France - Africa Relations - Sarkozy
Even before taking office in May 2007, President Nicolas Sarkozy believed that relations needed revision in response to globalization, changing circumstances, and the waning of the colonial and immediate post-colonial periods. He sought a more modern and transparent relationship, ostensibly of "equals," that would allow both sides to conduct relations on a business-like and rational basis. In total, and excluding French forces stationed on Reunion Island, there were roughly 10,000 French troops either garrisoned or deployed in sub-Saharan Africa.
Sarkozy announced many of aspects of France's Africa policy in his speech in Cape Town on February 28, 2008. Among these was France's intention to renegotiate all eight of its Defense Agreements in Africa. Sarkozy said that: "Africa should take charge of its security problems.... France's military presence in Africa still rests on the agreements concluded 'the day after' colonization, more than 50 years ago.... It's not a question of France's disengaging militarily from Africa but rather that Africa's security is first of all, naturally, the business of Africans." These agreements should be "adapted to the realities of the present time.... Contrary to past practice," the renegotiated agreements "will be entirely public."
Concerning Africa, the Defense White Paper stated: "France will conserve a capacity for conflict prevention and for action on the western and eastern sides of the African continent, as well as in the Sahel region, notably for combating illicit trafficking and terrorist acts. France will radically convert the present system of defense agreements and military cooperation agreements in order to evolve towards a partnership between Europe and Africa and towards cooperation on defense and security, favoring the rise in strength of African capacities to carry out peacekeeping."
The eight Defense Agreements were simply obsolete. The Agreements were with Cote d'Ivoire (1960), C.A.R. (1960), Djibouti (1977), Gabon (1960), Senegal (1960, revised 1974), Cameroon (1960, revised 1974), Comoros (1973, revised 1978), and Togo (1963). The Agreements contained mutual defense provisions that are no longer realistic. More troublesome was the obligation placed on France to defend its treaty partners. The Defense Agreements with Cameroon and Gabon, for example, contained absurd provisions obligating France, upon request, to provide internal security in case of domestic unrest in those countries. Some of the Agreements contain "secret" clauses giving France monopoly rights to exploit natural resources in the countries concerned.
As he did in other areas on taking office in May 2007, Sarkozy wrought change to the Africa account. His basic approach was to try to clean the slates, rid relations of the colonial era hangover, and conduct more "normal and business-like" relations with Africans. He was quick to attribute events and activities before his Presidency to "past French governments," always suggesting that he represents a new era.
Sarkozy did away with the "Mr. Africa" position -- at least on paper. He named Jean-David Levitte (who had the same job under Chirac before becoming UN PermRep and then Ambassador to the U.S.) as his Diplomatic Advisor, and Bruno Joubert as Levitte's Deputy. Joubert, however, is also the President's senior advisor on Africa and was previously MFA A/S for Africa. The "Mr. Africa" position no longer officially existed.
Sarkozy used three speeches to express publicly the new direction Africa policy would take, in Dakar on July 26, 2007, in Lisbon at the EU-Africa Summit on December 8, 2007, and in Cape Town on February 28, 2008. The general theme emerging from these speeches is that France will seek to modernize relations, get rid of lingering colonialist and post-colonialist baggage, engage with Africans on a more business-like and arms-length basis, no longer seek to play a paternal role, and instead opt for a partnership among equals. Sarkozy stated that Africans needed to become more self-reliant, less dependent, and to take charge of their destinies without raising "colonialism" and its ills as the continuing source of their problems or as excuses.
In the Dakar speech, Sarkozy said: "I did not come to erase the past, which can't be erased. I did not come to deny either the faults or the crimes, for there were faults and crime.... I have come to propose, to the youth of Africa, not to have you forget this tearing apart and this suffering, which cannot be forgotten, but to have you overcome and surpass them.... Africa bears its share of responsibility for its own unhappiness. People have been killing each other in Africa at least as much as they have in Europe.... Europeans came to Africa as conquerors. They took the land and your ancestors. They banned the gods, the languages, the beliefs, the customs of your fathers. They told your fathers what they should think, what they should believe, what they should do. They cut your fathers from their past, they stripped them of their souls and roots. They disenchanted Africa."
Sarkozy said that the colonist "took but I want to say with respect that he also gave. He constructed bridges, roads, hospitals, dispensaries, schools. He rendered virgin land fertile, he gave his effort, his work, his knowledge. I want to say here that not all the colonists were thieves, not all the colonists were exploiters.... Colonization is not responsible for all of Africa's current difficulties. It is not responsible for the bloody wars Africans carry out with each other. It is not responsible for the genocides. It is not responsible for the dictators. It is not responsible for fanaticism. It is not responsible for the corruption, for the lies. It is not responsible for the waste and pollution.... "
Sarkozy, himself a sharp break with French tradition, was the first French President to have grown up without meaningful personal experience with the colonial era and is therefore free of sentimental attachment to France-Afrique. To Sarkozy, France-Afrique no longer makes sense, with France and Africa needing to modernize their ties and move on, based on a calculation of interests on both sides, which, in Sarkozy's view for the French, boils down to "reward the good, punish the bad."
Immigration remained an important sub-theme to Sarkozy's Africa policy, and was one of the hottest of hot-button issues in France. Advocates of stricter controls fear the prospect of floods of Eastern Europeans and migrants from all corners of Africa, the Arab world, and the Mediterranean entering France and then benefiting from its generous social programs and taking jobs, without assimilating and becoming "French".
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