FRENCH WORRIED BY MADAGASCAR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 000598

NOFORN
SIPDIS

ADDIS ABABA ALSO FOR USAU

E.O. 12958: DECL: 4/28/09
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR AU MA FR
SUBJECT: FRENCH WORRIED BY MADAGASCAR

REF: ANTANANARIVO 304

Classified By: POLITICAL COUNSELOR ANDREW R. YOUNG, REASONS 1.4b,d


1. (C) Summary: France fears a serious degradation in
Madagascar as a worsening economic situation combined with
targeted street violence threatens to unleash more radical
civil upheaval and trigger a second coup to put a military
junta in place, according to Presidential Africa Advisor
Marechaux. The return of deposed President Ravalomanana to
office is impossible, in the French view. His nemesis
Rajoelina however has only nominal power, his popular support
proving shortlived and shallow, with third parties seeking to
inflame an already chaotic situation. The Government of
France has direct equities, including the welfare of more
than 20,000 French nationals in Madagascar, as well as the
spillover for neighboring French island territories of
Reunion and Mayotte, which depend directly on Madagascar for
much of their food supply and other stock. MFA AF
A/S-Equivalent Gompertz will be the sole GoF representative
from Paris at the April 30 Madagascar International Contact
Group (MICG) inaugural meeting in Addis Ababa. SADC should
be present, Marechaux thought, based on a 20 April 2009
African Union (AU) communique; subregional orgnizations were
routinely present at such gatherings, he added. Marechaux
expected France would seek MICG condemnation of the spiking
violence, call for the principal factions jockeying for power
to agree on elements for a return to constitutional rule, and
demand that Rajoelina either relinquish control of electoral
coordination or abandon his own candidacy. End Summary.


2. (C/NF) Presidential Africa Advisor Marechaux pledged full
transparency in explaining French thinking on Madagascar,
openly sharing confidential messages and emails from the
French mission in Antananarivo, during an April 28 meeting
with Africa Watcher. France was gravely concerned that
Madagascar was on the brink of further upheaval. He
described targeted and gratuitous acts of violence against
police and civil authorities intended to provoke repression,
which he attributed to "quasi-Trotskyite" elements who hoped
to exploit the ensuing chaos in favor of a return by deposed
President Ravalomanana. Support for Rajoelina, forced to
invoke security forces against crowds, was eroding quickly.
An instrument of the moment in the upswell against
Ravalomanana, Rajoelina persisted in the mistake of thinking
he embodied the will of the people, yet his popular backing
was in fact shallow and derived almost entirely from earlier
demands for the ouster of Ravalomanana. Marechaux added the
French confirmed Rajoelina's base was weak after their four
consulates collectively reported a muted reception during the
young leader's cross-country trek after the coup. Crowds
turned out, but showed little warmth toward Rajoelina
personally, he claimed. Marechaux cited French ambassador to
Madagascar Jean-Marc Chataigner's description of Rajoelina's
"authoritarian habits" coupled with the assessment that there
was no real leadership or firm grip at hand.


3. (C) Madagascar was in dire economic straits, Marechaux
emphasized. Donors accounted for half its budget, even in
normal circumstances. Some aid had already been cut in
November 2008, before the IMF and World Bank stopped
assistance after the March coup. There was no new French or
EU assistance, only what had already been in the pipeline
before the coup. France would not/not bail out the High
Transitional Authority (HAT) in meeting upcoming payroll and
other expenses, Marechaux insisted (ref). French assistance
funding was already committed elsewhere and, even were there
any flexibility, Madagascar would not be the only supplicant
within sub-Saharan Africa. Compliance with Article 96 of the
Cotonou Agreement on the need to restore legal authority
would condition any European or bilateral aid to Madagascar,
Marechaux stated. France in no way sought to delay a formal
European review of Article 96, which he thought would go
forward circa 18 May. Rather than see Madagascar's economic
distress as leverage for advancing an expedited electoral
calendar, Marechaux feared the HAT's inability to meet bills
in June could trigger a second coup that would usher in a
military junta.


4. (C/NF) Marechaux discounted reports he would attend the
4/30 MICG meeting in Addis, stating the MFA has
responsibility for Contact Group meetings and the French
Presidency does not participate on principle. MFA AF
A/S-Equivalent Gompertz would be the sole representative from

PARIS 00000598 002 OF 002


Paris, flanked by Jean-Christoph Belliard, the French
ambassador to Ethiopia and the AU and former Africa advisor
to EC High Commissioner Solana. SADC should be present,
Marechaux thought, based on a 20 April 2009 African Union
(AU) communique; subregional orgnizations were routinely
present at such gatherings, he added. France wanted to
support the African Union, which was leading the meeting, and
had no ulterior agenda, according to Marechaux. Gompertz,
based on Chataigner's recommendations from Antananarivo,
would likely seek MICG condemnation of the spiking violence,
call for the principal factions jockeying for power
(Ravalomanana, Rajoelina, Zafi, and Rajirak) to reach
agreement, however limited, on elements for a return to
constitutional rule, and demand that Rajoelina either
relinquish coordination of electoral planning or abandon his
own candidacy. Marechaux volunteered France had a favorable
relationship with AU Special Envoy Ablasse Ouedraogo, the
former Burkinabe Foreign Minister. He was less keen on UN
Mediator Tiebile Drame, whose efforts in Madagascar, he
suggested, were not well-regarded.


5. (C/NF) Marechaux was dismissive of SADC's moral
authority, suggesting its official position, as formulated in
Swaziland, was posturing, and that the regional leadership,
in private conversations, was much more cynical and direct.
The views of SADC officials in Antananarivo did not conform
to the Swaziland statement, he claimed. Marechaux offered
disdainfully that SADC's advocacy of democracy for Madagascar
was a hypocritical attempt to compensate for its craven
policies on Zimbabwe. (Comment: Marechaux, while
questioning SADC motives, did not reject the value of the
SADC statement or its content. End Comment.)


6. (C/NF) Comment: Marechaux, who was an exchange diplomat
at the Department of State, is a candid interlocutor with an
imposing breadth of expertise. Before moving to the French
Presidency in 2007, he served two years as the AF
DAS-Equivalent overseeing French policy in Madagascar and the
SADC region. Marechaux, like his boss Joubert, wants to
prove France has decisively turned the page on the past
shadowy practices that made up France-Afrique. His efforts
at transparency on this occasion were strenuous -- actually
making available for our viewing the latest cable from the
French ambassador in Madagascar as well as rifling through
email traffic with Africa Watcher to show that the recent
trip to Madagascar by so-called Africa-fixer Robert Bourgi
had no official endorsement and no relevance to French
policy. (Bourgi, he commented, does provide valuable advice
to the GoF on Senegal, Gabon and Congo-Brazzaville. However,
Bourgi is at bottom a free-lancer and lobbyist who tries to
enhance his commercial profile by playing up his alleged
importance through artful leaks to trade journals like La
Lettre du Continent, according to Marechaux.) End Comment.


PEKALA