This Wednesday opens at the École Militaire the 4th "Africa on the move" seminarThe conference, organised by IHEDN and the French Foreign Trade Advisors (CCE), focused on the theme of "France's presence in the Sahel and West Africa: what complementarities in the face of new challenges? These challenges are numerous on the continent.
THE NEW DEAL OF THE 21ST CENTURY : CHINA AND RUSSIA IN FORCE
For around a hundred years, until the decolonisations of the second half of the 20th century, Africa was a European preserve: France and the United Kingdom in particular, but also (to a lesser extent) Portugal, Belgium, Germany, Spain and Italy had almost entirely colonised the continent, with only Ethiopia never having been conquered.
The era of independence and then the Cold War changed all that. And since the beginning of the 21st century, two major powers, China (since 2000) and Russia (since 2014 and the Western sanctions following the invasion of Crimea), have become major players.
By 2019, China had accumulated $170 billion in bilateral trade with Africa, "four times more than with the United States", noted Aline Leboeuf, researcher at IFRI's Centre for Security Studies, in the IRSEM podcast Le Collimateur. This is also ten times more than Russia. China, whose 1 million nationals are believed to be on the continent, is particularly interested in the resources (oil and minerals), but also in the military and diplomatic value of these alliances.
With 54 States, Africa represents 54 votes in the United Nations General Assembly, which can provide significant support: on 2 March 2022, 16 of these States abstained during the vote on the resolution calling on Russia to withdraw from Ukraine. Following the financial crisis of 2008 and Western sanctions since 2014, Russia has signed a number of arms sales contracts and military cooperation alliances, notably with Egypt.
RUSSIA, THE LEADING ARMS TRADER IN SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA
But "although North Africa (Algeria, Libya and Egypt in particular) is Russia's point of entry to the continent, it is no longer Moscow's only foothold in Africa", noted Aurélie Vittot, a doctoral student at the IHEDN in November 2022 in an analysis note These countries, including the Central African Republic, Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique and Sudan, are signing defence agreements with Russia, welcoming its private military companies or deepening their security cooperation. "This formula is proving particularly attractive to a number of African regimes wishing to remain in power", says the researcher, as Russia "offers assistance in the area of security that is less demanding than that of the West (human rights and governance)": Moscow supplied 28 % of arms to sub-Saharan African countries between 2008 and 2017, ahead of China (24 %), Ukraine (8.3 %) and the United States (7.1 %).
FRANCE'S NEW STRATEGY FOR THE CONTINENT
On 27 February, just before setting off on a tour of Central Africa (Gabon, Congo, Angola, DRC), French President Emmanuel Macron announced his desire to "build a new model of military partnership" with Africa over the next four years. In order to establish "a new, responsible, balanced and reciprocal relationship", the Head of State intends to rethink the concept of military bases - in addition to the 3,000 soldiers it deploys in the Sahel, France currently maintains bases in Côte d'Ivoire, Senegal and Gabon (the one in Djibouti is included in the Indo-Pacific zone).
He would like to see these bases change their "appearance and footprint" through "Africanisation" and "pooling", with some becoming "joint bases" with the armies of the host countries, and others becoming "military academies". To achieve this, the President is proposing two approaches:
- "A visible reduction in the number of French troops and an increase in the number of troops from our African partners.
- "An increase in the range of training, support and facilities on offer to the highest level."
Repeating the terms of his speech in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) in November 2017, Emmanuel Macron repeated that there is "no longer an African policy for France". He also rejected the call for competition, in an allusion to Russian action in Africa :
"Some are arriving with their army or mercenaries here and there. Dive in, you French, that's where you're expected, that's your role. Go and compete with them, that's where you're expected to be. I don't think so. It's the comfort of past ways of looking at things, measuring our influence by the number of our military operations; or being satisfied with privileged and exclusive links with leaders, or considering that economic markets are ours by right because we were there before; or playing elbows to the wall to put ourselves at the centre of the game. Those days are gone.
THE IMPORTANCE OF COMMUNICATION
Referring to the situation in Mali, where France is "by amalgam" the object of the rejection that strikes the local political class having failed to ensure the country's security, the President affirmed that he would not allow "this situation to recur, where by a spiral of disempowerment and substitution, France becomes the ideal scapegoat".
Without explicitly mentioning information warfare or Russian activities in Africa in this area, the Head of State also stated that France needed to communicate better within the framework of this new Franco-African partnership:
"This transformation requires us to change the way we do things and the way we communicate about what we're doing, first and foremost by being more responsive, more visible and therefore more understandable. We have to take responsibility for our failures, but we also have to take greater responsibility for our successes.