Between modernity and historical legacy
An analysis of the official French development discourse of the Macron
administration
Noortje van Leeuwen Universiteit van Amsterdam
10565205
Supervisor: Said Rezaeiejan Second reader: Saskia Bonjour
Completed January 2019
Table of content
1. Introduction………..……….3
2. Literature review……….……….6
3. Theoretical framework……….……..…………10
3.1 Ideational power………..………10
3.1.1 Types of power in international relations……….10
3.1.2 Postcolonialism………12
3.2 Development aid ……….……16
3.2.1(Under)development……….16
3.2.2 French development aid……….17
3.2.3 Toxic development aid……….19
3.3 Francafrique……….….21
3.3.1 Francafrique as a regime………21
3.3.2 Key actors………..22
3.3.3 French interests and corruption……….24
4. Methodology ………..……….26
4.1 Discourse analysis………..………….26
4.2 Political Discourse Analysis (PDA)………27
4.3 Data………..……….……29
4.4 Indicators………..….…………31
4.5 Limitations and considerations………..………32
5. Analysis ………..…………..…………34
5.1 Discourse analysis Macron administration……….………..34
6. Conclusion………..…………..………46
1. Introduction
‘’Africa has a civilizational problem.’’ Upon reading this quote, with the knowledge that it was said by a French president, it would be logical to think it came from a president like De Gaulle, Chirac or another paternalistic French leader. The contrary is true: it was Emmanuel Macron, self-declared liberal and revolutionary, eager to ‘’look forward’’ and not wanting to ‘’give lessons to
Africa’’ (Macron, Ouagoudagou 2017). Saying that ‘Africa’ has a ‘civilizational problem’ thus raises lots of eyebrows, not in the last place because ‘’Africa is not a country’’ (DailyVox 2017).
This quote was not the only time Macron sparked attention with what he said about or did in relation to the African continent. Macrons discourse on the African continent has been extensively analyzed by the media and more than once Macron has made the headlines thanks to alleged neocolonialist quotes: ‘’French president criticized for failing to acknowledge colonial role at G20’’ (Independent, 11 July 2017), ‘’Macron blames ‘civilization’ for Africa’s problems - France should acknowledge its own responsibility’’ (Washington Post, 14 July 2017), ’’Emmanuel Macron under fire for remarks about women with large families [in Africa]’’ (Independent, 18 October 2018), ‘’What’s wrong with Macron? 6 awkward comments the French leader has made about Africa’’ (RT, 27 November 2017), ‘’Macron made some incredibly offensive comments about Africa in a speech’’ (Indy 100, 12 July 2017). In January 2019, befriended state Italy even said that ‘’France had never stopped colonizing tens of African states’’ (BBC, 22 January 2019). Although every president is subject of criticism, the scale and nature of this criticism is at least interesting, taking into consideration the image Macron tends to give about his view on the African continent.
The rage in the (African) media is understandable, taking the historical context into
consideration. French imperialism left deep scars in big parts of the African continent. France, and other European countries like Belgium, the United Kingdom and Italy, exploited the continent for hundreds of years, often under the flag of the ‘mission civilatrice’, the civilization mission (Betts 2005). This colonization took Africa’s resources and systematically implemented a structure of economic, political, social and even cultural domination (Verschave 2002:1-15). European dominators imposed their political systems and decided about infrastructure, institutions, tax systems an more. One of the largest colonizers was France and, slightly different from other European powers, apart from the economic gain they got from the colonies they focussed extensively on ‘civilizing’ the African continent. In others words: implementing French culture deeply into their colonies (Betts 2005). In 1884 Jules Ferry, one of the biggest advocates of French imperialism, formulated it as follows: ‘’The higher races have a right over the lower races, they have a duty to civilize the inferior races,’’ (Ferry 1884:199). This ‘civilizing’ in practice meant that the French granted privileges to natives when they learnt learned to master the French language and displayed ‘’good moral standards’’ (Le Cour Grandmaison 2010:160). Language and culture
played a huge role in this, as some might call it, big-scale brainwashing operation. The French oppressors made it clear in everything they did that their norms were higher and better and that these norms should be everybody’s new standard. This was all laid out extensively in the ‘’Code de l’indigénat’’, the ‘indigenous code’ that entailed all the civil laws carried out by France in her
colonial territories. This ensemble of texts concretized in word the repressive regime that described which behavior ‘deserved’ first-rank citizenship and which behavior made for a second-rank citizen - i.e. ‘native’ behavior (Saada 2003). This code institutionalized the civil superiority that the French felt and exercised over the native inhabitants.
A period of decolonization followed in the first half of the twentieth century and in the second half of this century the colonial relationship was replaced by a new form of
interdependency, although less institutionalized (Bovcon 2013:15-19). This structure, often called
Francafrique, started in the 1960’s and is usually viewed as being scandalous, corrupt and
neocolonialist (Péan 1983, Verschave 2002, Bovcon 2013). The concept of Francafrique is exemplary of the French support for corrupt (but pro-France) and autocratic regimes, for ‘’the clandestine financing of French political parties through official public aid allocated to sub-Saharan African states’’ and for the corrupt informal Franco-African economic networks (Bovcon 2013:6). Development aid played a crucial role in this regime, since it was used both as a stick as well as a carrot: on the one hand France used development aid to promise golden horizons for the often poor countries, as long as they acted in accordance with the French economic interests; on the other hand withdrawal (or the threat of it) was used as a punishment if French interests were in danger (Verschave 2002, Bovcon 2013, Chafer 2005:15). During the Francafrique-regime, development aid has been at the core of French strategy to influence its former colonies.
The first French politician who openly tempted to break with this tradition was Mitterand, but his attempt was ‘’premature’’ and the cessation with Francafrique seemed to be ‘’more rhetorical then real’’ (Chafer 2001:177). The twelve years of Chirac’s presidency, from 1995 until 2007, are usually seen as the last years of ‘solid’ Francafrique relationship (idem). After Chirac, who did not recoil characterizing French citizens from African descent as bruit et l’odeur, ‘’noise and stink’’, French presidents openly wanted a ‘rupture’, to break with the traditional Francafrique networks. There is an academic consensus that Chirac is considered the last official advocate of Francafrique (Verschave 2002, Chafer 2001:177, Bovcon 2013:18-19).
Taking the painful history between France and lots of African states into consideration, Macrons quote about ‘Africa’s’ alleged ‘civilizational problems’ requires a thorough look on the relationship between France and the African continent today. Is France, under president Macron, still trying to ‘civilize’ the African continent? Language and discourse in foreign policy, often through development aid, are for a large part responsible for creating the (then and now) toxic relation between France and its former colonies (Saada 2003). Discourse thus matters and needs to be studied in order to find out to what extent Macron’s quote represents a broader agenda of France
trying to ‘civilize’ the African continent. In order research this, this thesis will take a close look at the discourse that is used in and about French development aid by the French government. A thorough discourse analysis might lay out the ‘’hidden messages’’ of superiority (Van Dijk 1997:41), if any, or will show that France is not trying to ‘civilize Africa’ anymore. Understanding this discourse that is used today, as well as how it was used during the Francafrique era, helps understand France’s broader development agenda. The guiding research question in this thesis will therefore be:
To what extent does official French development discourse under the Macron administration still entail characteristics from the Francafrique regime?
