Description
This project is about understanding the popular contestation of France’s influence in Africa. It aims to provide the first comprehensive understanding of why francophone Africans, from a broad spectrum of nations, are taking to the streets against France.
In the last decade, France and its symbols have been the target of violent protests in francophone African capitals. Demonstrators in the streets of Bamako (Mali), Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Niamey (Niger) or N’Djamena (Chad) burnt down French flags and vandalised local franchises of French companies.
The reason why thousands of Africans take to the streets to burn flags has simply been put down to the support provided by French elites to corrupt African leaders who are contested by their populations. Despite years of independence, African nations have retained close economic, political, cultural and military ties with France which continues to yield significant influence in their domestic affairs. This post-colonial dispensation, which France has been able to retain thanks to the acquaintance between its elites and the African leaders, allows the former coloniser to maintain a powerful relationship of patronage and has been referred to as ‘Francafrique’. This unique relationship is at cross-purpose with other African decolonial experiences.
Less acknowledged in these explanations of the protests against French presence is the perspective of the African citizens, and how they construct their francophone identities in relationship to France, and the rest of the world. The paradigm which emphasises the relationship between the elites therefore ignores how post-colonial identities in francophone Africa are predicated on people’s understanding of the colonial past and its continuity in their everyday lived experiences. This significant theoretical shift requires more attention to ethnographic and people-centred studies to empirically uncover how social norms and beliefs, inherited both from colonial and post-colonial experiences, guide the behaviour of Africans towards France.
