Popular backlash against France\u2019s brutal yet ineffective counter-terrorism operations is compelling President Emmanuel Macron to withdraw forces from across Africa. Last November, Senegal and Chad humiliated Macron by\u00a0demanding base closures, only days after his personal envoy\u00a0unveiled plans\u00a0to shore up his slipping foothold. Recently, the Ivory Coast\u00a0ousted\u00a0about 1,000 French soldiers, compounding the sense that France\u2019s military strategy in Africa is in a state of crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Defense Minister S\u00e9bastien Lecornu\u00a0emphasizes\u00a0that the \u201cpresence of France is changing, but is not disappearing.\u201d\u00a0Yet French legislators\u00a0worry\u00a0about the \u201cvery heavy geopolitical implications\u201d of base closures, and commentators\u00a0speculate\u00a0about \u201cthe beginning of the end\u201d of the country\u2019s military influence on the continent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mainstream debate about the future of France\u2019s footprint in Africa obscures its long and troubled history. Since the colonial era, French officials have relied on a continent-spanning base network, elite African partners, and clandestine operations to defend their political and economic interests. Rather than securing peace, military cooperation has strengthened autocratic regimes and exacerbated social conflicts. The precipitous withdrawal of French forces showcases the failures of France\u2019s strategy, explosive discontent, and the long shadow of the imperial past.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Current military assistance programs have their roots in the security and conscription policies of the colonial era. Over the nineteenth century, French leaders recruited African soldiers through raw coercion and strategic collaboration with local elites while building colonies. World War I revealed France\u2019s dependence on Africa\u2019s manpower, as over\u00a0500,000 colonial subjects\u00a0reinforced troops in Europe and elsewhere.\u00a0Many Africans regarded white officers as \u201cBlack meat grinders,\u201d and\u00a0entire villages migrated\u00a0to avoid sending their youth overseas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
During World War II, over\u00a0one million African soldiers\u00a0served in colonial forces, supplying the sweat and blood that secured an Allied victory.\u00a0Wartime service and international travel stretched the color line, often sharpening the political consciousness of combatants, and the return of newly assertive Black soldiers to Africa unnerved French administrators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In December 1944, tensions peaked at the Thiaroye military camp near Dakar, when officials\u00a0refused to pay\u00a0returning servicemen. Soldiers protested the illegal decision. In response, a French commander\u00a0ordered\u00a0subordinates to attack them with armored vehicles and machine guns.\u00a0The historian Armelle Mabon\u00a0concludes\u00a0that they committed a \u201cpremeditated massacre,\u201d likely killing over 300 African soldiers.\u00a0Afterward, authorities manipulated records to discredit protesters\u2019 grievances, while sentencing 34 survivors to prison and forced labor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mistreatment of African soldiers climaxed during the Algerian War (1954-1962), as France attempted to stifle demands for independence. French commanders fielded Arab and Berber combatants, hoping to\u00a0divide the population\u00a0and demoralize revolutionaries.\u00a0Most famously, thousands of Algerians served as \u201cHarkis\u201d: auxiliary forces that reinforced the regular army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their contribution left a bitter legacy. Following France\u2019s defeat, French officials largely\u00a0abandoned native personnel. Minister of the Armed Forces Pierre Messmer encouraged officials to\u00a0dissuade them from immigrating\u00a0by emphasizing \u201cthe difficulty of an abrupt adjustment\u201d to life in France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, about 84,000 Harkis and their families reached France, where they\u00a0faced grinding poverty\u00a0and discrimination. Authorities forced thousands to\u00a0live in spartan camps\u00a0ringed with guards and barbed wire. \u00a0\u201cThe houses were not heated; there were pests, rats, bedbugs,\u201d\u00a0resident Mireille Bouglouf remembered.\u00a0The camps lasted until youth\u00a0launched an uprising\u00a0in 1975, forcing the government to finally close them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Their struggle highlights the contradictions of military recruiting in colonial Africa. By conscripting native soldiers, France splintered African societies, compelling youth to participate in the subjugation of their own communities. Repeatedly, colonial propaganda exhorted Africans to fight for the French nation: an imagined community that refused to admit them. Their labor built empires and won world wars. But afterward, French leaders treated them as disposable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Following decolonization, France continued to mobilize African soldiers to defend its interests across the continent. In their authoritative book,\u00a0Kamerun!<\/em>, the historians Thomas Deltombe, Manuel Domergue, and Jacob Tatsitsa reveal that French leaders constructed\u00a0a clandestine system\u00a0of political control through military agreements. \u00a0The test case for this strategy was Cameroon. After ceding independence in 1960, French advisers directed a ruthless counterinsurgency war to protect President Ahmadou Ahidjo and crush the revolutionary Union of the Peoples of Cameroon (UPC).