Françafrique

[1] It was later pejoratively[7] 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.

[3] 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.

[1][3] 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.

[12] It has often been mistakenly attributed to a 1955 discourse by President Félix Houphouët-Boigny of Ivory Coast,[1] 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 (1958–1974) is claimed by supporters to have contributed to the "Ivorian miracle" of economic and industrial progress.

[16][17][18][19] 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.

[3] Nevertheless, de Gaulle was keen on preserving France's status as a global power (or grandeur) and as a bulwark against British and American influence in a post-colonial world.

[3] On August 24, 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.

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.

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,[1][23] as Secretary-General for African and Malagasy Affairs.

[24][25] 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 (Benin, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Djibouti, Gabon, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Republic of the Congo and Senegal), former United Nations trust territories (Cameroon and Togo), former Belgian colonies (Rwanda, Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo) and ex-Portuguese (Guinea-Bissau) and Spanish (Equatorial Guinea) territories.

[1][3] Foccart continued to serve as chief adviser until he was replaced with his younger deputy, René Journiac, by French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing.

First of all, the networks of Françafrique endured thanks to Journiac, who maintained strong ties with South Africa despite apartheid, but also with Congo, Gabon and Niger, whose raw materials were essential to France.

[34] He was also confronted with the political instability of African states, which led him to play the role of "policeman of Africa", i.e. to intervene militarily, notably in Chad and Zaire, to lend a hand to local leaders.

[36] Generally speaking, Chirac continued French diplomatic efforts to maintain the special ties with Africa that de Gaulle had built earlier.

[36] He was appreciated by the African political leaders in place, but he did not make the issue of human rights a priority in his foreign policy, as was shown by his proximity to the authoritarian regime of Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire.

[37] However, Sarkozy also caused indignation in a speech on July 26, 2007, at the Cheikh Anta Diop University, in Dakar, when he declared that "the African man has not entered history enough" and that "the problem of Africa is that it lives too much in the present in nostalgia for the lost paradise of childhood.

[39] Also, the presence of many African dictators such as Idriss Déby or Paul Biya recalled the difficulty of France to break clearly with Françafrique, which embedded French interests.

In August 2017, Emmanuel Macron founded the Presidential Council for Africa, an advisory body composed of people from civil society, mostly members of the African diaspora.

Many French corporations such as TotalEnergies, Orange, or Bouygues have used this free movement of capital to bring back profits made in these 14 countries, without any typical risks associated to foreign currency exchanges.

[3] France has also adopted the Abidjan doctrine, which has internationalised the economic dependency of African countries by having them first reach an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) before receiving French aid.

[64] According to a 2020 study, "France's commitment to multilateralism is genuine yet not absolute —meaning that French policy-makers do not shy away from operational unilateralism if conditions on the ground seem to require swift and robust military action, as long as they can count on the political support of key international partners.

Some critics, however, point to the fund's strategy of creating opportunities and opening the market to mostly French companies, thus feeding capital transfer bridges that are the roots of Françafrique.

[67] Senegalese people, especially young ones, critiqued the lack of transparency of the proceedings, and saw this as a political maneuver orchestrated by President Macky Sall to suppress the opposition before the next presidential elections in Senegal.

This feeling, particularly present among the younger generations who have not experienced colonization or the period of independence, is also reinforced by events such as the genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire or the crisis in Libya.

This is defined by Operation Serval, which was a French effort under the leadership of former president Francois Hollande in order to prevent Islamist militants from seizing Bamako, Mali.

The ongoing conflict between French-backed forces and Jihadist militant groups continues to have detrimental consequences, which have led to increased rates of death and displacement within the Sahel territories.

People have grown increasingly critical of the French government's action, or lack thereof, in preventing further casualties and attacks by Islamic militant forces.

Many governments, including Mali and Burkina Faso, lack the infrastructure necessary to combat militant groups from advancing their agendas, which leaves the ability to secure their borders in tandem.

This includes West African countries such as Senegal and Cameroon, which continue to play an integral role in supplying natural resources, hardware, and manufactured goods.