Is France proud of its footprints in colonial Africa? (2)

SENEGAL’S RECENT COMMENTS on France was another bad news that France may find difficult to shrug off. Whether France saw it coming or not is an issue on its own. But the timing seems troubling, to say the least, even if France chooses to pretend to the contrary. Earlier in December, Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye demanded the exit of French troops and demanded the immediate closure of French military bases in Senegal. With this, Françafrique has received another fatal blow and more francophone African countries are reclaiming their sovereignty. Faye’s declaration undeniably signposts the twilight of French colonialism and the lingering presence of foreign powers who still see Africa as their cash cow. With unequivocal clarity, Faye made statements that have obviously sent shockwaves through the corridors of global power and could change the story of Africa’s relationship with the West. 

According to Faye, “Senegal is an independent, sovereign nation, and sovereignty is incompatible with the presence of foreign military bases. The days of domination are over.” With this, France and other Western countries having overweening presence and influence in Africa should have food for thought on this as the hypocrisy of the Western nations that pretend to believe in independence and democracy — but still maintain military strongholds across Africa — is being exposed. Nonetheless, France could still be nurturing the illusion of present relevance as it still has some countries in its kitty. After the coup d’etat that toppled Mohamed Bazoum in July 2023, many sympathisers referred to Bazoum as a Western ally, which can easily be construed to mean Western asset. Côte d’Ivoire, for instance, remains a strong outpost of France with Alassane Ouattara at the helm. It was with the backing of France that Ouattara got to legitimise an otherwise illegitimate third term in office, effectively playing to France’s whims and buttressing the hypocrisy and double standard of France on claims of democracy and sovereignty. 

President Emmanuel Macron’s comments on the controversial election that retained Ouattara in office beyond the second term betrayed his country’s complicity in the tenure elongation scheme. The scheme may have predated the commencement of Macron’s and Ouattara’s presidency and just as it has also exposed France’s double speak on constitutional democracy as France was directly involved in the forceful ejection of Laurent Gbagbo, the immediate predecessor of Ouattara. Although, at the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in 2016, Gbagbo was found culpable in the aftermath of the violence that followed disputed elections in 2010, his lawyers accused current President Alassane Ouattara of seizing power by force with the help of France, Côte d’Ivoire’s former colonial ruler. In that April 2011 intervention, French special forces alongside UN helicopters assisted forces loyal to Ouattara, who then was the internationally recognised president, in their advance upon Gbagbo’s compound. He was captured in the bunker below the compound and placed under arrest by the Ouattara forces. Is it any surprise that those supporting or conniving at the tenure extension of Ouattara will not find fault with France? The proofs of France working hand in glove with Ouattara could be deciphered as Ouattara, who categorically said in March 2020 that he was not going to seek re-election in October, later changed his assertion, with top court in September clearing the path for him to seek what turned out a contentious third term, thus eliciting protests that turned violent in several places. 

As if having a premonition on the outcome of the yet-to-be-announced outcome, Macron reportedly called Ouattara a day before the official results of the presidential election were announced, urging him to make a “significant” gesture towards the opposition. It turned out that Ouattara swept up 94.27 per cent of the votes. Moreover, nearly a month later, President Macron defended Ouattara’s decision to run in the election. Nearly three months ago, in October, Ouattara’s ruling party had expressed its support for the President seeking a fourth term in 2025. If the reasons France looked away from Ouattara’s tenure elongation were shrouded earlier, they began to unravel a year later. A surreptitious attempt was made to hijack the West African regional single currency, the ‘Eco’ — earlier mooted by the ECOWAS, originally meant to establish a regional currency to promote trade and development. But Macron and Ouattara planned to adopt the ‘Eco’ as Francophone countries’ currency as a replacement for the CFA ab initio, then to later prod the wider ECOWAS members — essentially the Anglophones — to join. Ouattara and Macron had announced in December 2019 that the FCFA would be replaced with the ‘Eco.’ Ouattara Macron declared that, in 2020, the eight French-speaking West African countries of Benin, Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal, and Togo would retire their shared currency, the West African CFA franc, and replace it with a new currency – also called the eco. The other seven primarily Anglophone ECOWAS countries were surprised at the statement. 