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Their influence was omnipresent. French advisers even\u00a0helped pen Cameroon\u2019s constitution, concentrating power in Ahidjo\u2019s hands. Jacques Rousseau and Paul Audat boasted that they drafted it in a single night.\u00a0\u201cIn any case,\u201d Rousseau shrugged, the constitution \u201cisn\u2019t observed much in those countries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cameroon became\u00a0one of the first\u00a0African states to conclude military agreements with France. The arrangement allowed French officers to prosecute the war with brutal discretion, while teaching Cameroonian soldiers tactics perfected in Algeria and other colonial theaters. Perversely, France could act with impunity precisely because Cameroon was independent. Unlike in Algeria, its power was invisible to international opinion, hidden behind the phantom sovereignty of the Ahidjo regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deltombe and his colleagues demonstrate that military and technical advisers permeated the architecture of the postcolonial state. For years, French officials commanded the Cameroonian army. They also ran the national military academy from 1961 to 1985. \u00a0The officer Andr\u00e9 Marsot\u00a0described\u00a0their power, explaining, \u201cyou gave\u00a0the impression<\/em>\u00a0that you followed the Cameroonians\u2019 orders, while\u00a0in reality<\/em>\u00a0you obeyed your French superiors.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A decade-long war devastated the countryside, while exterminating proponents of national liberation like the UPC and fueling atrocities. The Cameroonian intellectual, Mongo Beti, published\u00a0an unflinching expos\u00e9\u00a0of war crimes. One of his sources described how soldiers forced political prisoners to bury their \u201cnaked and bleeding\u201d victims outside a torture facility. \u201cIf one of the unfortunate ones is still breathing, they are buried alive.\u201d\u00a0Soldiers lined decapitated heads along roadsides and leveled villages.\u00a0Infuriated by Beti\u2019s revelations, France\u00a0banned his book\u00a0and destroyed available copies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Deltombe, Domergue, and Tatsitsa conclude that Cameroon became a model for defense assistance in Africa. French leaders linked independence to military agreements that subverted it from the outset: making countries dependent on foreign advisers, training, and equipment. In essence, France exchanged territorial sovereignty for informal political control, as Cameroonians literally took orders from their former colonial masters. The UPC guerrilla leader, Ernest Ouandi\u00e9, believed that independence was an obscene ruse. \u201c[A] new label was simply put on the same old bottle of booze,\u201d\u00a0Ouandi\u00e9 observed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Throughout the Cold War, France continued to teach counterinsurgency techniques pioneered in Algeria and Cameroon to foreign armies, bolstering allies that defended its political influence and business investments. Military aid was especially notorious in Rwanda, where President Juv\u00e9nal Habyarimana\u2019s racist regime espoused \u201cHutu Power\u201d and oppressed the Tutsi minority. In 1975, France concluded\u00a0a landmark defense agreement\u00a0with Habyarimana.\u00a0Later revisions allowed his army to swell with foreign advisers, Gazelle helicopters, and heavy artillery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In October 1990, a group led by Tutsi exiles, the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), initiated an offensive against the Habyarimana regime. Immediately, President Fran\u00e7ois Mitterrand intervened to\u00a0prop up the government, wrongly regarding the RPF as a U.S. proxy and threat to French influence. From 1990 to 1993, Mitterrand oversaw Operation Noro\u00eet, a sweeping defense initiative that included arms shipments, military training, and combat support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Entrenched racism determined policy, while encouraging French officials to overlook the regime\u2019s anti-Tutsi pogroms. Later, Commander Didier Tauzin\u00a0asserted\u00a0that \u201cviolence is a constant in relations between the two Rwandan ethnicities,\u201d suggesting that \u201cthe term genocide would be inappropriate.\u201d Human Rights Watch even\u00a0reported\u00a0that French soldiers \u201cdemanded [ethnic] identification\u201d from civilians at checkpoints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In April 1994, a missile destroyed Habyarimana\u2019s plane, and the remainder of his regime responded with a genocidal campaign that killed\u00a0800,000 Tutsis and Hutu moderates. Nonetheless, France continued to back his colleagues. Dr. Jean-Herv\u00e9 Bradol of Doctors Without Borders (MSF)\u00a0underscored\u00a0that the people \u201ccarrying out the slaughter\u2026 have been funded, trained and armed by France.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That spring, MSF leaders petitioned senior policymakers to cut aid.\u00a0Instead, Mitterrand\u00a0lambasted\u00a0their \u201cpropaganda,\u201d and Foreign Minister Alain Jupp\u00e9 feigned ignorance of military assistance.\u00a0\u201cIt was pathetic!\u201d President Philippe Biberson of MSF France recalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In June, Mitterrand launched Operation Turquoise to\u00a0supposedly protect civilians\u00a0and staunch the bloodshed. Yet later, Commander Guillaume Ancel admitted that his \u201cfirst operational order\u201d was to\u00a0plan a raid\u00a0to \u201creinstate the government we were supporting.\u201d Superiors also asked Ancel to \u201claunch air strikes against the enemies of the\u00a0g\u00e9nocidaires<\/em>, the RPF.