From an academic perspective, this research is of value as Macrons development discourse has not been researched by scholars before. Nonetheless, Macrons development discourse is
extensively analyzes and criticized by the media. An academic analysis, based on clear indicators, can help bring order to this chaotic debate.
The first part of this thesis will consist of a literature review that gives an overview
concerning the research question: what has already been researched and where exactly the gap in academic knowledge is. Secondly, in order to answer this research question systematically, some of the concepts that are central to this thesis require further theoretical elaboration and will
therefore be further defined in the theoretical framework. This theoretical framework will bring forward several indicators that will be used later on to answer the research question. The first concept that this thesis will discuss is ideational power. This concept will be explained through a postcolonial point of view, which helps understanding the relation between France and its former colonies from a historical point of view. Chapter two will elaborate on the concept of ‘development’ and the toxic elements of it, explaining the playing field of development aid as a means of foreign policy. The last chapter of the theoretical framework will elaborate on the concept of Francafrique, conceptualizing it as a regime. After this theoretical framework an explanation of the chosen methodology, discourse analysis, will be given, including remarks acknowledging the limitations of this type of method. In the last part of this thesis, the official development discourse of the Macron administration will be subject to a discourse analysis, using the indicators explained in the
theoretical framework to measure to what extent this discourse entails characteristics from the Francafrique regime. This thesis will end with the conclusions from this discourse analysis.
2. Literature review
In order to formulate a coherent theoretical framework, this thesis will firstly present a literature review to give an overview about what is already known about the topic. This literature review will lay out what is already researched about development discourse and about the Francafrique regime. Moreover, this chapter will provide an overview of how Chiracs development discourse and his role within the international system is usually viewed in academic research. Although less written about due to his short presidency, this literature will also assess what is written so far about Macrons development discourse.
First of all, it is important to lay out that development discourse matters as an act in itself and that therefore it is important to study it. As Naylor (2011:193) explains in his work about development discourse: ‘’The current international development discourse operates through relations of power according to a Politics of Pity, which necessarily (re)constitutes subjects in an unequal hierarchical relation to one another.’’ Such a discourse thus undermines the ultimate goal of development aid. Although potentially raising awareness about the suffering of people, which may result in donations, the discourse has other effects as well: ‘’As the discourse operates
according to unequal structural relations of power, and relies upon and discursively perpetuates the very poverty and inequality that it seeks to eliminate, it will always fall short of this ultimate aim [of eliminating poverty and inequality],’’ (Naylor 2011:193). Talking or publishing about development aid, especially as a donor country, thus brings a certain responsibility.
In the case of official French development discourse, conducted analysis shows this misbalance in power relations as well. First of all, in French there are plenty of ways to describe ‘developing countries’, all with a higher or lower degree of paternalism: ‘pays retardé’ (a country that is behind, close to the English term ‘retarded’) has another connotation then ‘pays en voie du développement’ (country on its way to development) (Dufour 2007:30). However, today official French development discourse often uses the word ‘Sud’ (the South) to describe developing countries. On the one hand this is, historically speaking, a relatively ‘neutral’ term, compared to other ways to describe it such as ‘monde tiers’ (‘one third of the world’), which has a colonial connotation because it stems from that era (Dufour 2007:30). However, the term ‘Sud’ in development discourse is ‘’far from neutral’’ (Dufour 2007:32). It emphasizes on the difference between donor country and receiving country, which immediately creates a distance between these two, also because only one party has, because of its power, the choice to label the other party like this (Dufour 2007: 30-34). Problematic in using the term ‘Sud’ is also that it groups a whole
continent into one concept, while in reality it consists of a wide range of different countries, cultures and levels of economic development. Apart from the question which term to use exactly, French development discourse is a sensitive topic because the concept in itself can be seen as normative.
‘’The notion of ‘development’ is inherited from a dominant colonial system that is based on the ideology of the ‘civilizational progress’. These colonial stereotypes, with a
sanctimonious and discriminating character, that oppose the ‘civilized’ against the ‘wilds’ and ‘primitives’, is replaced by other discriminatory outcomes under the paradigm of development’’ (Dufour 2005:123).
This continuation of cooperation between France and the African continent, can be seen as the elephant in the room when it comes to development aid and the discourse that is used around it: exactly because it is not said out loud, it makes it uncomfortable (Latouche 2004: 98-113). French development discourse, despite occasionally good intentions, always carries a weight of a history filled with ideologies about ‘civilized’ and ‘uncivilized’ countries, simply because French
development aid is born out of the colonial relationship between France and the African continent (Dufour 2010:1-12).
Concerning Chiracs, although there are always different views, there is relative consensus about his African politics and discourse and I therefore take this president as a reference point of the last official advocate of the Francafrique regime. Some academics call him a ‘’grand
connaisseur of primitive African art’’ and praise his ‘’excellent personal relations with African
leaders’’ and his ‘’passion for the black continent’’, echoing Chiracs own discourse (Claude 2007:1). However, most scholars who have published about Chiracs role within the Francafrique-regime have been rather clear about Chiracs intentions and interests and call Chirac an advocate of a corrupt, undemocratic and rotten regime (Verschave 1998). He created and politically
supported lobby groups that were active in African states to ‘’pursue their own objectives, whether or not these objectives implicate the state’’ (Smith & Glaser 1997:25). His personal Africa advisor was Jacques Foccart, personally responsible for designing the Francafrique regime under De Gaulle (Chafer 2005:11). In a speech 1996, a year after Chirac received five million francs for his election from the Moroccan king, he publicly complimented the king for his excellent human rights records, while the latter was under fire of the international human rights community because of inhumane treatment of prisoners (Chafer 2005:16). Also, even after traditional supporters Belgium and USA abandoned Zaires dictatorial leader Mobutu, Chirac kept defending him, allegedly
because of his support of French interests (idem). In 1997, Chirac backed the returning to power of his friend, Congolese dictator Nguesso, after the legitimate president Lissouba tried to loosen government ties with French oil company Elf (idem). Chirac advocated a neo-Gaullist foreign policy, meaning that he wanted France to remain the world power it once was. In 1990 he said the following about democracy in African states: ‘’The multi-party system is a political error, a sort of luxury that developing countries, which must concentrate on their efforts on economic expansion,
have no means to offer to themselves,’’ (Amidou 2008:14). In 2008, after his time as president but 1 still relevant to mention, he said: ‘’Without Africa, France will slide down into the rank of a third [world] power’’ (Bamurangirwa 2007:178). He was very well aware of the economic and political importance of African countries for France - having continued influence on these former colonies made it possible for France to stay ‘relevant’, to remain a world power. The goal of Chiracs foreign policy was to ‘’present France as a champion of Third World, and in particular African,
interests,’’ (Chafer 2005:15). This neocolonialist African policy naturally corresponded to the type of discourse Chirac used. A study of Mayaffre & Luong (2003) for example, deducted an extensive research on the discourses of every president from De Gaulle to Chirac and one of their findings was that Chiracs speeches, in terms of word use, most resembled De Gaulle’s speeches (Mayaffre & Luong 2003:5). DeGaulle was the inventor of the Francafrique regime (Bovcon 2013:10-14).