Unsurprisingly, controversy trailed the introduction of the ‘Eco’ as a legal tender for those francophone countries, thereby setting off a full-fledged leadership war. In addition to changing the name of the West African currency known for decades as CFA, the statement by Macron and Ouattara stipulated that countries using the new Eco would no longer be required to keep half their reserves in France, and France would not be involved in managing the new currency. But, that was a superficial explanation. In reality, the new France-backed Eco, like the CFA franc, would be pegged to the euro, and France would remain the guarantor of its convertibility, unlike the plan for the ECOWAS Eco to ensure a flexible exchange rate. Moreover, the creation of the separate West African Eco will more effectively tie the affected Francophone countries more closely to France than to their African neighbours. The suggestion that it would be much easier for the Anglophone countries to join the Eco later sounds incredible, especially as it runs counter to the roadmap for the ECOWAS version of the Eco.

On the question of why France faces so much anger in West Africa, the answer can be attempted by making reference to certain glaring issues. For instance, poverty is a common denominator across all Francophone countries. Many of these countries remain among the poorest. Why are the countries colonised by France among the poorest in Africa? The economic conditions of former French colonies in Africa are influenced by a complex interplay of historical, political, and social factors. Niger Republic, for instance, is a poster child. Despite uranium from Niger being used to power Europe for decades, the country remains one of the poorest in the world. It has not benefited appreciably from its main natural resources, particularly mining mainly exported to France. In particular, the poor pricing of uranium remains a problem, as it is the main source of electricity in France. The French-speaking countries are not a monolith, they are diverse, sovereign States with accordingly dissimilar outcomes. In Mali, the problem has to do with gold exploration and export. The recurrent crisis in the eastern DR Congo is in relation to mineral resources exploration and exploitation. The experiences are similar in many ways. Despite being one of the world’s largest uranium producers for well over 40 years, Niger still remains one of the poorest countries on the planet. Although, for decades, uranium from Niger has been used to power Europe, Niger has not benefited appreciably in the form of electricity generated. In fact, Niger has been significantly dependent on Nigeria — the southern neighbour — for nearly half of its electricity supply. Areva, a world leader in nuclear energy, has been involved in the efforts of bringing France and Niger together on a common platform to placate Niger over the uranium mining fallouts. Over a decade ago, Niger reportedly wanted Areva to pay for the reconstruction of the road to Arlit. 

Multinational mining operations have led to the contamination of water, air and soil by radioactive substances in places where ordinary Nigeriens reap little benefit from France’s control of Niger’s uranium resources while 60 per cent of the population live below the poverty line and roads used by trucks carrying uranium are in poor condition. Meanwhile, over 50 per cent of the electricity supply in France is generated from the uranium exported from Niger. The ‘uranium highway,’ a network of major roads connecting Niger’s primary urban mining centres such as Arlit, Agadez and Niamey, are major links used for the carriage of liquidated uranium resources. The network itself forms part of the Trans-Sahara route, stitching together concessional nation-states for the purpose of facilitating the exploitation in a country bordered by seven countries. About a decade ago, Niger ordered an audit of French nuclear group Areva’s uranium mines as part of preparations for better deal in talks over a new long-term contract, according to the Mining Minister at the time, Omar Hamidou Tchiana. Somair and Cominak, Areva’s two mines in Niger, produce the fuel for roughly one-third of France’s nuclear power, the source of some of the cheapest electricity in the West.

It has become clear and undeniable that France covets African natural resources and will do anything possible to continue to have unrestricted access to them. But that is unlikely to continue, from the turn of recent events. Now that Niger has decided to stand up to France in the matter of uranium and national leadership, it is likely to be followed by many more other countries determined to free themselves from the vice grip of the ex-colonial that still wants to tie its former colonies to its apron strings thereby perpetuating the tradition of exploitation. For France it means the sleeping former colonies are waking up.