A waiter, reacting to the mosquitoes plaguing a customer on a recent hot night here, said sharply: “Those aren’t mosquitoes; those are French people!”
In another coastal African capital — Libreville — in Gabon, a crowd yelled: “We’re sick of the French! Let’s kick them out! Let’s kill them!” after learning this fall that their nation’s reigning autocracy was staying in power.
It is not a good time to be French in Francophone Africa, except if you are a high official from Paris privately visiting a strongman’s palace. As democracy slips in country after country in the region, France often quietly sides, once again, with the once-and-future autocrats.
All summer long, while African opposition figures were protesting, demonstrating and fleeing, men in power were coolly visiting Paris, or receiving visits in return.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy promised a departure in relations with Africa three years ago. Instead, the nation appears to be reverting to historic type, looking past unsavory rulers for the sake of a uranium mine in Niger, oil interests in Gabon and a deep-water port in Cameroon.
On the region’s streets, where people have been clamoring for democracy, this choosing of sides — the side of power — by the region’s old colonial ruler has led to attacks on French structures, rock-throwing at French people and warnings for French citizens to stay indoors or evacuate.
For decades, France played a preponderant role in the making and unmaking of governments and economies in this part of the world. And while perception now outstrips current reality, France is still a principal commercial partner.
Three French banks accounted for nearly 70 percent of the banking business in the African franc zone in 2007, said a prominent French political scientist, Philippe Hugon, and the French government itself says that 60 percent of its foreign assistance goes to sub-Saharan Africa.
The anti-government demonstrators think France still pulls the strings, and while French officials deny this, their actions often suggest otherwise. In Gabon, where the election of an autocrat’s son dashed hopes for ending 40 years of rule under the Bongo family, Sarkozy’s man in Africa, Alain Joyandet, showed up at Ali Bongo’s pomp-filled inauguration, telling reporters that Bongo “must be given time.”
Publicly, France said it had no horse in the Gabonese elections; behind the scenes, Robert Bourgi, a Paris lawyer with documented access to Sarkozy’s entourage, openly supported the candidacy of Bongo, his client. Sarkozy even accorded Bourgi one of France’s highest honors, the Legion of Honor.
In Africa, “opposition to power also means opposition to France,” said Mamadou Diouf, director of Columbia University’s Institute of African Studies.
“We find ourselves in a paradox: The champion of the rights of man practices a politics absolutely contrary to its principles,” Diouf said of France’s policies in Africa.
Joyandet, who is also the French secretary of state for cooperation, disagreed sharply.
“It’s not right; we absolutely don’t uphold the existing power at whatever cost,” Joyandet said. “Everywhere, we are asking for a return to democracy.”
Joyandet pointed to Ivory Coast, where France has been pushing for long-delayed elections.
“France supports institutions, not candidates,” he said.
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