FRANCE'S NEW AFRICAN POLICY

▪ 1998

by David Buchan During 1997 a gradual sea change in France's policy toward Africa reached its culmination. Gone or going was France's paternalism toward French-speaking Africa, its tendency to want to keep others out of its African pré carré (backyard), and its ingrained habit of playing the feudal potentate in former colonies or of propping up local dictators. Instead came a new emphasis on democracy and human rights as a help rather than a hindrance to prosperity, a better appreciation of the role of international institutions in promoting economic development and resolving conflicts in Africa, and a wider focus on the rest of Africa so as to increase France's commercial and political influence in English- and Portuguese-speaking parts of the continent. (For France's Influence in Africa in 1997, see Map—> .)

      Thus, speaking to the annual gathering of French ambassadors in Paris, French Pres. Jacques Chirac enunciated on Aug. 27, 1997, two new "rules of conduct." First, he said, France must "refrain from any interference whatsoever, be it of political, military, or of any other nature," adding that "France would not accept it at home; it must not resort to it in other countries." Second, France must "encourage our African partners to strengthen, in the manner and at the pace of their choosing, the rule of law and good governance," because this was essential for foreign investors to feel confident enough to do business in Africa.

      These new rules of conduct were all the more striking for coming from a traditional Gaullist like Chirac, steeped in the personal and financial links that have bound French African rulers to Paris ever since their countries achieved independence in 1960. In June 1997, however, the Socialists won the general election and returned to government in Paris under a new prime minster, Lionel Jospin. (See BIOGRAPHIES (Jospin, Lionel ).) Jospin's administration promised an African policy that was different not only from its immediate predecessor, the right-wing government of Gaullist Prime Minister Alain Juppé, but also from that conducted by Chirac's predecessor, Socialist Pres. François Mitterrand, between 1981 and 1995.

      Mitterrand had paid lip service to democracy and human rights, but he operated an old-fashioned policy toward Africa that was partly overseen by his own son, Jean-Christophe, at the president's Élysée Palace. During the Mitterrand presidency French troops intervened 10 times in sub-Saharan Africa to evacuate French citizens or to protect friendly leaders from rebellions. On taking office in 1995, Chirac largely continued the same policy, though with different men—he brought back as an adviser Jacques Foccart, who had steered African policy under former presidents Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou.

      The last years under Mitterrand and the first two years of Chirac's presidency produced, however, a disastrous sequence of setbacks to French influence, which came to a head in 1997 with the ousting of French-backed Pres. Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire (renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo [Congo (Kinshasa)]). Ironically, the setbacks came in Zaire, Rwanda, and Burundi, all of which had been Belgian rather than French colonies. The chain of events started in 1994 when Rwandan Pres. Juvénal Habyarimana, a Hutu who had enjoyed French support, died in an airplane crash that ignited simmering tensions and set off mass executions by Hutu of Tutsi. This in turn brought about an invasion of Rwanda by Tutsi rebel forces from Uganda. France intervened in 1994 to stabilize the situation but was accused by the newly installed Tutsi-dominated Rwandan government of merely helping Hutu killers find refuge in Zaire. This also helped destabilize Zaire, where the long-standing rebellion of Laurent Kabila (see BIOGRAPHIES (Kabila, Laurent Desire )) drew support from Rwanda and other neighbouring countries to mount a successful anti-Mobutu offensive that was also increasingly anti-French in tone. After he gained power, Kabila boycotted the summit of French-speaking countries in Hanoi in November.

      Long after the U.S. had reversed its Cold War-era support for Mobutu and called for the dictator to go, and long after it was clear that Kabila would prevail, the right-wing Juppé government continued to give Mobutu qualified backing and appealed for some negotiated solution to the civil war. The reason was less one of economic self-interest—French trade and investment in Mobutu's Zaire had shrunk sharply by 1997 and was far less than that of Belgium or the U.S.—and more from an inability to imagine Zaire's staying intact without Mobutu's iron hold over it. In particular, Paris was worried that a breakup of Zaire would destabilize the already shaky French-speaking Republic of the Congo (Congo [Brazzaville]) and the Central African Republic (CAR) to the north.

      In the event, Congo (Kinshasa) did not break up, perhaps partly because Kabila threatened to be as autocratic as his predecessor. After occupying Kinshasa and taking power in May 1997, he repeatedly refused to let United Nations investigators make on-the-spot inquiries into allegations of massacres committed by his own troops. The possibility that Kabila may prove almost as bad as Mobutu, however, did not alter the fact that the change of power in Kinshasa was a serious setback for French influence.

      Even before the almost simultaneous changing of the guard in Paris and Kinshasa, France was beginning to alter its military and economic relationships with French-speaking Africa. In late 1997 it based 7,900 French troops in Djibouti, the CAR, Chad, Gabon, Côte d'Ivoire, and Senegal under agreements that dated from 1960. Under plans already approved by its Gaullist predecessors, the Jospin government intended to make a gradual 40% cut in the number of those troops in Africa as it created a smaller, fully professional army at home. The latter would, if necessary, be able to send reinforcements to Africa, using transport and communications not available in 1960. French troops planned to completely quit the CAR, where they found themselves increasingly caught up in local mutinies, contrary to the 1960 agreements, which, ostensibly, provided for French intervention only in cases of external aggression.

      Such mutinies have in fact become a general hazard in Africa, aggravated by International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank programs that seek to restrain or cut government payrolls, including those of the military. Paris has therefore sought to convince those institutions of the need to act carefully and flexibly. In Chad, which has had a relatively big army, France has cofinanced with the World Bank a program to demobilize and retrain some 27,000 soldiers. France has also joined Great Britain and the U.S. in a concerted effort to train African forces to take over more of the peacekeeping in Africa.

      Once at odds with the IMF and the World Bank over Africa, France by 1997 was working hand in glove with them. An early success of this cooperation was their joint push for the January 1994 devaluation of the CFA (for Communauté Financière Africaine) franc, which at that time was being used by 14 West and Central African states. Though resisted by many leaders in Africa and some in France (including Chirac, before he became president), this long overdue adjustment of the CFA franc from a rate of two French centimes set in 1948 to one centime boosted exports and growth in Africa without setting off any prolonged inflation spiral.

      By 1997 almost all the CFA member countries had programs with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. A standard feature of these is the requirement of privatizing state companies by competitive bids. Despite rivalry from U.S. companies in telecommunications and oil exploration and from Asian groups in forestry, French companies have won many of these bids. This may be because of French companies' greater knowledge of the local market and its risks. Realizing that they can no longer regard French-speaking Africa as their protected patch, French companies have launched a major drive to win other markets, notably South Africa.

      Behind their setbacks, many French have seen the hand of the United States, accusing it of spearheading a drive to anglicize French-speaking Africa. But Franco-American competition to provide aid could work to Africa's benefit. Charles Josselin, French minister for cooperation in charge of African policy, has affirmed, "The U.S. is not driving France out of Africa; France is not fading away at its approach." It would be a pity if France did fade out, for Paris is the second biggest provider—behind Japan—of official development aid and a persistent preacher on behalf of Africa.

David Buchan is Paris Correspondent for the Financial Times.

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