With the military coups in Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger coupled with a more enlightened younger generation, anti-France sentiments have been gaining ground in most of her former colonies which now see France as the source of most of the problems they are facing in their respective countries.
More recently, with the victory of Ibrahim Faye as the new President of Senegal, he expressed an interest in redefining their relationship with their former colonial master and stopping the usage of the CFA as their local currency which is also controlled by France.
The reason for the growing anti-France sentiments across their former colonies is not far-fetched. Though they were given independence on paper, the French still found several cunning ways to keep their reins on these countries through various schemes that were “legalized” by coercing them into signing a colonization continuation pact with them.
Highlighted below are the main points of the colonization continuation pact that they blackmailed their former colonies to sign with them before granting them “independence”:
- Colonial debts to be paid for the benefits of France’s colonization: The newly independent countries are expected to pay for the infrastructure built by colonialist even though the funding for the infrastructure didn’t come from France but from the resources of the colonized countries.
- Domiciliation of National Reserves: At least 85% of the foreign reserves of the newly independent countries were expected to be kept with the French Central Bank.
- Right of first refusal on any raw or natural resource discovered in any of the countries.
- Priority to French companies and interests in public procurement and public bidding.
- Exclusive right to supply military equipment and train the countries’ military officers.
- Right of France to pre-deploy troops and intervene militarily in any of the former colonies to defend her interests.
- Obligation to make French the national language of the former colonies and for education in their schools
- Obligation to use France’s colonial money (CFA) which is still controlled by France and was pegged to the French Franc. It was later pegged to the Euro when the French Franc was discontinued.
- Obligation to send France annual balance and reserve reports.
- Renunciation to enter into military alliance with any other country except it’s authorized by France
- Obligation to ally with France in the event of war or any international crisis.
Apart from making her former colonies sign the above pact which put them under continuous economic bondage for the benefit of France, the former colonial master remained very meddlesome in their internal affairs and routinely installed stooges as leaders in those countries that ensured that French interests are always prioritized even at the detriment of their people.
Particularly excruciating was the part of the pact that had to do with their financial resources given that they were being denied the right to issue their currency nor could they decide how to manage their foreign reserves. With France’s control over their currency and foreign reserves, it effectively means that they can’t determine their monetary policy and they had limitations on the issue of fiscal policies which are both instruments that are critical in managing a country’s economy.
However, with the decision of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to issue and use a common currency by 2027, the days of the use of CFA and French control of the monetary system of her former West African colonies seem to be coming to an end.
Another major area of dwindling French influence in Africa is in the military area where countries like Burkina Faso, Mali, and Niger have renounced their military pacts with France, asked the French troops to leave their countries, and are now romancing the Russians for military support to fight terrorism going on in the Sahel region.
While it’s not certain exactly how much France will lose if she loses control of her former colonies, it is certain that the French economy benefits tremendously from their continued exploitation, and former French President Jacques Chirac was quoted to have said, “Without Africa, France will slide down into the rank of a third world power” while his predecessor Francois Mitterand stated in 1957 that “without Africa, France will have no history in the 21st century”.
While the French’s fear of the impending end of the parasitic relationship that she has been having with her former colonies over the past few centuries is understandable, they need to borrow a leaf from their co-colonialist Britain that moved on and continued to build her economy without having a parasitic relationship on her former colonies.
As France continues to lose their dominance over their former colonies, it needs to look inward and come up with a new economic model that would make it less dependent on exploiting poor African countries and remain relevant in the 21st century.
Oshobi, a management consultant, development economist, and author writes from Lagos, Nigeria.