 Good afternoon. My name is Barry Colfer and I'm the director of research here at the Institute of International European Affairs in Dublin. I'm very pleased to welcome you to this webinar. We're absolutely thrilled to be joined today by two experts. Firstly, Catherine Jagu, associate professor in international relations at the University of Nottingham, and Dr. Dongo Sambasila, who's a research and policy director for Africa with the International Development Economics Associates, who've each been generous enough to take their time out of their busy schedules to speak with us, so thank you to them. Dr. Jagu and Dr. Dongo will speak for about 20 minutes, and then as ever, we'll go to the all important Q&A with your audience. You'll be able to join the discussion using the Q&A function on Zoom, which should be visible in your screen, and please feel free to put your questions in throughout the session as they occur to you. A reminder as ever that today's presentation and Q&A are both on the record, and please feel free to join the discussion on Twitter using the handle at IIEA. This event is being live streamed on YouTube, so we are very warm welcome to all of you who are tuning in today via that platform. I'll now formally introduce Dr. Catherine Jagu and hand over to her, and then once Dr. Jagu is finished, Dr. Dongo Sembasila will follow, but I'll introduce both of you now just for the interest of a smooth transition. Dr. Catherine Jagu is associate professor in international relations at the University of Nottingham. Dr. Jagu was visiting professor at Harvard's Kennedy School in 2019, and she is completing a very interesting standing manuscript on the EU and sustainable development in the Global South. She wrote the books Why Europe Intervenes in Africa and European Foreign and Security Policy. Dr. Dongo Sembasila is Senegalese Development Economist, and he's currently the Research and Policy Director for Africa with the International Development Economics Associates in Dakar as mentioned. He authored Africa's Last Colonial Currency, the CFA Frank Story, and co-edited Economic and Monetary Sovereignty for 21st Century Africa. Colleagues, thank you again very much for being with us. Welcome to Virtual Dublin, and the floor is yours for the next 20 or so minutes. Thanks. Thank you very much, Barry, and everyone. Thank you very much for the invitation. So I have a PowerPoint presentation. I don't know if you could put it up. Thank you very much. So, on slide number one. Thank you. Okay, so the topic of today is Requiem for France-Afrique, the changing nature of relations between Africa and France. So what I'd like to do today is basically use the findings of my second and third book. So the second book was Why Does Europe Intervene in Africa? And one of the case studies was France. It was, of course, the biggest chapter. And so I'm going to go through that and show what has changed for France. And I should use also a bit of my last book that I'm currently finishing on what Europe does for sustainable development in the global south and what it does not do, and actually link what France and the EU could do now in Africa and more widely in the global south. So if you could just show the next slide. So the plan and the argument is just briefly look at the context in general. See that today, of course, is no longer the francophone zone against the anglophone zone. It wired them to China, but to many other states too. So that's the general context. Then look at why is France in Africa and how has its policies changed. And introduce you to the four categories that you are used. And I find quite useful to understand how its position has changed. And of course, say, well, it is the end of France Africa. And then look at challenges and possibly offer some solutions to the fact that there's a problematic presence still of military bases. And say how important it would be for France, but also other EU states and other states in the world to focus actually on economic and social development rather than military presence, which is usually what we talk about when we talk about relations between France and Africa or other global power politics relations. So next slide please. So we have got back here, a really useful maps. It just shows us what different states are present in Africa. So all the different military bases, so it has really expanded. So we have, of course, a huge presence of the US France. UK has, well, vastly reduced as well its presence on the African continent, but then of course we have new states. The most known states there at the moment, of course, are China and Russia with a vaginal group. So France is very concerned with the vaginal groups present on the African continent. So that's just in terms of context to say that whatever France wants to do is going to depend, of course, on African agency, but it's also depending on who else is there and who else can propose whatever security system or economic advantages to different states interest in Africa. Next slide please. So why is France in Africa? So this was what I used as a framework in my book, and it's very straightforward and it's quite easy to understand why is any state in Africa where there are security interests, economic interests, prestige and humanitarianism. So as you can see, it's the mixture of realist motives, liberal motives, and actually humanitarianism is there too, and that would have been coming from the liberal constructivist tradition of international relations where you say, oh, but it matters what's going on in Africa. You know, states might care, actually, if war crimes or genocide is being committed. But so if we look at all these different interests, I ended up staying in my book that for France, it was of course, cause security that prevailed, economic interests disappearing, prestige had a huge power and I'm going to go through these. And humanitarianism was present, but as last issue. There are two dates that we need to keep in mind for France and how it changed in Africa. I would argue it was not Ruranda 94 that made France change its policies. It was actually, long after Ruranda, it was actually Ivory Coast in 2004. And that's when it just said, okay, French soldiers have been killed, enough is enough. Of course, after Ruranda, they realized they had to multilateralize much more, but they were desperately asking other states, please, please come on board, you know, EU, please come on board. 