Emmanuel Macron has been France’s president since May 2017. Therefore, academic research about his policies or discourse is limited. A discourse analysis that has been published, is one by Turner (2018), which concentrates on the linguistic aspects of his speeches during his campaign, such as grammar and choice of words. Utah (2017) carried out another discourse analysis on Macron, a specific analysis on the deictic elements in his inauguration speech. This inauguration speech was a big rhetoric statement that has been analyzed over and over again in the media as well. The most extensive discourse analysis on Macron so far has been carried out by a group of data-analysts and journalist and is described in the book Le poids des mots (2018). The researchers have used a quantitative research method using big data to investigate Macrons word use during the campaign. This resulted in a raking of words that were most used by Macron: ‘France’, ‘country’, ‘do’ and ‘Europe’ were mentioned most often. In the top 20 of most used words, development aid, Africa, foreign policy or anything related were not mentioned. However,
regardless of the lack of mention of foreign policy in the campaign, the continent that was most mentioned by Macron was Africa (followed by ‘America’ and ‘Asia’). The times he spoke about the African continent, his discourse often did not shun critique on postcolonialism (Gaboulaud et al 2018). Macron showed his aversion against ‘’giving lessons to Africa’’ and refused to ‘’explain from Paris which governance systems should be put in place […] because often that has little
effect,’’ (Gaboulaud et al 2018:164). He used words that implied France and the African continent should not look back ‘’but build a future’’, noting that France is ‘’no longer a colonial
power’’ (Gaboulaud et al 2018:164). Macron often used the word ‘Francafrique’ and insisted on moving away as far as possible from this history. During his campaign he also made the
comparison between this former French regime and the current Chinese, addressing African leaders: ‘’You are committing the same stupidities with China as you did with France in the past […] you have a fascination for ‘big money’. When the money comes your way, you think it’s great,
Original quote: ‘’Le multipartisme est une erreur politique, une sort du luxe que les pays en voie de développement, qui 1
but you don't give your youth and population employment.’’ This analysis provides a good starting point: during his campaign, Macron did not speak a lot about (France’s relation with) Africa, but when he did he made clear that he saw a constructive future between France and the African countries and that he does not see it as his role to tell them what to do. At the same time, he does give lessons, seen in the quote above, which is contradictory. The discourse analysis carried out by Gaboulaud et al (2018) elaborates on the precise message of Macron’s words and focuses solely on his discourse during campaign time and does not analyst the bigger message behind his discourse. Therefore, by carrying out an extensive discourse analysis about Macrons discourse during his presidency, this thesis attempts to fill this gap in academic literature.
3: Theoretical framework
The introduction of this thesis introduced the research question and explained the societal and academic relevance of this question. In chapter two, an overview of existing academic knowledge about this topic has been given. In this chapter, the thesis will discuss several concepts that require further elaboration. The first concept that will be discussed is power, in particular ideational and postcolonial power. These concepts are necessary to understand why discourse is important in development aid. Secondly, this chapter will elaborate on the dynamics of development aid and the specifies of French development aid in particular. Some aspects of development aid are
problematic and thus counterproductive, which will be elaborated upon as well. Lastly, this theoretical framework will discuss Francafrique - a concept necessary to comprehend in order to understand what needs focus in studying the development discourse of the Macron administration. This theoretical framework will serve as a basis for the rest of the thesis and will bring forward a fitting methodology.
3.1. Ideational power
In order to answer the research question, a thorough understanding of power in the international arena is necessary, as well as a comprehension of the functioning of ideational power in this international arena. When analyzing a discourse, this should not be done for the sake of analyzing the discourse. Analyzing Macrons speeches and text on a word-level, as has been done by for example Utah (2017) and Gamboulaud et al (2018) is interesting and gives a nice starting point for other academics, but does not elaborate on the deeper political meaning that can be given to his discourse. The discourse analysis as executed in this thesis has as a goal to lay out (hidden) power structures and to place what has been said and written in a broader historical and international context: words are not just words, but are inherently political. Thus, in order to understand the importance and political weight of Macrons words, it is of great importance to first understand the functioning of material and immaterial power in international relations. This chapter will discuss power in the international arena and the way these types of relations can be shaped. Understanding power from a postcolonial perspective, which will be discussed in 1.2, widens the traditional scope of the concept, while at the same time narrowing it down the type of relation this thesis is about.
3.1.1 Types of power in international relations
Although views might differ slightly from person to person, there is a widely accepted definition of power among scholars, namely that ‘’a person is said to have power is he influences the behavior of others in accordance with his own intentions’’ (Goldhamer & Shils 1939:1). In international
relations, roughly two types of power theories can be distinguished: realist and constructivist (Barnett & Duval 2005:1). Realist scholars in international relations mostly focus on direct decision-making and material power. Barnett and Duval (2005:2) speak of a ‘’widely accepted
conceptualization that is viewed as the only way to understand power: how one state uses its material resources to compel another state to do something it does not want to do.’’ Realist scholars like Ray & Singer (1973) tried to measure this power with mathematical formulas, others such as Manfield (1993) focussed on concentration and balance of power and other concentrated their research of power more around institutions, official alliances and nation states as fixed entities. Material power, so power made possible by financial resources, often intersects with economic power and military power. In the context of this thesis, countries with material power in the form of Official Development Aid (ODA), especially if the money is earmarked (section 2.1 will elaborate on this), have the power to decide what happens in another country.
However, more normative scholars in international relations believe that power can be ‘soft’ as well and that not all international action is solely based on self-interest. Action (or non-action) ‘’also depend[s] heavily on trust, reputation, and reciprocity, which depend in turn on networks of civic engagement, or social capital’’ (Keohane 2001:7). This trust is often based past actions too and is therefore not static but organic, and always dependent on the historical context (Katzenstein 1993). So in order to truly comprehend international relations, ‘’understanding historical and
cultural context is critical to any analysis of how institutions operate’’ (Keohane 2001:7). However, understanding the cultural and/or historical context of a given relation between nations does not mean that human behavior is fully comprehended: beliefs play a crucial role as well (idem). Beliefs explain intrinsic motivations of international actors that go even beyond interests: ‘’Understanding beliefs is not opposed to understanding interests. On the contrary, interests are incomprehensible without an awareness of the beliefs that lie behind them’’ (Keohane 2001:8). The point of
understanding these beliefs is that understanding them makes it easier to comprehend and even predict actions in the future (idem).
