Macron's Unchanging Colonial Reflexes

French President Emmanuel Macron’s recent tour of Africa was another sign of Paris’s efforts to salvage its rapidly shrinking sphere of influence on the continent. The diplomatic circuit, which began in Mauritius and extended to Gabon and Angola after the G20 Summit in South Africa, reveals France's search for ways to regain lost ground.

Throughout the tour, Macron repeated his message about wanting to rebuild France’s relationship with Africa on the basis of an “equal, modern, and ambitious partnership.” However, the gap between Macron’s rhetoric and his practical policies is widening as his term—due to end in 2027—progresses. Despite symbolic gestures in his early years, such as returning some artifacts stolen from Benin, France has failed to shake off its colonial reflexes. In 2017, while meeting youth in Burkina Faso, Macron said, “I do not belong to a generation that tells Africans what to do.” Yet just a few years later, he began reminding African leaders that they had “forgotten to thank France.”

His visit to the island of Mayotte after a devastating hurricane revealed his unchanged outlook. Telling grieving residents they should “be thankful to be part of France, otherwise things would be a hundred times worse,” he echoed the paternalistic tone of his predecessors. France’s military interventions in the Sahel, its power politics in Niger and Chad, and its uranium-centric relationships have only fueled accusations of neocolonialism.

The Madagascar Operation Claims

Recent events in Madagascar demonstrate that Paris’s reactions in Africa haven’t truly evolved. During his Mauritius visit, Macron expressed support for Madagascar’s democratic “transition” and solidarity with its people. But there’s a disconnect between his words and reality.

Local sources and regional media report that Madagascar's leader, Rajoelina (a French citizen), was evacuated from Antananarivo on a French military aircraft. France presented this operation publicly as “protecting Madagascar’s democratic process.” However, there are claims that France acted not out of democratic concern, but out of fear that Rajoelina would expose “illegal payments and secret deals with high-level French politicians.” These allegations highlight the contradiction between Paris’s “transparent diplomacy” and its clandestine interventions behind closed doors.

So, where do these “unchanging reflexes” come from? The answer lies in the deals struck under the table during the independence process and the system established afterward.

Post-Independence France-Africa Relations

As the 1960s approached, colonial France presented its African colonies with a dilemma: “Remain under France’s protection or face economic collapse.” Most countries, unable to resist this pressure, were forced to sign agreements dictated by Paris. These pacts granted France privileges including military intervention rights, first refusal on raw materials with price-setting powers, priority in natural resource extraction, and oversight of banking and financial systems. The French administration may have lowered its flag, but it left its system firmly in place.

Ahmed Sékou Touré, the leader of Guinea who resisted France’s demands and sought true independence, paid the price for his bold stance with “Operation Persil”—a veritable scorched-earth campaign. All administrative documents, telephone exchanges, school equipment, and infrastructure in Guinea were deliberately destroyed or withdrawn by France, crippling the country economically. This violent punishment served as a warning to all other colonies. Thus, even as other countries declared independence, they remained tied to France economically and militarily.

The system France built was designed to perpetuate colonialism through modern means and to bolster French power. The economic bonds enforced through the CFA franc were a cornerstone. Foreign exchange reserves were held in Paris, monetary policy was controlled by France, and local central banks were largely symbolic. The CFA franc’s artificially high value stifled local production, making African countries dependent on France.

France used its aid to control markets and tie local economies to the French system. Aid recipients were obligated to buy French products, hire French engineers, and use French technology. Local producers couldn’t compete with French goods, reinforcing dependency.

The Foccart System: Political and Military Control

Through “friendly leaders” chosen and groomed from among African elites, Paris continued to politically and militarily control its former colonies. Predictable and compliant leaders were considered friends; those who objected or posed a risk were labeled threats. The architect of this system, Jacques Foccart, never directly governed Africa but decided who would. Through the Cellule Africaine (African Unit), directly attached to Charles de Gaulle, he built an intelligence apparatus that reported on leaders’ every move, potential coups, and leverage points.

France overthrew leaders who contradicted its interests through coups and covert operations, replacing them with pro-French figures. Under the pretext of protecting these leaders and maintaining regional control, France made its military bases in former colonies permanent. Stretching from Senegal to Djibouti and Ivory Coast to Chad, these bases not only gave France intervention capability but also served as direct instruments of pressure on local rulers under the guise of “protection.” By placing these bases near strategic points, resource deposits, or presidential palaces upon “departure,” France never truly relinquished control, keeping a close watch on presidents.

This structure, sustained today under different names through former soldiers, intelligence agents, and corporate lobbies, is the tight web known as “Françafrique”—where official diplomacy, military agreements, corporate interests, and corruption are deeply intertwined.

Through this network, France controlled its former colonies politically, militarily, and economically, enjoying decades of cheap uranium, cocoa, and other raw materials. Today, it’s in a panic because it now has to pay Niger for its uranium.

The Breaking Points of Françafrique

The rupture points for Françafrique emerged with the coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. These military interventions certainly had complex internal dynamics—governance failures, security weaknesses, and socio-economic crises. However, their eruption and popular support fundamentally resulted from mass anger accumulated over decades against the illegitimate regimes France had propped up and the economic-political system it had imposed.

France’s Shrinking Room for Maneuver in Africa

Today, having lost influence in its former Sahel colonies, France is particularly anxious about Türkiye’s rapid and deep ascent in these countries.

Even the CFA franc, once a symbol of France’s unshakable economic influence, is being abandoned. The bold statements about France by leaders like Burkina Faso’s Ibrahim Traoré and Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye resonate on social media and in the streets. French companies are also feeling public anger; giants like TotalEnergies face boycotts and protests.

We are now witnessing an Africa that disrupts the old playbooks of external powers and is charting its own course. Populations are politically aware, information flows rapidly, and a youth driven by nationalist consciousness is on the move. African countries are no longer directed by a single major power; the continent is becoming a multipolar geopolitical arena with new actors competing.

Consequently, shifting power dynamics on the continent are forcing France to change course and look beyond its traditional colonial domains. In a bid to repair its tarnished image with this strategy, France is boosting trade relations and investments with countries like Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana, and Angola.

Yet, its economic moves toward these countries are widely interpreted as attempts to forge new chains of dependency through trade and investment.

Indeed, immediately after a recent attempted military coup in Benin, Macron met with Nigerian President Tinubu, stating “No one can be a spectator to this,” and called for regional partners to act—revealing that Paris still sees the region as its natural sphere of intervention.

Conclusion

Though its power on the continent has waned, France remains a significant player with a military presence in numerous countries, major corporations, and billions in investments.

Paris’s fundamental discomfort stems from its inability to maintain the unquestioned 19th-century power it once held.

Because Africa is no longer the old Africa. African leaders and publics have reached the political maturity to see that France, despite all its “egalitarian” talk, has not abandoned its colonial approach. Trying to open “new pages” in its Africa book without cleaning off the old ink stains, France is struggling to succeed. As long as it clings to its old reflexes, its room for maneuver in the new multipolar African order will only continue to shrink.