Friday, March 04, 2022

It’s not just Mali: French influence in Africa is collapsing

Recommendable! African countries are still shaking off their colonial past, but they are also seeking new allies!

"Today, many Africans view the French as irrelevant if not persona non grata in many countries in which they once held sway. Earlier this month, for example, thousands of Malians celebrated the French ambassador’s expulsion in the capital city, Bamako. When French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian called the elected military junta “illegitimate” and “out-of-control,” Malian military leaders ordered Ambassador Joel Meyer to depart the country. ...
Recently, the Malian junta contracted out security to Russia’s paramilitary Wagner Group, an outlet known to commit human rights abuses and pillage local resources. French troops, meanwhile, are on their way out from the country.
The French divorce from Mali is increasingly becoming the rule rather than the exception. Increasingly, France’s more-than-a-century-long diplomatic dominance in Africa is ending, and with it, France’s pretension of being a major player on the world stage. ...
Then there is Rwanda itself. While Rwanda was originally a Belgian colonial possession, France treated it as its own following the country’s 1962 independence. French policy, however, was twisted. Declassified French archival documents and an assessment of newly-available sources now show beyond any reasonable doubt direct French complicity in the 1994 anti-Tutsi genocide. France’s motives? Distrust of Rwandans seeking greater ties to the Anglophone world as well as President Juvénal Habyarimana’s willingness (under whom Hutu militants planned the anti-Tutsi Genocide) to subordinate Rwandan interests and human rights to French requests. ...
France’s unwillingness to recognize regional competition has also taken its toll. Djibouti, for example, was once France’s strategic backstop. Until a decade ago, Djibouti was home to the 13th Demi-Brigade of the Foreign Legion. It subsequently moved to the United Arab Emirates and then back to France. Meanwhile, China has become the dominant influence in the former French colony. Nor is China alone. Turkey is using anti-French, anti-colonialist rhetoric to cultivate former French colonies across Africa. In the most infamous example, Ahmet Kavas, the Turkish ambassador to Chad, lauded Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and accused French troops fighting them of being the real terrorists. ..."

It’s not just Mali: French influence in Africa is collapsing | American Enterprise Institute - AEI Just a decade ago, France held paramount influence in Africa. Today, its reach is in freefall and, with it, any pretension of being a global power.

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