\u201d They covertly backed the Rwandan army, which was \u201cjust then in the process of committing genocide before our eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But France\u2019s role went beyond silent complicity. Numerous observers claim that French soldiers\u00a0raped Tutsi civilians. Marie-Jeanne Muraketete remembered personnel raping her in a ditch by the Nyarushishi refugee camp. \u201cI had my baby on my back,\u201d\u00a0she noted. \u201cI stayed in that ditch for three days.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, the Mitterrand administration\u2019s military operations followed an intransigent pattern of neocolonialism. Officials refused to forfeit an abstract commitment to French hegemony even in the face of atrocities. Instead of human rights, they protected the geopolitical balance, keeping Rwanda locked into the francophone world and backing a genocidal ally. Their policy carried the neocolonial logic of military aid to its furthest extreme. But they expressed little regret. \u201cIn those countries,\u201d\u00a0Mitterrand reportedly mused, \u201ca genocide doesn\u2019t matter that much.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Over the past decade, Military cooperation has remained the centerpiece of French policy in Africa, as officials combat jihadism, protect strategic allies, and safeguard economic interests. In 2013, President Fran\u00e7ois Hollande initiated\u00a0the latest wave of operations\u00a0to prevent jihadists from seizing power in the Sahel. Hollande emphasized the theme of partnership with local governments. Yet as the journalist R\u00e9mi Carayol\u00a0observes, French policymakers doggedly pursued goals and tactics from the colonial era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Commander Bernard Barrera exemplified this tendency, while leading Operation Serval in Mali. Barrera openly\u00a0regretted\u00a0\u201cbeing born too late\u201d to know \u201cthe great Sahara campaigns\u201d of the nineteenth century. He interpreted the \u201creconquering\u201d of Mali through the mystique of imperial expansion. Scanning a map, he recalled his grandfather, \u201conce a colonial officer,\u201d recounting \u201clong-ago expeditions\u201d to him.\u00a0Waxing nostalgic, Barrera cast Africa as a blank slate for French military feats, while neglecting the roots of political crises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He was not alone. One influential commander, Lieutenant Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Gout,\u00a0asserted\u00a0that Africa exists \u201cin another time,\u201d suggesting that France keep \u201ca \u2018paternal\u2019 watch\u201d on Mali because it was supposedly backward. \u00a0In military circles, intellectuals such as Bernard Lugan brazenly\u00a0defended colonialism, arguing, \u201cMali wasn\u2019t killed by colonization, but by independence.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile, Amnesty International concluded that French cooperation with Malian forces\u00a0fostered extrajudicial executions\u00a0and\u00a0torture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ultimately, military assistance discouraged African elites from pursuing reform or sharing power, while failing to halt rebel attacks. Support for France plummeted. Beginning in 2020,\u00a0a string of military coups\u00a0in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger led to the expulsion of French forces from the Sahel. Ironically, the very armies that absorbed the most foreign advisers and assistance demanded France close its bases and leave the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Recently, the French Senate published\u00a0a landmark study\u00a0that concludes its country has triggered continent-wide backlash by supporting \u201cpredatory\u201d governments and \u201caging ruling classes\u201d that cling to power. And the legacy of military cooperation remains devastating: In 2020 and 2021 alone, French partners perpetrated 47 percent of the 4,200 documented civilian casualties in Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yet legislators and senior officials insist on preserving France\u2019s postcolonial empire in Africa, focusing on immediate setbacks to avoid more fundamental questions. Hubris continues to define policy, as officials undercut efforts to restore influence with their own racism. Portraying Africans as spoiled children, President Macron\u00a0claims\u00a0that they \u201cforgot to say thank you\u201d for French military cooperation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For two centuries, France has mobilized security forces to extract wealth and influence politics in Africa. The current crisis makes the invisible sinews of military power embarrassingly apparent as they dissolve. In response, officials are racing to revamp bases in\u00a0Djibouti,\u00a0Gabon, and elsewhere. Over a half century after decolonization, France professes to defend the sovereignty of a continent that it steadfastly refuses to leave.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Popular backlash against France\u2019s brutal yet ineffective counter-terrorism operations is compelling President Emmanuel Macron to withdraw forces from across Africa. Last November, Senegal and Chad humiliated Macron by\u00a0demanding base closures, only days after his personal envoy\u00a0unveiled plans\u00a0to shore up his slipping foothold. Recently, the Ivory Coast\u00a0ousted\u00a0about 1,000 French soldiers, compounding the sense that France\u2019s military […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[212,15],"tags":[7,213,25],"class_list":{"0":"post-40499","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-history","8":"category-politics","9":"tag-apie-project","10":"tag-history","11":"tag-politics"},"yoast_head":"\nDefending Fran\u00e7afrique<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
In Through the Out Door<\/h2>\n\n\n\n