Africa’s fading French connection

Press, 14 March 1985, Page 12

Africa’s fading French connection

By

MORT ROSENBLUM,

of Associated Press, in Libreville,

Gabon

Even in Gabon, where the French-owned supermarket stocks 15 brands of Camembert cheese, France’s grip on its former African colonies is slipping 25 years after independence. In the Ivory Coast, the glimmering showcase of France’s postcolonial success in Africa, 15,000 Frenchmen have gone home in the last few years. They ranged from top Government officials to sales clerks.

Few political analysts or economists predict an eclipse of France in Africa. The shift is subtle and slow-moving, more commercial than political. For all the departures, 35,000 Frenchmen remain in the Ivory Coast, twice as many as at independence, and 3,000 are on the Ivorian Government payroll. Technical counsellors advise Governments across French-speaking Africa.

France dominates trade, investment, aid, and political contacts in its 14 former colonies. The Bank of France guarantees a common French African currency, and French bankers handle 80 per cent of all transactions.

Six French military bases total

8,000 men, and 1,000 French advisers train local cadres. Nearly every senior French-African officer has received some training in France.

Guinea, which rejected association with France in 1958, is now turning back to Paris after decades of socialism left it in ruin.

A new generation of Africans is looking away from Paris, however, towards the rest of Europe and the United States. In hotel lobbies, “USA Today” lies next to “Le Monde,” the French newspaper. “Playgirl” is displayed along with “Paris Match.” French officials reveal some nervousness over “la percee Americaine,” the American penetration, in spite of assurances that United States policy supports France’s role in its former colonies. After France withdrew its forces from Chad, leaving Libyans in the north of its former colony, some African leaders made friendly gestures to the United States.

President Omar Bongo of Gabon, a small Central African enclave of 750,000 Gabonese and 26,000 Frenchmen, made it clear in public and private statements he

wanted more American attention. So far, few American officials or businessmen have overcome a traditional wariness of exploring French Africa. Nonetheless, commercial comG tition is building, particularly in ■ger African states which are finding American, Japanese, and European companies often provide better servicing or other advantages.

Japan controls up to 70 per cent of the automobile market, although most sales are through French companies. Lebanese traders are moving heavily into retail sales, imports, and small industry. African officials are seeking to temper entrenched private French interests which, supported by Paris, work together to form a barrier against newcomers. “We are prepared to offer Americans, or others, exactly what we offer the French,” said Jean Ping, chief aide to President Bongo. “We feel it is important to diversify our interest.” Two American companies, Amoco and Tenneco, struck offshore oil in waters the Frenchcontrolled company, Elf-Gabon, had abandoned.

In Togo, officials were miffed when a French consulting firm recommended they scrap an idle

SUS 44 million (SNZ99 million) steel plant. Instead, an American investor, John Moore of New York, began producing steel there at a profit. Even in politics, Togo, like other states is seeking to broaden its horizons.

On the recent 100th anniversary of German colonisation, a decree noted, Germany was the first European country with which the Togolese decided to establish friendship. France took over in 1917.

The decree established a permanent dean of the diplomatic corps: the West German and the French ambassadors would alternate - starting with the German. The Ivory Coast opened diplomatic relations with a number of states, including Albania. Among the most significant inroads are in higher education. In the late 19705, the Ivory Coast decided to ignore private French contentions that American universities turned out robots too specialised in their fields for developing countries. Since then, two-thirds of all Ivorian doctorates earned abroad in technical fields and science have been in the United States and Canada.

“I always push my best people to go to the United States,” said

Achi Atsain, director of the Ivory Coast’s Centre for Social and Economic Research. “French education is too theoretical. We have to retrain people when they come back. Obviously, this will have a long term effect on the Ivorv Coast.”

Two Senegalese Cabinet Ministers hold degrees in business administration from American universities.

Foreign businessmen say this diversity is already evident in specifications and structures of Government bids which in the past automatically favoured French companies. France is pushing hard to maintain its position. Its African sphere not only enhances its prestige but also provides strategic minerals, traditional markets, and outposts for national defence.

In a radio interview in Libreville, Pierre Dabezies, the French Ambassador to Gabon, emphasised the co-operation and aid France gave to Africa. “The difference between France and some other countries is that others have only a mercantile goal,” he said. “I won’t name names, but their goal is to make money. The rest is fiction.” Some argue that France will retain its dominance indefinitely, regardless of policy. Most former French States are committed to the West, and no Western nation seems prepared to move in. Even in the Congo and Benin, two former French colonies that have adopted Marxist ideologies, ties to Paris remain tightly drawn. In Brazzaville, Congo, Soviet diplomats were upset that contracts for projects marking the celebration of 20 years of socialism were awarded to French companies. Edem Kodjo, of Togo, aged 43, a former secretary-general of the Organisation of African Unity and now a professor in Paris, said in an interview: “Young Africans feel almost no emotional ties to France anymore. We are the last generation where that makes an impact, but, still, these young leaders, they need France. No one else makes the effort in Africa, and they know it.”