2003 was the first EU operation in Congo. And so it's quite interesting that it was 2004 where they just said, okay, now we are going for multilateralism. We don't want to be alone anymore on the African continent. And actually it's quite interesting that when it was through WikiLeaks, but I found out that France relations with the US actually became much more trustworthy between the two states in 2005, but it took until 2005 to have that right. So it's quite interesting that multilateralism then changed in 2004 to in 2005. So that's the major change. And now, more recently, 2023 is a new milestone because now, of course, you have some states who just say, we want you out. And that's new because actually until then, many states were using France as well to better an advantage because it was good if you're an authoritarian regime and you wanted to get rid of your opposition, France could support you. So actually, agency of some African governments was we want France in because we want France to protect us against potential opponents. So that's generally just keeping in mind, 2004, 2023, and now I'm just going to go through all these different interests and see how it changed. So next slide, please. Sarah, thank you. So security interests. So it's quite interesting that in the past it was basically better the devil, you know, so it was better to keep in touch with even authoritarian regimes than to have a coup d'etat and not know who the opposition would be. But now, basically, it's better out right and we have to keep in mind that there have been 28 military interventions, French military interventions since the end of the Cold War. So that's really many and it can be in support of the leader or in support of the opposition, but now the position is better out. So that's for the security interest. It's quite interesting that migration has always been a reason for France to say, oh, we need to be in Africa, in African states, but actually there was very little migration from different African states to France over time. So that was a bit of a strange justification, especially when we see what then what happened with studio to see the difference terrorism. Well, France has failed on terrorism, but actually the argument is well, could it be worse now that France is out and instead we have paramilitary groups and zones of influence. So that's quite interesting how that changed. So as I said in 2004, 2005, it used to be really France against UK US and then of course the concern about China. So next slide please. Economic interest. So I would argue it's no longer and actually for a long time it hasn't been the main reason for intervention. Of course, France is careful about its interest, but it's not going to go in because of that as a primary reason. Prestige is absolutely stunning because it's really the idea of French prestige of the UN. And that was so important for France. And so the idea is today is it gone because actually a lot of African states don't want France there anymore. So there are different types of prestige internal which would be for being reelected or hoping to be reelected in France, but also prestige in the rest of the world towards the US. And humanitarianism, as I said, it wasn't really a main reason, but sometimes it helped the rest of the other reasons. Next slide please. Okay, so now the general idea is now that we know that France is changing policy. What should it be doing in the future? And here I'm jumping straight into French relations with the EU. Because the idea was to talk about Macron's France-Afric, a new relationship, a new partnership, but actually the only way out for France is Europe. If it wants to have good relations with the rest of Africa, it's going to be through Europe. So I think it's really important for us that when we're talking about relations between France and Africa, we stop just focusing on security. If there's a really narrow understanding of relationships. And as we saw with all those military bases, those military bases aren't going to lead to peace in different African states which are facing conflicts. What would lead to peace and what would stop migration actually would be sustainable development, economic and social development. So it's only possible to do that at European level with trade aid and regalations. So next slide please. So just in trade, it's quite interesting to see that actually African trade is almost irrelevant for the EU. And so to what extent is really Africa going to count for what the EU is doing. So we do have now a bit of investment policies. It's 58% of exports from Africa are mineral products. So we've got to see, well, what can the EU do then about these mineral products? How can it make sure that actually labor rights are respected when there are exports of mineral products? And then these conditions which are entering the trade, partnership relations, human rights, labor rights, environmental rights and women's rights are being included, but it's coming in progressively. So that's for trade. Next slide please. So investments, Europe is still biologically just investing in Africa. So China is arriving, but actually when you compare data, Europe is far ahead. There's this EU global gateway initiative. So we'll have to see it says there's going to be 150 billion euros for Africa itself. So