July, 2001

French Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa

Dr. Iglal Raafat

France has started since the beginning of the 1990s to lay down a new strategy in Africa to adapt to new circumstances and developments in the post-Cold War world order and the internal developments in both France and Africa. The strategy is meant as well to confront the hegemony of the United States and its growing authority in Africa, which in turn affects France's traditional position in the continent. In addition, the growth of fundamentalist Islamic movements in the African horn and in western Africa affects French authority in the continent. This new French strategy aims at fulfilling France's economic, strategic and political interests in Africa.

French economic interests are represented in the opening of new markets for French products. On the strategic level, France is keen to obtain strategic natural resources essential for French heavy industry and to control strategic positions in some African countries. France's political and diplomatic interests are represented in maintaining the stability of the African systems and making use of the close ties binding France and the African states. The aim is to guarantee African diplomatic support for France in the UN, which will help it maintain its position as a super permanent member in the Security Council.
In order to implement its policy in Africa, France is using military, economic and cultural mechanisms. The military policy is crystallised in the reduction of the number of French bases from 1,000 in 1960 to only five. In the light of the of the new world order, France had to develop its military cooperation policy with Africa. It ratified a new plan that relies on the establishment of a power for quick intervention. Roles are distributed among military bases in accordance with the seriousness of the situation. Other military mechanisms include agreements relating to military defence and technological cooperation. A comprehensive review of French military policy in Africa was carried out as a result of the consecutive failures it had in Rwanda and Burundi. Changes in international conditions urged France to focus on supporting regional security institutions by means of training African soldiers for peacekeeping operations.
On the economic level, France relies on the development of inter-trade relations with most of the countries of central and western Africa and aims to increase the volume of French investment in Africa and maintain the Franc zone. France hailed the establishment of the regional organisations formed in the 1970s and 1980s, which include a number of countries from central and western Africa.
France established a transportation network between itself and Africa with the aim of consolidating economic and commercial relations. This network is the primary infrastructure for French policy in Africa.

On the cultural level, France enjoys a distinguished position in Africa. France bases its cultural ties with Africa on a number of elements, including the common language with some African countries, the French tuition institution, French cultural centres and the francophone summits held biannually either in Paris or in one of the African capitals.

The US cultural and economic hegemony in Africa, enhanced by the globalisation phenomenon, has negatively impacted on the French position. The clash between French and US interests has manifested in a number of areas of investment, especially in the petroleum sector. France proposed a number of ideas to confront its current economic recession in the continent. President Jacques Chirac suggested that African countries exchange debts for investment, which means that the French companies buy quotas in African institutions that equal the amount of debts of the African countries to France.

On the military level, the United States is expanding its military activity in Africa in order to confront French military expansion. Within this framework, France proposed the formation of an African peacekeeping force of 10,000 soldiers, with the participation of significant African states. The idea, however, was rejected by the EU and the Organisation of African Unity. France, in return, established RECAMP military programme with the aim of supporting regional security institutions in Africa. With the growth of the fundamentalist Islamic trend in Sub-Saharan Africa, French authority started to wither. France is facing this phenomenon even on the internal level, and hence endeavours to curb this phenomenon within its limits of authority and to tighten its control over the area separating the north and south of Africa to prevent the spread of Islamic extremism southwards.

France is now trying, by means of consolidating the francophone organisation and enhancing diplomatic and political missions, to confront the anglophone wave that makes use of globalisation as diffused by the United States. In addition, the EU could help the French role in Africa to survive as France was one of the founding members of the European Community, which calls for unified common security and foreign policy for its members.