However, understanding beliefs and looking at international relations from a more
normative point of view also goes in the other direction, as ‘’these normative structures themselves as defined and infused by power [can be researched], or emphasized how constitutive effects also are expressions of power’’ (Barnett & Duval 2005:5). In order to conceptualize a ‘’consideration of how, why, and when some actors have “power over” others’’, the field of international relations ‘’needs to consider the enduring structures and processes of global life that enable and constrain the ability of actors to shape their fates and their futures’’ (idem). Power is thus also to be
understood as a tool to control international relations in a broader sense. This focus on immaterial power, meaning it does not only take into consideration the financial resources of an actor but also its ability to influence other international system, makes it possible to understand the deeper working of power and influence in the international arena, multilaterally and bilaterally. In other
words, ‘‘in general terms, power is the production, in and through social relations, of effects that shape the capacities of actors to determine their circumstances and fate’’ (Scott 2001:1-2).
The focus on influencing beliefs is important in the context of French imperialism and toxic development, elaborated on later in this chapter, and one subtype of this kind of power is
especially important: ideational power. This type of power places deep-rooted ideas at the core of power relations and can be defined as follows: ‘’the capacity of actors (whether individual or collective) to influence other actors’ normative and cognitive beliefs through the use of ideational elements’’ (Carstensen & Schmidt 2015:321). This can be done by influencing the ideational context in such a way that it ‘’defines the range of possibilities of others’’ (idem). This can for example mean that one actor makes ‘the rules of the game’ by defining the context in which relations take place. In the context of development aid, a study on Amnesty International by Naylor (2011) illustrates how this can take form. By shaping the discourse on the relationship between ‘giver’ and receiver’, Amnesty drew an image of the ‘needy’ receivers. The result of this discourse was that ’’the evocation of pity is an exercise of power as its utterance necessarily co-constitutes two subjects in a hierarchical relation in reference to existing discursive structures’’ (Naylor 2011:185). The main argument within understanding ideational power is ‘’that the core logic of ideational explanation to account for actions ‘‘as a result of people interpreting their world [is] through certain ideational elements’’ (Parsons 2007:96). This elements can be ‘’discourse, practices, symbols, myths, narratives, collective memories, stories, frames, norms, grammars, models and identities’’ (Carstensen & Schmidt 2015:322). Because one actor has power of the way another actor sees the world, it means also having power over how another sees himself and therefore ’’setting the terms of their very self-understandings’’ (Barnett & Duval 2005:10). This thesis builds further upon the idea of discourse as a way of immaterial and ideational power and does this by analyzing the official development discourse to see to what extent unbalanced power relations (dating back from the colonial and Franceafrique era - elaborated upon in section 3) still play a role in this discourse. Postcolonialism is a theory that discusses this form of power, among other aspects of foreign relations, for a specific relation type, namely between former colonizer and former colony and will be explained in the following section.
3.1.2 Postcolonialism
Postcolonialism as a theory started as a way to explain postcolonial relations in the most literal sense of the word, meaning the relations after (post) the colonial era (Lazarus 2004). From this ‘neutral’ theory, postcolonialism started to develop over time, evolving slowly into a ‘’fighting term’’ (Bhabha 1994:23). In this regard, ‘’the ‘post’ in ‘postcolonial’ begins to signify not merely (or even necessarily) ‘after’, but ‘anti’: a periodizing or historical term has become an ideological concept’’ (Rao 2012:1). The nature of postcolonial thought means that it is always linked to a
certain notion of activism, trying to represent the voices of the oppressed in an (academic) world where Western oppression is, or has long been, the standard. According to some, this is even the moral duty of academics. Instead of just analyzing the phenomenon, postcolonial thinkers should ‘’devise strategies for effectively combating and hopefully eradicating colonialism’s most damaging aspect - the taking possession and control of its victims’ minds’’ (Dascal 2009:1). This influencing is not limited to taking place only in strict colonial relations but ‘’may take place […] through systems other than the colonial structure. For example, via the family, traditions, cultural practices, religion, science, language, fashion, ideology, political regimentation, the media, education etc.’’ It is this colonization of the mind, the immaterial and ideational power that one party exercises over another, and overcoming this, both as former colonized as well as former colonizer, that is central to postcolonial thought. As an intellectual agenda, it can best be seen as analysis of the ‘’discursive legacies of colonialism’’ in its broadest sense (Radcliffe 2005:293).
However, even though postcolonialism has ideological elements, it should not be
devaluated to an ideology - it is a valid theoretical framework. Postcolonialism as an academic field is dated to the publication of Edward Saids book Orientalism (1978:9) that put central the idea of an ‘’European representation of the Orient.’’ Orientalism places the idea of ‘the other’ central. This concept places central the way in which one group makes themselves different from others, politically, culturally, linguistically or religiously, and uses this as a way to exercise power over this group (Hatch 2018:249-252). It conceptualizes the international social practices of ideational power by sketching how the Middle-East is seen and represented by Europe: as ‘’the place of Europe’s greatest and richest and oldest colonies, the source of its civilizations and languages’’, which made the Middle-East ‘'almost a European invention’' (Said 1978:9). Regarding the relationship between France and her former colonies, the stereotyping during the colonial era was centered around ‘’dehumanization, slavery, submission and exploitation’’ and this same type of discourse was used during most of the Francafrique regime (Senghor 2015:2).
In postcolonial theory it is essential to understand that understanding about the relationship between former colonizer and former colonized does not just come out of theories: culture and discourse are political as well and visual, textual and linguistic representations need to be taken into consideration when studying this type of relationships (Said 1978:17). Purely theorizing is thus not the only way to study these complex international relations and ‘’modern Western discursive traditions […] mistakenly link the existence of the moral imaginary with political theory and its practice’’ (Grovogui 1998:500). This thesis will (as will be explained more thoroughly in the methodology chapter) focus mostly on the linguistic part of these representations through a discourse analysis, since official development discourse is communicated for a big part in texts, written or spoken, and less in visual representations. Texts can also reproduce stereotypes or sketch ‘exotic worlds’, which naturally will be takes into consideration as well. Altogether, the notion of Orientalism can be found almost everywhere, ‘’culturally and even ideologically as a mode of
discourse with supporting institutions, vocabulary, scholarship, imagery, doctrines, even colonial bureaucracies and colonial styles’’ (Said 1978:10).
