France’s strategic goal in Africa

France’s strategic goal in Africa

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France’s strategic goal in Africa

Literature Review: To what extent has France’s strategic goal in Africa changed in the 21st Century?

The nation of France once controlled enormous swathes of northern and western Africa for over 80 years. During this time what was expected to happen, happened, France extracted as much capital and resources as they could through various strategies. Ater decolonization and independence, there was a common misconception among many Westerners that European control and influence vanished after an African nation was freed. However, the argument of this paper is here to refute this notion. In fact France has not only continued their “investment” in Africa but as of late has boosted its military presence in the area as we have seen operations across the old empire to defend vital extraction zones. The reason as to why this topic has relevance today is that France remains as the last major European power in Africa. The two regions are at a crossroads, France’s power is waning while many African nations are rising. The scope of the research shall be limited to the 21st century study of Franco-African relations while also borrowing sources from before then to understand wider view. However despite this knowledge on the subject we can still encounter bias and ill-prepared research amongst these scholars, so the objective will be to find flaws and differences in the literature and try to build upon it.

The paper will uncover if France has really changed its course in Africa and the new factors that have altered it. Literature on the subject for the most part believes that France’s ambitions in Africa remain although some are skeptical on the grasp it has. Most literature on the topic take a somewhat neutral approach although some borrow information for old sources. Regardless, three explanations to the current French strategy in Afric persist in the literature.

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Military interventions are to secure resources and defend local leaders: Ever since the age of exploration, the main goal of European colonialists was to bring back resources not found at home and sell it at higher prices. Today France’s endeavors remain, thanks to 21st century fervor for liberalism, new opportunities have risen for France. These have helped the French extract Africa’s agricultural and raw materials. By far, this is the driving force behind French policy in Africa. As I mentioned earlier most of France’s electricity is derived from uranium, which Niger and Mali have huge reserves of. France not only relies on uranium, as it also needs many raw materials from all over Africa and this dependency has only risen since decolonization; for instance France’s energy dependence has increased from 30% in 1950 to 80% in 1989. This is best exemplified with state-owned oil company Elf-Aquitaine where 70% of oil was extracted from Africa. Many argue that France is there to control resources securely. (Martin, 1995, Chafer, 2005).

Cultural Imperialism is used to control local elites: As a way of maintaining control over its colonies, the French undertook a cultural assimilation campaign in Africa during their invasions of the 19th century. By having direct administration rather than ruling through proxies as the British did, the French were directly in charge of education and culture for the natives. Modern France still uses this network and has created a commonwealth-like political organization called Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie. Through this organization and previous assimilation tactics, France manages to maintain strong cultural bonds with their previous colonies which in turn benefits them by having the elites and future leaders of said nations to be trained and educated in France. All one has to do is look at current African presidents backgrounds; Paul Biya of Cameroon and Ibrahim Keita of Mali have been educated at the prestigious Sciences Po and Sorbonne respectively, for example. By going to school there, these Francophile elites absorb a culture and outlook that ends up favorably to France although often end ruling in an authoritarian manner. (Martin 1995)(Chafer 2005)

Maintain the African Franc: After the Second World War France created a new currency in the colonies as the French Franc had been devalued after the Bretton Woods agreement, but this new currency was spared of this making imports from France easier. With 65% of foreign investment coming from French banks, the Central African banks have no choice but to allow French decision making processes. Additionally France has also been worried about Chinese firms threatening their grip on the continent as the monopoly is being diluted by Chinese investments. (Renou 2002, Zhao 2009, Martin 1995)

The clearest sign of French neo-imperialism in the region comes from their military interventions. Critics of France have argued that these are merely self-serving interests to secure their resource consumption. However, this view, which has been adopted by those such as Guy Martin is limited as it overlooks other strategic reasons to maintain security in the Sahara. Firstly a new wave of unrest has struck the region; with Tuaregs revolting against their southern overlords, jihadis running amok in Chad and Nigeria with the Libyan civil war to add, France has reason to be worried. Already the war in Libya has allowed for a greater rise in illegal migration across the sea. With the chaos of accommodating these new arrivals, logistical problems arise that cost money. Full-blown disorder in the region could lead to a domino effect around the region impacting trade and economy of the region. Those who call France’s military endeavors capitalistic imperialism look at this from a more biased marxist view while a realist might I argue what I have previously mentioned.

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The next idea pushed by some of the scholars in this area of study is that the Francophonie is used as a tool of cultural imperialism. Although it can be argued that the organization does in fact push french culture and language one could also that it is used to facilitate trade and cohesion when dealing with the French. While the English language is used more business and generally more frequently, the centralized Academie Française is still staunchly pushing the French language to be used by its native speakers along with those within the French sphere. Yet the organization also helps poor rural areas by providing a French education that could help them with careers later on as well helping facilitate trade in the region by having a singular language everyone can speak rather than the hundreds of regional dialects in the continent. The French realize the strength and scope that the language has around the world still and seek to take every possible advantage that comes with it.

Observers also take note of the extent to which France protects and uses the African Franc when dealing with its affairs in Africa. So far the African Franc has been more or less stable with inflation in the Cote D’Ivoire going up by 5% in 20 years while Ghana’s has gone up by 20%. Most certainly the currency was put in place for imperialistic reasons, so that the French could sell products for cheaper prices along with control of the central banks through investments. Yet today the Franc serves a greater purpose, as it is used by most countries in West Africa not only benefitting France but stimulating trade amongst states. One could argue that the currency has been a stabilizing force as it has pushed for economic cooperation rather than waging aggressive war.

In summary the findings have shown that some areas such as economics, which tend to be more volatile, the French have had to learn to adapt to while maintaining a cultural and military control has remained more or less constant since the colonial days. But what has changed French strategy has been outside factors, such as China, global resource shortages, the greater world economy and Islamic extremism. These new factors have all come around since the beginning of the new millenia and are what can threaten France’s grip on Africa.

Most of these sources taken for this project were articles and journals who borrowed information from contemporary scholars and books. From what I’ve seen the sources seem trustworthy although more often than not these sources came from Western intellectuals. If a higher frequency of African primary accounts were used in the literature I would believe a more balanced view by the authors. In fact, most authors seem to agree on the same point which displays a perhaps Western bias. Additionally another problem I found in the literature is that many are secondary rather than primary accounts. Yet overall I have found sources to be concise and helpful in conducting my research. I believe that if we asked for a more African perspective on the situation we could uncover a wider range of ideas and directions to take the essay.  Ultimately what I found got in the way of unbiased was simply the perspectives adopted by the authors which range from marxist to realist.

France’s strategic goal in Africa

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