analysis
Military coups in Niger and Gabon, in Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea – all ex-French colonies that no longer want to accept Paris’ vested interests. Is France’s influence waning? And what consequences would that have?
It was a wave of anti-French resentment that swept through the streets of Niamey: “France out of Africa,” “Down with France,” “France must go,” chanted demonstrators after the coup in Niger at the end of July. The military men who ousted President Mohamed Bazoum are their heroes. Because Bazoum was and is considered France’s close ally.
About a month later, happy people walked through the streets of Gabon’s capital Libreville. They jubilantly celebrated the coup against Ali Bongo – the president who, like his predecessor and father Omar Bongo, had been protected militarily and economically by France for decades. Is France’s influence in Africa crumbling?
Twilight of France Afrique?
“The so-called France Afrique is in crisis,” says Thomas Borrel. He is an activist with the association “Suivie” and co-editor of the anthology “The empire that does not want to die – a history of France Afrique”. “France Afrique” is the name given to the system of rule that France developed after the formal independence of the French colonies in the 1950s in order to de facto maintain its influence in Africa. To achieve this, Paris did not shy away from using mercenaries, bribery or military intervention on behalf of individual rulers.
According to Borrel, it is still too early to assess whether the former colonies will become truly independent after the recent coups in Niger and Gabon. Or whether “France Afrique” will once again be able to adapt to protect the core of French interests. France has always shown a certain “souplesse”, a suppleness, when it came to protecting its sphere of influence in Africa.
Badass interest politics
Military coups and unconstitutional changes of power in Mali and Chad, for example, were supported at will. The former ambassador to Mali, Nicolas Normand, described this approach in an interview in the daily newspaper “Le Figaro” at the end of August as “steadiness along a variable geometry, depending on the country and context.”
This principle seems to be applied again now: France has by no means castigated the two military coups in Niger and Gabon with the same vehemence. French President Emanuel Macron reacted immediately, harshly and even with a threat to the arrest of President Bazoum in Niger: “We will not tolerate any attack on France’s interests. If our French citizens are attacked in Niger, our reaction will be immediate and relentless.” France entered into an ongoing showdown with the Nigerien putschists. Open end.
In Gabon, on the other hand, France’s reaction seems more cautious and its position more flexible. Macron did condemn the coup against Bongo. But since then there are said to have been contacts between the French ambassador in Gabon and the new rulers.
Borrel: France has double standards
As always, France has double standards, criticizes Borrel. “The coup in Gabon doesn’t really seem to bother anyone in Paris. Because with the coup there, France could get rid of a somewhat compromising ally.” Bongo has recently become a little too close to other foreign interests – those of the British, for example, explains Borrel. A symbol of this was his cry for help after the coup, which, to great irritation, he delivered in Paris not in French but in English.
“With the new rulers in Gabon, Paris has the opportunity to get rid of the annoying Ali Bongo and to re-establish the old ties between France and Gabon,” Borrel suspects. In Niger, France wants to do everything in its power to prevent it from losing another military base. After coups in Mali and Burkina Faso, Paris had to withdraw French military units and end the Barkhane military operation against transnational Islamist terrorism. If the base in Niamey also had to be closed, the Sahel would be largely free of French soldiers.
Manipulation by Russia?
This development is not least due to the resentment of the young population against France. Paris blames its competitors, especially Russia, for this sovereignist, anti-French movement. Borrel thinks this is window dressing and self-deception. It is true that competing powers have stoked anti-French sentiment in the past. But these campaigns in no way caused the rejection of France.
This hatred is simply the result of a French policy that is characterized by hypocrisy: “The people of Africa no longer trust France. They have heard too many lies about the France of human rights, which only wants to promote the democratization of African states,” says Borrel. Today, the rejection has gone so far that many people no longer even believe that France is really fighting against the Islamist terrorists in Mali, for example. Rumors are circulating that France is actually financing the jihadists itself. Trust has been so destroyed that conspiracy theories like this one are sprouting.
France, the “small” nation
Several presidents have recently assured that France has said goodbye to its opaque politics of interests in Africa. In 2017, Macron declared in Ouagadougou: “The time of ‘France Afrique’ is over.” Macron set an example, returned works of art stolen during the colonial era, opened archives, converted military bases into so-called training bases, and reformed the CFA currency, which was decried as a neo-colonialist instrument.
All of this is just activism, says Borrel. “As always, these steps and reforms only aim to protect the core of French interests in Africa.” The motto is: “Change everything so that nothing changes.” There can only be an end to “France Afrique” if France’s military withdraws completely from Africa and if the common currency, the CFA franc, is no longer automatically linked to France and the euro.
Achille Mbembe, on the other hand, praises the French President’s steps. The internationally known Cameroonian intellectual and theorist for post-colonialism, who was accused of anti-Semitism in Germany in 2020, recently accompanied Macron on one of his trips to Africa and is pushing forward the African-French dialogue together with the French president. In an interview with the newspaper Jeune Afrique at the beginning of August, he said: “Macron knows that a historical cycle is coming to an end and it is time for a new beginning.” But this can only succeed if France questions itself. “The real problem is that the whole of France is struggling to decolonize itself,” Mbembe said. To do this, France would have to accept that it is no longer a great power, but – as Thomas Borrel says – a “small power”.