The notion of knowledge is essential in conceptualizing these type of immaterial power relations that are reproduced by a broad discourse. Knowledge in this context is not ‘’a
psychological feature of a thinking subject’’ but it represents a structural way to execute discursive practice and thus have power over an individual (Foucault 1968:693). Having knowledge over another party means being able ‘’to dominate it, to have authority over it,’’ (Said 1978:40). The fact that one party has more knowledge or claims to have more knowledge over ‘the other’ has
consequences on a societal and institutional level:’’in the whole society discourse is often controlled, selected, organized and reproduced’’ by one party (Foucault 1971:10). Power is, as discussed in section 1.1, not (necessarily) physically or institutionally repressive but can be found in discourse as well. It is ‘’the complex set of relations between subjectivity, discourse, truth, and coercion in Western societies’’ that is at the core of post colonialism and that places knowledge at the core of having or not having this type of power (Lorenzini & Tazzioli 2016). In this sense, the individual is subject to power structures that he or she does not always recognize as such. This means that ‘’our discursive possibilities - what kinds of thought one can intelligibly entertain as candidates for being true or false - are partially shaped behind our backs, as it were, by normative determinations we fail to recognize as such,’’ (Tiisala 2015:654). As a consequence, being subject to discursive power thus also means living in a structure that defines the way the subject see itself, the ‘self’ (Misselbrook 2013). It is this alleged knowledge-gap (seen from a perspective where only Western theories ‘count’) combined with control of discourse that gave European countries (among which France) the possibility to shape the way the world, often including citizens of former
colonies, the way they wanted it to be shaped: ‘’Western theoretical traditions have produced their own histories and conceptual economies based upon the presumption of the inexorable
progression of an omniscient regenerative Western civilization that they contrast with stereotypes of fixed cultures elsewhere’’ (Grovogui 1998:501). This makes that the legacy of colonialism is not just material through the ‘’physical violence of military conquest and economic exploitation’’, but also ‘’an epistemic violence enacted by particular forms of knowledge tethered to imperial power,’’ (Rao 2012:3).
Postcolonialisms roots lay in this idea, this ‘’colonization of the mind’’ (Dascal 2009:2). Western oppressors have dominated, and in some still cases still dominate, by ‘educating’ these countries with their ‘knowledge’ (Saillant 2011). They did so for example through education in schools, since ‘’schools are potential sites of both oppression and liberation’’ (Zembylas 2018:1), but also through development aid, since a big part of French development aid is centered around education, as will be elaborated further upon in the next section. In big parts of the African
continent, the French language has been during the era of colonization and Francafrique and is still portrayed as being ‘neutral’, because the different languages that were already spoken were
reserved to different existing ethnical groups (Pakarinen 2009). This linguistic politics implies that France is ‘non-ethnical’, neutral, and that the original African languages and cultures are not. When the French Introduced their language, they used a discourse that said that it was ‘’an element that brought in national unity and the construction of a nation’’ (Pakarinen 2009:12). Even after the decolonization and even today French officials follow the same linguistic politics, saying that ‘’French is the language of international relations’’ and ‘’African languages are reserved to private use’’ (Blommaert 1999:309-311). African languages are often still ‘’at the bottom of the hierarchic system’’ (Pakarinen 2009:12) and the government of Ivory Coast has been demanding the international community for over thirty years to call the country by its French name, Côte d’Ivoire (Auzias & Labourette 2008:9, Lea & Rowe 2001:127). It is through this use of education that this Western ideology could been reproduced, because ‘’ideologies are not stable, but they are reproduced every day by schools, administrations, campaigns et cetera’’ (Blommaert 1999:310). This imposing of Western standards that, according to a significant number of postcolonial scholars is still taking place, is ‘’the last bastion of colonialism, the subliminal way the ‘west’ imposes values upon others, without overtly being aware of it,’’ (Hunter 2014:96). An example of this can be found on the website of the International Organization of Francophonie (IOF) - budget 85 million euros per year- ,where French is being portrayed as an element that ‘’brought the nation together after the mess of decolonization’’, instead of a language that involuntary took the place of original African languages (source: website IOF). Some postcolonial scholars therefore call for a radical shift in self-consciousness through the ‘’decolonization of education’’, meaning that if former colonies want to free themselves from the ‘truth’ that is told to them by Western oppressors for centuries, their knowledge should be reviewed over and over again to strip down what the real ‘truth’ is, as far as real truth exists (idem, McLaren 2003). In order to ‘’move[ing] towards a world in which many worlds could coexist’’ for ‘’all those whose dignity has been and continues to be
stripped away by the logic of coloniality’’, former colonies need to (be able to) develop a knowledge that is not based on the European standard (Mignolo 2005:388). In other words: ‘’decentering the production of knowledge itself by beginning from the margins’’ (Cullen et al 2013:510). The same argument is made for development aid in general: actor should ‘’resist the basic assumptions of development aid and highlight the depth and the contingency of the dehumanizing frames that sustain the colonial condition’’ (Bahdi & Kassis 2016:2023). This can be made possible by ‘’demonstrating how and why power can be exercised through a dignity lens, even in a
development aid framework that minimizes dignity’’, in other ways through changing the discourse (idem). This exemplifies how important studying discourse is in this contexts and additionally helps explaining the choice for discourse analysis as a methodology in this thesis.
3. 2. Development aid
The posed research question concerns official development discourse. It is important to understand the politics of development aid in order to understand the weight of the discourse around it - aid is not just a transaction, it implies large political consequences. The first paragraph of this section will elaborate on this and therefore give a brief history of development aid: how it started, the scale of development aid worldwide and the different types of development aid. Secondly this chapter will elaborate on French development aid in a historical context. Because of its ambiguous reputation and sometimes painful history, that will be elaborated on in 2.2, it makes sense to research how the French government expresses itself today about development aid. The weight of the French discourse can only be understood when there is a historical context and comprehension. Finally, 2.3 will elaborate on the problems with development aid that have been given attention among scholars the last decennia. It is often said that development aid is used as a way of foreign policy or a way to mostly enrich the donor country itself, a bundle of actions that is called in this thesis ‘toxic development aid’.
3.2.1 (Under)development
Development aid has played a big role in the international economy since its ‘beginning’ after World War II. Although charity was given long before the Second World War, scholars often mark the Bretton Woods conference as the start of the international development aid structure as we know it today (Moyo 2009:10). In 1949, American president at the time Harry Truman declared the era of ‘’old imperialism’’ officially over, meaning that the international economic cooperation should no longer be centralized around rich countries exploiting poor countries (Truman 1964:115). It was one of the first times that an important politician spoke about ‘development’, marking the beginning of an era. In 1949, this idea took more shape in the form of the Marshall Plan, a massive economic recovery plan for Europe that had as an initial idea to ‘’bolster the economic strength of the western European nations so that they would regain their economic health and be able to withstand
Communist pressures,’’ (Grant 1979:3). In the 1960’s, during the wave of decolonization which made more than thirty five African states independent, the stage on which US interference took place shifted towards the African continent (Grant 1979:4). This was also the moment at which France became very active in development aid, which will be elaborated on in the next section. This new way of interacting with foreign states was revolutionary and this institutional change, which some call ‘’the most original political innovation of the twentieth century’’, took big proportions (Thétien 2001:1). Since this beginning of development aid, its scale has grown enormously. In some African countries, up to half of the state budget has been financed through development aid (Fieldhouse 1999:225-254). From the end of the 1940’s to 2008, developed
countries have spent about 1000 billion dollars to development aid (World Bank 1998:2). In 2016 alone, the total net ODA given by DAC-countries reached a new peak of 142.6 billion USD, an 2 increase of 8.9% compared to 2015 (OECD, 11 April 2017). In relative numbers, net ODA rose as a share of gross national income to 0.32 (OECD, 11 April 2017). Compared to 2000, the volume in real terms of net ODA has doubled (OECD, 11 April 2017).