here we can see, and actually Vines have mentioned this myth bursting like investment of China is 2 billion, right? If you compare with Europe, it's 240 billion. So there's a huge difference in investments. Okay, next slide please. So aid, as you can see, actually it's not given that Sub-Saharan Africa is the poorest region in the world. It's not given that much to Africa. If we're saying that development aid should go to the poorest states in the world, so proportionally it's not there. And what I find quite interesting is that education for me is what I found out as the lagging behind in comparison with other international actors. EU only gives 7% of its development aid globally to education. And actually worldwide it's 11%. So there we can see that something could be maybe important to change here, where you give your aid. Next slide please. So in addition to trade and aid, I think where the EU can make a major difference is in terms of regulations. So here we can see the debt of Africans could be reduced. Here we can see the amount of debt is really high, 700 billion. What we don't look into enough is the illicit financial flows. And don't go back, want to go into these as well, a bit of economic side. We have all the illicit financial flows. And if we compare that to foreign direct investment and development aid, they matter much more, right? And we can see where do they go, they do go to EU states. So the EU could play a role here. And it's starting to work on CSR. It's starting to work on CSR for illegal exploration of resources. So I find that really interesting to see, well, the future is in these issues, but it's not quite there yet. But it's moving in that direction. So 2033 diversification is there. We also have some with illegal exploration of resources, but we need much more. Next slide please. So to conclude, so the general conclusion was that there have been changes with France Africa, obviously, 2005, 2023. But if France and the EU, so if France is serious about security interests, economic and social development needs to be the priority and not development aid. And if we look at what Macron proposed, it's very limited, right? And so of course it has to be done at the EU level with all the other EU states. And China, which is also there, well, actually can also contribute to development. Sorry, you're done? No, I'm finished. That's great. Thanks, that was excellent. I'd love to read your book, really, really clear framework, framework and loads to think about. I'm not going to pummel you with questions now, don't worry, but this is one quick thing on clarity. When you were talking about the EU and China that I read correctly that you said that the ratio is 1 to 100. Well, yeah, even more. So that was really weird, right, about actually the investment, right? That's what you're asking, right? Because it's the EU as a whole, right? The problem is that in general, when we look at that data, we look at it by state. We don't put all the EU altogether. But that was Alex Wein's point that actually, if you look at the difference, it's a massive difference. So maybe in the future China can explode, but so yeah, I think it would be worth looking into that. I'm not surprised. Stock of flow, maybe stock of flow. Stock of flow, okay. I'm not surprised that it's that it's bigger in the EU, but it's the scale of it is just a surprise. So thanks for that point of clarification. Dr. Sela, I hand over to you. Okay, thank you very much. Thanks to the Institute of International and European Affairs for inviting me to this event. Thank you in particular to Dr. Barry Colfer and Dylan Kisey-Marshall. It's also a pleasure to share this space with Dr. Katharine Jaigu. This talk is entitled, Making Sense of the Current Popular Revolt Against France-Afric. This talk is derived from my previous work and from a forthcoming book I co-authored with French journalist Fanny Peugeot on the history of democracy and elections in former French colonies in Africa south of the Sahara from the French Revolution to nowadays. To understand the current evolution of relationships between France and its former colonies, I think it is essential to avoid the concept of anti-French sentiment. This concept is ubiquitous but rarely discussed. In fact, the expression anti-French sentiment belongs to official propaganda and to my opinion has no analytical value. There are four problems with this concept of anti-French sentiment. First, this concept suggests wrongly that there exists a kind of hostility to everything that is French or even an anti-white feeling. This is not the case. Second, this concept consists in interpreting as a feeling what is in reality a popular stance, namely the rejection of French policy in Africa. Third, those who use this concept tend to deny Africans their political agency. Their view is that Africans would not openly criticize France on their own. If they do, it is because they are being manipulated by other foreign powers. Finally, the concept of anti-French sentiment erases the fact that African leaders endorsed by France and African regional institutions themselves are subject to the same popular rejection. The rejection of African regional institutions such as ECOWAS, the economic community of West African states, a gathering of 15 states in West Africa, can be explained by the devastating economic sanctions they impose on countries where the military have taken power and their silence in the face of constitutional violations and political repression by the so-called democratically elected leaders. Instead of using the notion of anti-French sentiment, it would be better to speak of anti-French sentiment or better, a pan-African sentiment, in other words, a desire to turn the page on French neocolonialism and finally achieve real independence. So the question we need to ask ourselves is what explains the current revolt against