africa remain entangled beyond separation. French companies still have a quasi-monopoly over the most strategic areas in Francophone economies. Examples include electricity, telecommunications, infrastructure, airports and harbours. France’s continued influence on Francophone African foreign policy is apparent in Africa’s policy alignments.
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