Important to mention is that since this ‘political innovation’ development aid can roughly be divided into several categories. A famous type of development aid is aid given by NGO’s and particular donations. Although this represents an important part of development aid, this thesis does not elaborate on this type of aid since it does not officially come from a government and is thus not relevant to take into consideration for a discourse analysis on official development aid. In the official development aid category there is first of all bilateral development aid, also called the net Official Development Assistance (ODA) (source: website OECD). This ODA can be separated in gifts and loans, so if a country paid back more than it received, the ODA can also consist of a negative number. Secondly, there is multilateral development aid. A part of this sum is being negotiated in the United Nations, such as the annual donations to organizations such as UNICEF, UNWRA et cetera (Gouvernement francaise 2013). Another sum of multilateral development aid is being given by countries to the European Union, who divides it further to the receiving countries. The last part of multilateral aid is being transferred to institutions such as the World Bank and regional banks, from which a part is ‘free to spend’ and a part is earmarked, so meant for specific projects (source: website OECD).This earmarked donations naturally give donor countries power, since it is them who decide what happens with this money, even if it is not within their own border but within the borders of the receiving country. By giving this money, donor countries buy influence in a way, which makes development aid a form of foreign policy.
3.2.2 French development aid
When trying to establish a better understanding of the dynamics of development aid, it is important to mention France’s role of enormous importance in the shaping of the European development aid strategy and thus the big mark it left on a broad policy that reaches much further than just the bilateral ODA that France gives itself (Dimier 2014). After the decolonization and without the direct revenues coming from its colonies, France could not continue paying for the social needs of the now independent state and could also not absorb all the overseas agricultural products alone (Dimier 2014:11). Therefore, ‘’sharing this ‘white men’s burden’ with other European countries became a necessity for France in order to maintain some influence in Africa’’, (idem). This resulted
DAC stands for Development Assistance Committee, a committee that is part of the OECD and that ‘’deals with 2
development cooperation matters.’’ Currently, thirty developed countries are member (source: http://www.oecd.org/dac/ dac-glossary.htm#DAC).
in France (in particular: former French colonial officials) taking the lead in establishing a centralized European development aid program for the African continent. The following deal was made: ‘’within the framework of an association between the EEC and the overseas countries and territories, France would open its African market (i.e. its colonial preferential zone) to other Member States’ goods and enterprises in exchange for them taking part in the financing of a European
Development Fund for overseas territories and opening their borders to French colonial products’’ (Didier 2014:12). This European association frustrated African leaders and had as a nickname ‘’the new pact colonial’’.
Today, France still plays a huge role in the politics and economics of its former colonies, for a big part through development aid (Balleix 2010). It does so by still placing French language and culture central in any way possible. The French governmental institution responsible for this is the Mission Laique Francais (MLF), a cooperation between de Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Education, equipped with the task of ‘’spreading French culture and language all over the world’’ (source: website MLF). There are indications that this works. In Morocco alone for example, approximately 69% of literate citizens speak and write French, 75% of Facebook users post in French and ‘’French is still widely appreciated by both the ruling elite and the general public’’, (Valantin & Morgiensztern 2007; Arab Social Media Report 2014; Rouchdy 2002). This while the young generation Moroccans has never lived under the French colonial regime. Similar numbers are known for the other Mahgreb countries, Tunisia and Algeria (Aitsiselmi & Marley 2008: 187-192). However, governments of the three Mahgrebian countries have ‘’pursued policies of Arabization, destined to remove the French language from public life and replace it with Arabic, yet French continues to be an important language in many areas of life’’ (Aitsiselmi & Marley 2008:188). Especially after the decolonization, ’’Arabization was seen as the cultural counterpart to political independence, and therefore the governments of the newly independent states took urgent measures to replace French with Arabic as the language of education, administration and public life in general’’ (Aitsiselmi & Marley 2008:195). More recently, political leaders as well as the general population have called numerous times for a bigger appreciation of Arabic in Mahgrebian politics and daily life (Algerie Patriotique, 28 September 2018, Huffington Post Maghreb, 26 January 2018). However, French linguistic policies and politics are still actively put in place by the French government, for example by allocating a 85 million euros budget to the International Organization of Francophonie (source: website IOF).
Apart from this linguistic and cultural component that distinguishes France from most other donor countries, France also gives large amounts of net ODA. Today, France accounts as relatively one of the biggest donors. Although the percentages of some DAC countries such as Germany are higher, France spends 0.434% of its gross national income on Official Development Assistance (ODA), which is a lot compared to the 0.182% of the United States or the relative development aid that other European former-colonists distribute (Spain 0.192%, Portugal 0.178%, Italy 0.295%).
French net ODA is distributed for a big part, 2216.7 million USD in 2010, to the African continent (OECD 2018:36). As a comparison, in 2010 the Middle East received 199.2 million USD, South America 314.8 million USD and South & central Asia 309.6 million USD (OECD 2018:36). From the 58 African countries that receive development aid from France, 25 are former colonies, which is 43.1%. However, in terms of given net ODA, these 25 countries receive 63.79% of the total given aid to Africa. In the top 10 of most-receiving countries, there are only two non-former French colonies (see table 1).
3.2.3 Toxic development aid
As explained in the rest of this chapter, development aid implies much more than just a simple transaction. The ‘biggest political innovation’ of the last century leaves a big mark on international relations, and countries like France use development aid a way to influence receiving countries. In this part of this chapter, a bundle of ideas about development aid will be conceptualized. These ideas range from the ineffectiveness of development aid to the postcolonial argument of
dependency and are conceptualized together as ‘toxic development aid’. This term is used by Edwards (2014) and brings together ‘all that is wrong with development aid’. In the analysis part of this thesis, the term ‘toxic development aid’ will be used as an indicator to refer to this broad range of ideas.
About ten to fifteen years ago, a group of scholars started to doubt the effectiveness of development aid. Intellectuals such as Dambisa Moyo and William Easterly are at the forefront of the idea that development aid does not work. Argument goes that in the last forty years in big parts of Africa illiteracy rates did not increase, extreme hunger did not decrease, poverty rates rose and teen pregnancies rates have not dropped (Moyo 2009: 12-29). In other words, the enormous amounts of development aid as described in 2.1, did not really make that much of a difference -something that might be surprising, taking into considerations the amount of money spent. This raises the question: how can this happen? The leaking away of a lot of money, either because of corruption or because of administrative deficits, is often called as a reason toe explain the lack of progress. The corruption (and politics that come with it) that is responsible for making disappear big amounts of development aid, will be elaborated upon in more detail in section three of this chapter, under ‘Francafrique’. However, it is still important to mention this money loss here, since it is an often-heard argument against development aid. Apart from corruption, a lot of development aid disappears ‘in the system’ due to a variety of issues, often of bureaucratic nature (Moyo 2009:22-25). Sometimes organizations are ineffective or lack evaluation, sometimes the offers does not correspond to the needs of the population, sometimes money is not spent because of political wrangling – regardless of the reasons, this money often could have had more effect when given directly to the population in need.
