US embassy cable - 05PARIS5459

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