France-Afric? To answer this question, we need to remember that France's behavior towards its former African colonies south of the Sahara has been marked since the 1960s and dependencies by a form of exceptionalism. This exceptionalism can be summed up briefly in four points. The freedom to humiliate African leaders and Africans themselves. France self-granted right to interfere in the choice of African leaders, military interventions, and French monetary imperialism as can be seen with the CFA Frank, the last colonial currency in circulation on the African continent. Let's start with the first point. President Emmanuel Macron, for example, took the liberty of making derogatory and erroneous remarks about the fertility of African women in July 2017 before humiliating his Burkinaabe counterpart, Roque Marc-Christian Cabaret, in front of students at the University of Ouagadougou three months later. At the end of 2019, President Emmanuel Macron publicly reprimanded the leaders of the G5 cell, Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, and Chad urging them to put an end to the criticism against France in their countries. This freedom to humiliate formerly sovereign heads of states is the corollary of the hold that France returns over the process of selecting the ruling elites that France still considers to be its precarious. The end of single-part regimes from the 1990s did not fundamentally change the status quo. In Central Africa, the same long-time serving leaders are still in power or have been replaced by their sons when they died. In West Africa, elections are increasingly being rigged. Current presidents choose themselves their own opponents during elections. They keep out those who can beat them by putting them in prison, exiling them, or depriving them of the means to send as a candidate through legal and judicial tricks. All this against a backdrop of increasing political repression with the more or less active accruescence of France. France has a great particularity is that it has managed to retain a colonial monetary empire. After creating in 1945 the far of the French colonies in Africa, CFA Frank, the single currencies circulating in the sub-Saharan part of its colonial domain, France imposed at the time of independence its use on most of its former colonies through so-called cooperation agreements, and France punished distant political leaders that wanted to escape this system. Today, the acronym CFA Frank refers to two currencies, one used by eight countries in West Africa, and another used by six countries in Central Africa. These two currencies are still under the control of the French treasury, which still decides on the monetary and exchange rate policies of these countries. The so-called 2019 reform by Emmanuel Macron of the CFA Frank in West Africa has not changed the situation. This reform is essentially cosmetic as it still maintains a link of subordination, legal subordination between the West African central bank and the French treasury. This so-called reform also maintains the fixed parity, the peg of the CFA Frank against the euro, a major object of criticism by African economists. As well as contributing to the impoverishment of the countries that use it, the CFA Frank remains a disciplinary tool in the hands of the French government, which can use it to punish distant governments. After Côte d'Ivoire in 2011 and Mali in 2020, France and West African allies are preventing the Niger government from accessing its own bank accounts and the sub-regional financial market. These are illegal sanctions that can only be implemented against countries that do not have their own national currency. Finally, French exceptionalism is also to be found in the military sphere. During the Cold War, France had a free hand and played the role of the policeman of the Western world against the so-called communist threat in French-speaking Africa. Over the past years, French military failures in the Central African Republic and the Sahel have damaged its standing with African peoples. Nowadays, all these facets of French neo-colonialism are being challenged by African peoples, starting with the use. Between 1960 and 2020, the number of 15 to 20 years old people in the 14 countries using the CFA Frank rose from 6.2 million to 34.7 million according to the United Nations. In Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Chad, four Sahel countries, this population grew from 3.1 million to 16.4 million over the same period. The African youth no longer tolerates the status quo because it aspires to live in democratic and prosperous societies. It sees France and its preferred leaders as an obstacle to the future it contemplates. In Niger, a country where anti-Franciferic popular protests are very strong, 68.6% of young people aged 15 to 24 were classified as NIT in 2017. NIT means not in education, employment, or training. This situation is probably no surprise. Like most countries that use the CFA Frank, uranium niche Niger has become considerably poorer over the long term. In 2022, Niger's real per capita income was 37% lower than its peak real income per capita it achieved in 1965. In other words, Nigerians are now poorer than they were 57 years ago. The eight coders in French-speaking countries since 2020, out of a total of nine for the whole African continent, as well as the growing political repression in other French-speaking countries, spared from poaches for now, are an expression of the crisis of France-Afric. We'll discuss his result in a break with France as seems to be the case in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger, or with rather literal restoration of France-Afric as seems to be the case in Chad and Gabon. Only time will tell. What is clear is that African citizens will less and less accept forms of rule that do not deliver on sovereign democratic demands. Thank you very much.