“Given its historical links with the African, France will always be a valued interlocutor and partner in our efforts to build peace and stability, strengthen democratic governance and foster social and economic development.” These were South African President Thabo Mbeki’s words on the election of Nicolas Sarkozy as the new president of France.
The election of Sarkozy comes as a watershed for France’s policies on Africa. For decades, France viewed post-colonial French-speaking Africa as its exclusive sphere of influence. But a report last year by the Foreign Affairs and Defence Commission of the French Senate, noted that since 2000 there has been renewed international engagement in Africa, particularly by the United States, China and India, and that France’s role needs to change.
Now after a week in the Élysée Palace, Sarkozy is beginning to signal what his policies will be. Africa is important to Paris for historical, political and economic reasons. The continent accounts for 5% of France’s exports and also remains an important supplier of oil and metals, and some 240 000 French nationals are registered as living in Africa. Africa has also been as important for France’s perception of itself as a major power as has its possession of nuclear weapons.
This is the Africa legacy that Sarkozy inherits. There have been some signals showing what his policy will look like. When he visited Mali and Benin in 2006 he attacked Jacques Chirac’s Françafrique policy and called for “new relations” between France and Africa; in Mali he stated that “economically, France no longer needs Africa”.
A key priority for Sarkozy will be to introduce a system of selective immigration, tailored to the needs of the French labour market. In his victory speech, he said he planned to head rapidly to Africa to “lay the foundations of a new immigration policy”, and also referred to vanquishing famine and poverty and looking for ambitious African development. North Africa features prominently in his thinking and he has flagged a Mediterranean Union free-trade area, although how achievable this is remains to be seen.
Sarkozy’s most surprising move has been to appoint Bernard Kouchner as his foreign minister. Kouchner is probably one of the most respected politicians in France.
Immigration, however, is an area of dispute between the two men, as may be consistency on French human rights policy in Africa. Whereas both men will prioritise Darfur, there are questions as to whether they will develop a policy on Chad that goes beyond supporting President Idriss Deby simply for being the least bad option. There are also questions as to whether France will change its policy on Togo — after its flawed elections in 2005 — and push for greater reform in Cameroon, Gabon or Senegal. There is also a risk that Kouchner will not last long in his post because of clashes over policy, which poses a serious risk to the survival of any reform process he may embark upon.
The Côte d’Ivoire crisis has highlighted the political and economic costs of not further reforming French Africa policy and becoming embroiled in an internal conflict, which forced France to relinquish its mediation role to UN and African initiatives. Happily, the Ivorian peace process now appears to be making progress and 500 French troops from the 3 500-strong Operation Licorne have left this year with more to follow.
France’s future policy on Africa is likely to focus initially on how to reduce informal immigration of Africans into Europe. There will also, though, be greater efforts to work through the UN, EU and regional organisations. This strategy allows France to maintain an important voice on the future of Africa’s security architecture, even as it reduces its physical military presence on the ground. France will also engage a widened economic policy, already evident in telecommunications and the extractive industries sectors in which French companies have already invested in non-Francophone countries such as Angola, Equatorial Guinea, Nigeria and South Africa. President Mbeki is correct, France has an important voice on Africa and this is the moment for Africans to engage with France over how to build a new approach to Africa that can increase investment, and assist African development and poverty reduction.
Alex Vines is head of the Africa Programme at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. This is the second in a series of three pieces on changing policies on Africa
France in Africa
France intervened militarily in Africa 19 times between 1962 and 1995. But gradually, budgetary concerns and a changed strategic climate encouraged France to adopt a new multilateral approach. Structural changes to the armed forces, including sharp reductions in the size of the French military and base closures between 1997 and 2002, mean France can no longer maintain the dominance that it had in the 1960s and 1970s. Nonetheless, today there are still some 6Â 000 pairs of French boots on African soil in five countries.
A gradual shift in French policy on Africa has been under way since the early 1990s, long before the election of Sarkozy. This was spurred on by the end of the cold war, an emerging new generation of French politicians and a series of debacles such as France’s role in Rwanda before and after the 1994 genocide and in the former Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo), where Paris supported veteran dictator Mobutu Sese Seko until the very end. Public scandals such as one involving French oil company Elf and guns for Angola (Angolagate), in which high-ranking French politicians were involved in money laundering, also had an impact.
The Rwandan genocide significantly affected France’s credibility in Africa. Consequently, in 1995, on the orders of President Jacques Chirac, the French army developed a new strategic approach. To prevent the army being sucked into civil and ethnic strife, it accepted the delegation of peacekeeping operations in Africa to organisations such as the African Union and the UN.
With the joint-exercise Reinforce-ment of Peacekeeping capacities (RECAMP) programme the French army helped train African troops for UN peacekeeping operations.
Recent French policy has been to support UN mandates with French troops, as it has done in Côte d’Ivoire, the Central African Republic and the DRC, or to provide direct military support to governments, as is the case of Chad, where French troops are supporting the government’s fight against rebels under a bilateral defence accord dating back to 1960.
France is planning to reduce the number of its military bases in Africa from five to three, with the imminent closure of bases in Côte d’Ivoire and Chad. The remaining military bases in Senegal (1 200 soldiers), Gabon (1 000) and Djibouti (2 900) are to become partners of the respective sub-regional African organisations.
After colonialism and 50 years of strong influence over post-independence Africa, a network, widely known as La Françafrique, has developed between French and African elites. This opaque network provides unique networking possibilities, influences policy and secures trade deals. Add to this a complex web of political centres of power in Paris that are often in competition and the result is significant policy incoherence when it comes to Africa.