One of the most significant developments of the early twenty-first century is the steep decline of French influence in Africa. For centuries the French have exercised a degree of power and influence over a broad spectrum of African states, in West and Central Africa, which has left it as the most important colonial and neo-colonial power on the continent. French corporations and banks have long-standing positions of dominance in African economies; the currencies and reserves of most francophone countries are controlled by the French Exchequer through a pattern of dependence and a common currency; French transport and communication companies control access to the African nations; and the French military have bases across Africa ready to intervene in domestic and regional African conflicts.

The loss of French power and influence in world affairs

This is all changing and changing quickly, reflecting the wider loss of French power and influence in world affairs. There are several reasons for this decline. One of the most salient factors in French decline is the French lack of a reliable source of energy. France relies on nuclear power for a large portion of its energy production; the rest is supplied by imported oil and gas from abroad. France (and the French companies) has to compete in the world market with the giants of the petroleum industry (EXXON, SHELL-BP, CHEVRON-TEXACO, etc.) for access to the supplies of crude oil. They do not have the resources to compete in this league so make do with establishing a presence in countries which carry political risks for the majors. That is why they are in Burma, Sudan and why they were among the earliest to break sanctions on Libya. In other nations they used corrupt payments to political leaders, as in ‘Angolagate’, Gabon, Congo-Brazzaville and Cameroon, Iraq to name but a few, to retain a commercial dominance. In the last few years, however, as the focus of U.S. energy policies has concentrated on diversifying Middle Eastern supply dependence to West African suppliers, the French have found themselves outgunned and outspent by the U.S. majors. The new oil developments in traditional French strongholds like Chad, Mauritania, Ivory Coast and Mali have been largely U.S.-led. The French presence in Equatorial Guinea and Sao Tome is almost non-existent (despite French sponsored dissidence and coup attempts). France doesn’t have the resources to match the expansion in this area.

The Terrorist nightmare of the French police and army

Moreover, the French dependency on nuclear power has created a terrorist nightmare for the French police and army. France moves large quantities of nuclear fuels, spent fuel rods and waste on trains throughout France. Indeed, they even take in German nuclear excess. It is very difficult to maintain security of such movements over such a long distance and these nuclear fuel loads are a ripe target for terrorists. With a large and unruly domestic Muslim population, a substantial portion of whom have identified themselves with extremist political views, this dependence on nuclear energy has made France reliant on support from the international community for anti-terrorist information and co-operation. This has limited France’s ability to offend its allies without risking serious consequences.

The Chinese expansion of its influence in Africa is

By far the most important element in the decline of the French in Africa is the concomitant rise of the Chinese and their overwhelming hunger for raw materials. It is a little ironic that the Chinese are now becoming the saviours of Africa, when it was the Chinese who condemned Africa to a long period of ‘benign neglect’ and decline. Up until the admission of ‘Red China’ into the United Nations, the ‘Afro-Asian Bloc’ would meet with the West before each General Assembly vote and negotiate economic and political concessions in return for their support of the West in the annual vote on the admission of the People’s Republic of China to the UN. The moment that China was voted into the U.N, there was no reason to appease Africa or buy its votes. The Korry Report in the U.S. was indicative of the policy – choose nine countries with which to work and ignore the others. Africa entered a period of neglect and marginalisation, save for the struggle in South Africa and the discovery of large deposits of oil in Gabon, Nigeria and Angola.

Now, the Chinese are everywhere in Africa. Over the past six years China has made a determined effort to strengthen its trading, military and political ties with a broad range of African nations. Forty African countries have trade agreements with China. Current Chinese projects include a railway project in Nigeria; a Sheraton hotel in Algeria; a mobile telephone network in Tunisia; refurbished hotels in Sierra Leone; hotels, supermarkets and boat construction in Liberia; aircraft production in Egypt; and oil drilling and production in Sudan. Despite a slow start in the 1990s, China's trade with the African continent reached $18.5 billion in 2003, an increase of 50 percent since 2000. The trade in 2004 was about 7% higher than that of 2003, or almost $20 billion.

In December 2003 Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao attended a China-Africa conference in Addis Ababa and announced that China had cancelled the debts owed to it by 31 African countries; debts totalling $1.27 billion. He also promised that China would open its markets to exports from the 34 least developed African countries on a preferential, duty-free basis. Following his visit, in February 2004, Chinese President Hu Jintao visited Africa to emphasise the Chinese desire for closer ties. This visit was followed by the visit of Chinese Vice President Zeng Qinghong, who signed a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Southern African Customs Union (SACU). South Africa now has become China's largest trading partner in Africa and bilateral trade has increased from 1.47 billion US dollars in 1990 to over 3.7 billion dollars in 2003.  Two-way trade in the first quarter of 2004 totalled $1.67 billion dollars, an increase of 66.6 percent from the same period in 2003.

The Chinese expansion of its influence in Africa is due, primarily, to China’s voracious appetite for raw materials. Its commodity imports cost $140 billion last year, and its trade deficit on them was $100 billion. China’s industries, especially the oil industry, are sucking up the world’s supplies of commodities and creating shortages and raising prices. The impact of China's raw material and food demand on global trade has been so dramatic that shipping rates have quadrupled during the past 18 months.

Although China needs Africa for its supplies of food and raw materials, trade with Africa is a two-way street. China produces large quantities of goods (clothing, white goods, electronics, mobile phones, agricultural equipment, transport machinery, inter alia) which are in high demand in African markets at a reasonable price. China is also a low-cost supplier of pharmaceuticals and immunisation drugs needed in Africa which often bypass Western patent protection and its associated costs.

Chinese expansion has been concentrated, thus far, largely in Anglophone Africa, but inroads are being made throughout Francophone Africa. Chinese trade missions are spreading throughout West and Central Africa offering opportunities for these nations to break their dependencies on France. The direction of trade is no longer via Europe. Transport to the US and the Far East, in terms of tankers, containers and breakbulk carriers are bypassing Europe as an unnecessary diversion and cost. Air routes with the Far East are the dominant destinations in African air cargo operations. Europe, especially France, is becoming marginalised in this growth and its influence is declining with it.

The increasing regionalisation of military relations in the support of stability in Africa

Another reason for the decline in French influence is the increasing regionalisation of military relations in the support of stability. The ECOMOG has a long and distinguished record of intervention in Liberia and Sierra Leone. The Africa Union has recently deployed soldiers to Darfur. The French presence as peacekeepers in the Ivory Coast or the Democratic Republic of the Congo is an anachronism. Their record of their failure in Rwanda, the Ivory Coast and the DRC is an object lesson in military incompetence. Most African states recognise that ex-colonial states have no business in peacekeeping. The trend is for specialist Private Military Companies (PMCs) to take on the role of trainers, suppliers of logistics and communications in peacekeeping efforts by multilateral Africa Union forces. In this, France is extraneous.

The will of African people to free themselves from the colonised narrow mind

France’s strength in Africa has always been its ability to project itself as the fount of culture; the yardstick of propriety. French colonial success was primarily in the minds of the colonised. This, too, is passing. In the time of the internet, when young Africans read world news; where they have access to unfiltered information flows (including the blunders of the French in Rwanda and the Ivory Coast); where the ability to read English is a sign of modernity and the ability to retrieve information from the web, the French days of cultural dominance are over. It will go back to being just another country in Europe, like Belgium or Luxembourg and the new horizons of the Far East and North America will beckon the current generation of Africa.

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