However, in order to explain how the lack of progress on the African continent can be explained, a more thorough look at the functioning of development aid in African states is
necessary. Often Asian countries like South Korea or Singapore are mentioned in this debate: they experienced enormous economic growth in the past decenniums without the amounts of
development aid that most African countries receive. Their prosperity was not due to donations of rich countries, but was mostly established by opening up borders so that rich countries could do business with them (Gatune 2010). The same goes for the case of Somaliland, also often
mentioned in this debate and culturally, geographically and historically comparable to the African countries where aid did not have a big effect. Due to its particular border status, Somaliland could not receive any Official Development Assistance (ODA) and had to build itself from the ground after its separation of Somalia and history of dictatorship. It did so in an impressive way. In a small period of time it established - despite its big ethical diversity - a solid institutional democracy with political parties, elections and functioning institutions (Jhazbhay 2003). Argument goes that this is not despite of the lack of interference from the international community, but because of it (Kaplan 2008). In other words, development aid as it has been given for decades - including all the interference that comes with it - is not effective, opening up borders is.
Building further upon this idea, there is a postcolonial argument against development aid that is often placed at the core of the development aid deficit. This argument can be applied to any donor-receiver relationship, but applies to former oppressor-former victim relationships in
particular. The idea is that, simply by maintaining the unbalanced and historically smuggled
relationship between one country and another, this restrains the receiving country from developing independently and sustainable. This dependency that countries have on development aid narrows their scope and creates some sort of comfort zone (Moyo 2009:12-16). It is the assistance from the international community, or interference as some would call it, that makes it hard or even
impossible for African countries to build a constructive future for themselves. As they are conditioned to expect help, there is less incentive for them to solve their internal problems
themselves (Moyo 2009:12-16). An often-used example is the choice of ministers or secretaries of states of Agriculture or Infrastructure. Instead of for their knowledge of how to build a reliable Ministry that is capable of dealing with the challenges that come with such topics, the candidates are often chosen for their perfect English and capability to raise more funds from Western
governments or NGO’s (De Herdt & Titeca 2016). Although this might help in some cases on the short term, an attitude like this is not contributing to building a sustainable future for these countries but keeps them dependent on Western donors. Therefore this will be considered an indicator to measure to what extent the development the Macron administration pictures in its discourse can be considered toxic.
Lastly, it is argued that development aid is politicized and therefore less attention goes to the actual problems that need help to be solved. The international development aid construction
gives donor countries a certain amount of power and interference, which resulted in development aid being ‘’an instrument of foreign policy’’, (Simensen 2007:167). Losing power after the wave of decolonization, ‘’aid became a means by which Britain and France combined their new-found altruism with a hefty dollop of self-interest, maintaining strategic geopolitical holds,’’ (Moyo 2009:14). The ways in which this happened will be discussed in the next section of this thesis. Because of the power the distribution of development aid gives to donor countries, the construction of development aid is by some seen as ‘’an international system […] established primarily by rich nations to meet their needs,’’ (Grant 1979:7). This dynamic in which development aid is used as a way of foreign policy, as another tool for donor countries to get what they want in receiving
countries, will be considered as another indicator in the analytical part of this thesis.
3.3 Francafrique
In order to answer the research question of this thesis - if and how official French development discourse still has characteristics from the Francafrique-era - it is of vital importance to understand what this concept means. This often-criticized relation between France and its former colonies in the period after the decolonization will first be conceptualized as a regime. Next, the key actors and how they all played their part will be discussed. Finally, this chapter will elaborate on the way this relation took shape and who profited from it. After having conceptualized Francafrique, the empirical part of this research will be able to measure if and how this attitude is still alive in office French development aid discourse.
3.3.1 Francafrique as a regime
Francafrique is a concept meant to describe the close and often corrupt structure of relationships between France and its former colonies in the period after the decolonization in the second half of the twentieth century. A precursor of the term was initially used by the then president of Ivory Coast Félix Houphouët-Boigny in 1955, who used the word France-Afrique to refer to the ‘’close and amicable ties’’ between his own country and its former colonial power, France (Bovcon 2013:5). Although already back then there was criticism on the corrupt nature of these ties, France-Afrique managed to keep its idyllic image. In 1994, François-Xavier Verschave renamed it Francafrique and published extensively about the ‘’clientelistic and corrupt activities of the clandestine networks of the French and African political, economic and military actors’’ (idem). As Fillippov (2017:1) describes it:
‘’The point is made that the threat of the loss of all military and strategic, political and, in
prompted the Elysée Palace to semi-legal, illegal, and often criminal methods of defending the interests of France in the region.’’
Within classic international relations (IR) theory, the concept of Francafrique can be understood as France’s ‘’sphere of influence’’, its ‘’backyard’’ in the form of former African colonies (Bovon
2013:11). However, explaining Francafrique simply as a ‘sphere of influence’ would not suffice. A better way to analyze this concept is by making use of regime theory, conceptualizing Francafrique as a regime. Stephen Krasner (1982:186) understands regimes as ‘’sets of implicit or explicit principles, norms, rules and decision-making procedures around which actors’ expectations
converge in a given area of international relations’’. These areas cover a wide range of topics such as monetary systems, trade, defense and are usually interdependent. Establishing such a regime is exactly what France did after the independence of its former colonies by establishing trade-agreements, controlling monetary systems (the CFA franc), making security trade-agreements,
interfering in the educational systems et cetera (Bovcon 2013:23). This interdependent system of agreements between France and several former colonies can be conceptualized as a regime (idem). The establishment of Francafrique is a ‘’special combination of latent lobbyist networks of the military-political and economic influence of the Elysee […] on the one hand, and as a specific mechanism for implementing the French version of neocolonialism in political practice on the other hand’’ (Fillippov 2017:1). The ‘’most striking’’ element of Francafrique is its ‘’informal character […] composed of highly personalized, family-like relations between the French and African political leaders and the parallel networks of economic and political elites, organized around a handful of pivotal actors such as Foccart, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand and Charles Pasqua’’ (Bovcon 2013:10).
