“I am like you,” young President Macron said to young students who filled the small hall at the University of Ouagadougou in former French colony Burkina Faso. The contested history hasn’t only ruined relations between Paris and Kigali, but has left a stain on France in the international arena. But away from the crises in Francophone Africa, France is working to build new partnerships, particularly with emerging African economies which were not colonies of France, such as Kenya, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Africa. Charbonneau believes the structural foundations of France’s relations in Africa makes it hard to redefine. “The French military has an institutional interest in sustaining French military engagement in Africa or at least sustaining the capacity to intervene...with much influence on the policymaking process and decision-making when it comes to Francophone Africa.”Source: TRT World

Source: The North Africa Journal May 27, 2021 12:56 UTC