THE FUTURE OF FRANCE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 PARIS 005459

SIPDIS

EUCOM FOR POLAD SNELL, DOD FOR OSD/ISA WHELAN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/11/2015
TAGS: PREL PGOV PHUM KDEM XA FR
SUBJECT: THE FUTURE OF FRANCE IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Josiah Rosenblatt for reaso
ns 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: France faces several challenges to its
traditional leadership role among its former colonies and
Africa's other francophone countries. We foresee a gradual
decline of French influence in Africa, based on generational
change, an increased willingness on the part of Africans to
look beyond France to meet their needs, increased engagement
by others in Africa (including the U.S.),changes in the
nature of Africa's problems, and limitations on France's
ability to devote resources and attention to Africa in the
face of other priorities.


2. (C) Although President Chirac, still France's "Africa
desk officer," may attempt to operate on the belief that the
old model (French primacy and African deference) remains
effective, the French appear increasingly open to cooperation
with others, including the U.S. However, while France's
difficulties in maintaining influence in Africa may produce
opportunities for the U.S., France will likely continue to
prefer EU and/or UN involvement to U.S./UK or NATO
engagement, as France has demonstrated in seeking only a
limited NATO role in Darfur. Nonetheless, it is essential
that the U.S. prepare to assume greater responsibility for
addressing urgent developments in Africa that France might
previously have sought to manage alone or with minimal
assistance. We should seek to work with the French and
ensure a continued meaningful French contribution in Africa.
This is the valedictory message of Charles Neary, who departs
Paris after four years as Africa Watcher. END SUMMARY.

THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT: FRANCE'S "SPECIAL RELATIONSHIP"


3. (C) After a long colonial presence that formally ended
barely two generations ago, France remains engaged in
francophone Africa, where it attempts to maintain its
political, economic, and cultural influence. Most notably,
it retains five permanent military bases in Chad, Cote
d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Gabon, and Senegal. In addition, other
units serve at any given time with multinational forces in
several African countries (at present, mainly in Cote
d'Ivoire). The roughly 11,000 French forces stationed either
permanently or on temporary deployment in Africa amount to 63
percent of all French forces located outside metropolitan
France. Politically, France organizes bi-annual
France/Africa summits, alternating between France and Africa,
which are well attended by African leaders. The most recent
(Paris 2003) drew 46 heads of state and government; the next
takes place in Mali in December 2005.


4. (C) Culturally, France leads the "Organisation
Internationale de la Francophonie," a grouping that includes
francophone Africa and serves to enhance French influence.
Francophone African countries participate in this
organization more for pragmatic than sentimental reasons or
out of self-identification with France. This will be even
more the case as true African Francophiles, such as Senegal's
Senghor and Cote d'Ivoire's Houphouet-Boigny, pass from the
scene. The last "Francophonie" summit occurred in Burkina
Faso in November 2004 and was inevitably dominated by the
Cote d'Ivoire crisis. "Francophonie" will remain a
significant concept in some African countries but its role in
Africa is likely to wane, as it has in former French
Indochina.


5. (C) From the African perspective, certain elements of
the French model remain important, with the French
educational system, governmental and bureaucratic structures,
and ways of doing business, entrenched in many former
colonies. Notions of "Francophonie" aside, the French
language remains a neutral and unifying force in some African
countries, where several local languages may vie for
dominance and familiarity with a Western language is deemed
essential.


6. (C) Africa continues to enjoy a unique status within the
GoF policy-making apparatus. The Presidency continues to
operate a small "Africa Cell," set apart from the "Diplomatic
Cell," that is uniquely responsible for Africa. The
influence of the Presidency on African affairs is likely to
continue for now, given that Foreign Minister Philippe
Douste-Blazy, like his predecessor, Michel Barnier, has
little experience with Africa. Douste-Blazy, a former
Minister of Health and a physician, may, however, be more
attuned than his predecessor to Africa's health care
problems, and he visited Chad, Sudan, and Niger in July 2005
not long after taking office.
BUT CHANGE IS COMING