3.3.2 Key actors
The Francafrique-structure started right after the wave of decolonization, under then French president Charles de Gaulle who ‘’saw the maintenance of a sphere of influence in the African continent as crucial to French grandeur, to his vision of France as a world power in the post-colonial world’’ (Chafer 2005:8). The De Gaulle administration made sure ‘’it was a largely smooth process, and the transfer of power was managed in such a way as to enable France to maintain its presence and a sphere of influence in Black Africa after political independence’’ (Chafer 2001:165). The man largely responsible for designing this new relationship with African states was Jacques Foccart, nickname ‘Monsieur Afrique’, who was De Gaulle’s most important advisor regarding all African issues (Bovcon 2013:10-14). His job was to keep the former colonies dependent on France, even if meeting that goal meant taking illegal steps (Verschave 2002:43). The first step of creating this structure was ‘’selecting and educating African elites that could serve the French
interests […] despite the decolonization’’ (Bancel 2002:29). Bancel (2002) distinguishes three important actors in this process. First of all, there was the white French community of colonizers present in the former colonies, whose interest it was to maintain their hegemony and power on the ground. Then there was the so-called ‘’first generation’’ of African elites, schooled during the interbellum and widely present in their national institutions. The third actor are the ‘’second generation’’ African elites, schooled and trained after World War II in French universities and scholar systems. This ‘second generation’ is regarded as being ‘’deeply local to France’’ (Chafer 2001). Chafer (2001:165) describes how France efficiently made sure its interests would remain protected after the decolonization:
‘’Their French education and political apprenticeship as députés in the French national assembly had prepared them admirably for their role as leaders of the new African nations that emerged from the federations of French West and French Equatorial Africa.’’
By establishing ‘assemblées territoriales’ (French-style parliaments in the former colonies) and placing this ‘second generation’ African elites in the institutions that come with it, France managed to ‘’open a new chapter in the political-administrative control over the former colonies’’ (Bancel 2002:32). Language played a crucial role in establishing this new allies, and France used its ideational power to integrate this element in the heads of this ‘new generation’. By teaching them French and educating them in French, ’’the French belief in the ‘civilizing mission’ of their language led to a desire to create an elite who would think and act like them’’ (Aitsiselmi & Marley 2008:193). For a small, elitist part of the population, French quickly became the most important language. However ‘’it could not supplant Arabic in terms of religious prestige, but it quickly became the main language for the administration, education and large areas of the economy and business. The rapid success of French was partly a simple case of French being the language of the most
powerful group in society’’ (Aitsiselmi & Marley 2008:193). With the help of this ‘second generation’ elites, France managed to get ‘’friends of France’’ as presidents and leaders, who of course served the French interests (Verschave 2002, Chafer 2005:12). Foccart did so by going to war,
assassinating political opponents or electoral fraud (idem). In return, these ‘friends of France’ leaders received a part of the profits made by the natural resources that France took out of the countries, as well as development aid (idem). For over three decades, a small and powerful elite ‘’on both sides profited from the possibilities of personal enrichment and political empowerment that were offered by the formal and informal avenues of the Françafrique regime’’ (Bovcon
2013:11). These French interests that needed to be protected turned largely around three aspects: military, economy and ideology.
3.3.3 French interests & corruption
First of all, Francafrique, especially as deployed by De Gaulle, was of significant military
importance. For De Gaulle, Francophone Africa was ‘’an area to which French forces could retreat if an invading army occupied […] its European territory,’’ (Leonard 2008). French forces where there for omnipresent in the former African colonies. However, building a ‘backyard’ in Africa was not the only French military interest. In the name of ‘stability’, French forces often fought against ‘’political movements that contested the legitimacy of local dictators’’ (Bancel 2002:39). In the first 35 years after the decolonization, the average rate of French military intervention in one of the former colonies was once a year (Chafer 1996). These political opponents were usually less fond of serving France’s interests and therefore had to be defeated (idem). The dynamic between France and the ‘second generation’ African elites made these military interventions possible. Lastly, another French interest in being military active in their former colonies was a simple power play. According to Chafer (2001:169), ‘’military interventions, and indeed the possibility of
intervention even if one does not actually take place, have consistently underpinned the French presence in Black Africa since political independence in 1960.’’
Furthermore, economic motivations played a huge - some might even say the most important - role the Francafrique regime (Bovcon 2013). In the colonial era, the colonies always enriched France enormously with their natural resources as diamonds, forests, petroleum et cetera (Verschave 2002:17-45). In order to maintain this wealth, France was willing to go lengths. After having installed pro-France administrations all over Africa, the ‘’political crime has gone hand in hand with economic crime’’ (Verschave 2002:4). First of all, as explained briefly above, by giving development aid to corrupt African leaders in return for these natural resources. This development aid ‘’has served to underpin French strategic interests in the region’’ (Chafer 2001:168). Although hard proof lacks in most cases , it is safe to say that a big part of this development aid ended up in 3 the pockets of the reigning dictators (Brunel 1993). In 1953, 85% of West-Africa’s imports came from France and nearly all of its export went to France (Lister 1988:16).
Another way in which the French tightened their grip on the African continent was by introducing a ‘French’ monetary zone, the CFA franc zone. This monetary zone was established by France in 1945 and the currency is used in parts of West and Central Africa. The currency is guaranteed by French treasury and its value is pegged to the euro (and before to the French franc). The CFA zone is heavily criticized because it would make economic planning in the countries of the zone impossible (Seraphine 2017). The value is also - due to the planning by the European central bank - very high, which makes it hard for farmers to export their products. The CFA monetary zone still exists today and is one of the most visible postcolonial still-existing
When it comes to development aid, France had one of the lowest transparency rates worldwide (source: Publish What 3
institutions that France has and is therefore heavily criticized (The Economist 2018; Africa is a Country 2018; Survie 2018; Deutsche Welle 2017). Also on the individual level the corrupt economic ties between French officials and businessmen and former colonies were tight in countless ways: the Minister of Interior Affairs and the son of president Mitterrand that illegally smuggled weapons to Angola (Human Rights Watch 2001), French companies like Bouygues and Dumez enriching itself with help from corrupt French politicians and lousy Luxembourg bank accounts (Verschave 2002:17-34) and the dozens of scandals and conflicts of interests of Elf-shareholder with double positions as politicians (Bovcon 2013:22, Verschave 2002).
At an ideological level, ‘’France has cultivated a sense of association and common heritage between France and Africa which has served to cement the links between them’’ (Chafer
2001:168). This cultivation started during the colonial area in the shape of the ‘mission civilatrice’ and was build out in a subtler way during the decolonization period. In the decolonization and postcolonial era, French discourse towards the African continent shifted to the more widely
accepted discourse of the necessity to take care of the welfare and health of overseas inhabitants (Cooper 1996). The projection of the French values on the (former) African colonies has a strange duality to it: on the one hand, the repetitive projection of these values and the punishment or rewards that came with them created the ultimate ‘otherness’ that made France powerful; on the other hand, by projecting these values of liberty, equality and fraternity over and over again, France ‘’offered generations of French-educated Africans the hope of progress and the prospect of a partnership with France to bring it about’’ (Chafer 2001:168).
Altogether, this chapter has discussed three main theoretical baselines upon which the rest of this thesis will build further: Ideational and postcolonial power, development aid and the Francafrique regime. In the next section, clear indicators will be distilled from this theoretical framework. These indicators will be instrumental in answering the research question.
