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Nicolas Sarkozy's Africa policy: Change, continuity or confusion?

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French Politics Aims and scope

Abstract

Three years after inviting Colonel Ghadafi on a state visit, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, was spearheading NATO's campaign against the Libyan regime. This dramatic volte face pointed to a new approach to North Africa, while also highlighting the immobility of French policy towards black Africa. Before being elected, Sarkozy had promised to break with Françafrique. But did he deliver? This article does not confine itself to the usual debate about rupture/continuity but also assesses the extent to which Sarkozy's Africa policy was marked by uncertainty, inconsistency and confusion. It looks for evidence of rupture, continuity and confusion during the Sarkozy era. It then identifies the factors driving and constraining change, as well as the causes of policy incoherence. It ends by exploring the wider implications of this case and identifying future policy directions.

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Notes

  1. All translations are by the author.

  2. Defence agreements were signed with Gabon, Senegal, Djibouti, Côte d’Ivoire, Central African Republic (CAR), Cameroon, Togo and Comoros. Permanent bases or missions were established in the first six countries plus Chad (Utley, 2002, p. 136).

  3. These figures were inflated by the inclusion of aid to French sovereign territories: the Départements et Territoires d’Outre-Mer.

  4. This sacking was also linked to Bockel's poor relations with Kouchner; see Gounin (2012).

  5. By comparison, US Africa Command supports 3500 civilian and military personnel at Camp Lemonnier in Djibouti but has no permanent African bases (AFRICOM, 2012).

  6. Following President Omar Bongo's death in June 2009, France reversed her decision to close her base in Gabon and shut the one in Senegal instead (Yates, 2012, p. 338).

  7. France was more muted in response to coups in other francophone countries, including Mauritania (2008), Madagascar (2009) and Niger (2009, 2010).

  8. For vitriolic responses, see Gassama (2008) and Chrétien (2008).

  9. Chirac began this upward trend, increasing aid to GNP from a low of 0.32 per cent in 2001 to 0.38 per cent in 2007 (OECD, various years).

  10. In 2010, France allocated over 1 billion US dollars to higher education compared with just over 208 000 dollars for basic education (OECD, 2012b).

  11. France has only disbursed 0.78 billion euros towards food security, provided Ł50 million for one year for school places and marginally increased NGO funding (ONE, 2012, p. 54).

  12. For details of the ensuing legal investigation, see Harel and Hofnung (2011).

  13. In 2010, France imported 3 388 000 tons of oil from Angola and 2 791 000 from Nigeria, compared with 1 266 000 tons from Gabon/Congo, her largest francophone black African suppliers (Insee, 2012).

  14. See Le Monde (2011a). On Ghadafi's campaign donation, see Arfi and Laske (2012).

  15. African economies grew at 6 per cent before the financial crisis and 3 per cent in 2009 (Les Echos, 2010).

  16. France's surplus with black Africa stood at 2.1 billion euros in 2010 (Trésor, 2012, p. 48).

  17. Uranium imports from Niger doubled between 2002 and 2011 when they reached 280 million euros (Trésor, 2011).

  18. The views of this so-called ‘Marly Group’ were later contested by the ‘Rostand group’, whose text was, however, cleared with the Elysée (Jauvert, 2011).

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Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Yves Gounin, Antoine Glaser, Philippe Hugon, the Institute for Commonwealth Studies and the journal's anonymous peer reviewers for their comments and support.

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Cumming, G. Nicolas Sarkozy's Africa policy: Change, continuity or confusion?. Fr Polit 11, 24–47 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2012.24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/fp.2012.24

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