7. (C) Although the arrangements described above remain in
place and continue to function, it is not clear whether they
will allow France to influence francophone Africa as
successfully as they did during the early post-colonial
period now ending. Other forces -- generational,
demographic, and political/cultural -- are making it more
difficult for France to maintain the kind of influence in
Africa that it was long able to take for granted.
GENERATIONAL CHANGE: LEADERSHIP


8. (C) Like his predecessors, President Chirac has
cultivated African leaders for decades and regards many of
them, such as Gabon's Bongo, Chad's Deby, and Congo's Sassou,
as personal friends. These relationships and friendships
have been an important element of GoF Africa policy for
years. However, Chirac may be the last in a line of French
leaders able to maintain such ties. Chirac's 2007
re-election prospects look dim; none of his likely successors
(with the possible exception of PM de Villepin, who served in
the MFA's Africa Bureau earlier in his career) has had such
close, sustained relationships with African leaders.


9. (C) Generational and demographic change in Africa is
also weakening Africa's ties to France. Gone are the days
when many of francophone Africa's first generation of
independent leaders were members of the French establishment,
as were Senghor (Academie Francaise) and Houphouet-Boigny
(former GoF Minister and French parliamentarian).


10. (C) Today's francophone African leaders seem less
inclined to bow reflexively towards France. This is a result
of the general decline of France's international profile and
also the increased exposure of Africans to other societies,
such as the U.S., in today's global environment. Some of
Africa's current leaders, such as Ivoirian President Gbagbo
and, to a lesser extent, Senegalese President Wade and
Djiboutian President Guelleh, who reached political maturity
after independence, are not so compliant as their
predecessors. As Africans even further removed from the era
of French dominance assume leadership, this trend is likely
to accelerate. We would welcome comments from African post
on their host countries' views towards France and regarding
the other issues discussed in this cable.

AFRICA'S CHALLENGES REQUIRE A BROADER APPROACH


11. (C) A growing number of French policy makers recognize
that the challenges of sub-Saharan Africa require increased
cooperation with partners, particularly Europeans and
Americans. Africa's post-colonial problems have grown
rapidly and exponentially in a broad number of areas --
environmental degradation, serious population pressures,
health care (HIV/AIDS, among other pandemics),unchecked
urbanization and its accompanying social ills, illicit drugs
and international crime, terrorism, and innumerable cases of
ethnic conflict. These are no longer problems that can be
addressed by a wink and a nod between a French president and
an African counterpart well versed in French ways.


12. (C) As Africa's problems have grown, so too have
problems in other regions. Chirac's diplomatic advisor
Gourdault-Montagne candidly remarked to us recently that
Africa remained important to France but more in terms of
"rhetoric than reality," with France much more concernedabout the Middle East
and Maghreb. Some French commentators
have remarked that FM Douste-Blazy's well-publicized July
28-30 visit to Chad, Sudan, and Niger was ultimately more
form than substance.

ACKNOWLEDGING CHANGE, BRINGING IN OTHER PARTNERS


13. (C) France announced in 1999 that it would no longer
conduct a "go it alone" policy in Africa. This policy change
was partly the result of "cohabitation," with Socialist PM
Jospin successfully imposing an Africa policy based on
"non-interference." However, the policy was also a tacit
acknowledgment that there were limits to the old policies.
Former FM Barnier's buzzword for this development was
"mutualisation," roughly meaning burdensharing, particularly
with EU partners, but also including non-EU partners such as
the U.S.


14. (C) As a result, France has begun to welcome the
engagement of others in African problems that it might once
have sought to manage alone. In the first instance, this
means turning to European partners. In September 2003,
Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie hailed the French-led
EU force (Operation Artemis) in the DRC as a total success,
and claimed that the collective action of Europe in Operation
Artemis was part of a significant evolution of European
collective security policy. She subsequently allowed the EU
mission to be turned over to the UN.


15. (C) This does not mean that "mutualisation" is without
its problems, especially when it comes to the UK and/or the
U.S. Although many French familiar with Africa would agree
that the multilateral global approach suggested by UK PM
Blair within the G-8 context is an increasingly appropriate
way to address Africa's problems, they resent at some level
UK leadership in a region long associated with France.
France will also continue to demonstrate a preference for EU
or UN rather than NATO involvement, as we were reminded by
French blocking efforts, ultimately unsuccessful, concerning
NATO and Darfur. In terms of trans-Atlantic theology, Africa
may appear to the French as a potential testing ground for
the EU's nascent military capabilities (ESDP),and it is
possible that in response to future African crises requiring
intervention, France could try again to limit NATO's
involvement, despite the Darfur precedents.


16. (C) France's approach to democracy and good governance
in Africa is far removed from the activist agenda announced
by President Mitterrand on June 20, 1990, when he conditioned
French assistance to Africa on democratic reform. In a nod
to expediency in an increasingly unfavorable environment,
Chirac is more willing to regard democracy as a luxury for
Africa, as evidenced by France's muted responses to efforts
by African rulers to change their countries' constitutions to
prolong their hold on power. Stability remains the
watchword. Thus, African leaders such as Chad's Idriss Deby
seem confident that they need not fear French criticism, and
indeed FM Douste-Blazy expressed support for Deby during his
July visit. As part of this preference for stability, France
will continue to issue statements critical of military coups
d'etat and assassinations, but such statements may be pro
forma in those instances where a sense of stability replaces
chaos or when unreliable rulers are replaced by successors
more willing to work with Paris, as was the case when
Francois Bozize took power from Felix-Ange Patasse in the
CAR, and which may be the case following Mauritania's recent
coup.

BUT CHANGE WILL NOT BE COMPLETE UNTIL CHIRAC IS GONE


17. (C) Although trend lines are emerging, this new, more
cooperative policy will not fully establish itself until
Chirac leaves power. He still embodies the "old school,"
wedded to the traditional France-Africa model that sees
Africa as a zero-sum game in which any advance by the
"Anglo-Saxons" in what the French view as France's back yard
is a loss for French prestige and influence. Chirac likes to
present himself as the champion of the developing world. He
also sees his ties with African rulers as a means of
obtaining international support for French positions
unrelated to Africa, as he did by having the France/Africa
summit in 2003 declare opposition to military action in Iraq.


18. (C) France cannot expect additional help in Africa and
at the same time hope to retain a position of primacy. The
French understand the significance of U.S. initiatives with
direct or indirect effects in Africa (AGOA, Millennium
Challenge Account, Trans-Sahel Counter Terrorism Initiative,
and others) that may contribute to stability in Africa, but
at the same they resent the "Anglo-Saxon encroachment" these
activities represent. Cultural and geo-political
considerations notwithstanding, the French have so far not
actively resisted these programs, perhaps in deference to the
pressing need to seek broad assistance with Africa's
problems, but they may do so if they perceive their own
influence eroding beyond an acceptable limit.

IMPLICATIONS FOR THE UNITED STATES


19. (C) We should not be quick to conclude (much less
rejoice) that increased U.S. influence in Africa at France's
expense represents an automatic boon to the U.S. Although we
have not always agreed with France's approach to a range of
African issues, our basic interests there have remained
similar, and the French, with their long experience in
Africa, unique ties, and skill at getting things done, have
for many years taken on a significant portion of the
challenges and costs of helping Africa address its problems.
It will thus remain in U.S. interests to engage France as a
key regional player even as our influence increases.

WORKING WITH FRANCE


20. (C) While there is a growing sense in Paris of the need
for cooperation, particularly with London and Washington, on
Africa (especially on conflict resolution),Chirac remains
the ultimate Africa desk officer and decision-maker, and he
will, to the extent he can, try to continue to operate on the
old model based on France's historic role in Africa. At a
minimum, it is critical to ensure that we consult the French
on issues affecting Africa in general, and francophone Africa
in particular. Periodic senior-level consultations
alternating between capitals could serve both sides in terms
of information exchange, policy coordination, and pursuit of
our common interests. We anticipate that Chirac will remain
skeptical of forceful U.S. calls for increased progress on
democratization (witness France's alacrity in accepting
Togo's election results after Eyadema's death). When he
passes from the political scene, there should be room to work
with the next generation of French decision makers on
advancing our democratic agenda and helping Africa overcome
its problems.
Hofmann