Part V - International Relations and Diplomacy
Africa
The franc CFA: the central contradiction
Before any other consideration, the most glaring contradiction of the Franco-African relationship must be named: the franc CFA. While France fights to recover its monetary sovereignty from the euro, it maintains on the African continent a monetary system that deprives fourteen countries of this same sovereignty it claims for itself. This contradiction is intellectually indefensible and politically costly.
A sovereign state must control its currency. This principle is at the heart of the project for France: it is universal. Currency is the lever by which a state finances its development, manages its economy, absorbs external shocks and defines its national priorities. A country that delegates its monetary policy to a foreign institution renounces an essential part of its sovereignty. France takes the initiative of proposing to all member countries of the franc zone that wish it a programme of support toward their own monetary sovereignty. This initiative is not imposed: each country decides sovereignly whether it wishes to exit the franc CFA, when and how.
French interests in Africa
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France has real and legitimate interests in Africa. Africa is the world's largest francophone space: more than 60% of French speakers in the coming decades will be African. The linguistic bond is fundamental and distinct from any other lever; French is not only a language, it is a system of shared cultural, legal and philosophical references that no other competing power can reproduce.
Africa is also a reservoir of critical raw materials: uranium, cobalt, manganese, rare earths. But this access can and must be secured by economic and diplomatic means, not by military operations costly in human lives, money and diplomatic capital.
Military presence
The principle is simple and non-negotiable: if French soldiers die, it must be for France and for France alone. Not for distant economic interests, however important they may be for our sovereignty. Not to keep in power leaders who do not have the confidence of their people. Operations of the Barkhane type are therefore over. Access to African resources can and must be secured by fair contracts and solid diplomatic relations, not by military bases and counter-insurgency operations that feed precisely the anti-French sentiment they claim to combat.
All French military bases on the African continent are closed with the exception of Djibouti, which protects more vital interests. The resources thus freed are redeployed toward the protection of our own territories: in particular Guyane, exposed to illegal gold mining and border pressures, Mayotte, abandoned to massive illegal immigration from the Comoros, and Nouvelle-Calédonie, exposed to foreign interference in the Pacific. France has enough territories to protect to not maintain bases abroad that it does not know how to fund properly.
France proposes in replacement a transparent and limited bilateral military cooperation model: officer training, transfer of tactical savoir-faire, equipment within a normal commercial framework. These agreements are public, limited in their scope, and carry no French operational engagement obligation.
The competition of powers
The void left by the retreat of French influence in Africa has not remained empty. Russia via Africa Corps has established itself in several Sahelian countries. China has invested massively in infrastructure by creating financial dependencies. Turkey combines moderate political Islam, economic pragmatism and military cooperation. The United States, often underestimated in this picture, maintains via AFRICOM a military presence in around twenty countries and uses international financial institutions as levers. The Gulf states finance the expansion of Islam in its various forms.
France cannot compete with these actors on their own terrain. It offers what none of them can provide: the French language as a deep cultural bond, a historical familiarity stripped of its neocolonial dross, world-class university and scientific institutions.
The new model: sovereign partnership on equal terms
France proposes to each African country a bilateral relationship rebuilt on three principles: mutual non-interference, economic equity, and chosen cooperation. France is no longer the obligatory partner: it must earn its place.
Readmission agreements with African countries are a non-negotiable condition of bilateral relations. In return, France proposes legal pathways for chosen immigration: skilled workers in sectors under tension, students within structured university programmes. These students trained in France are obligated to work there for two to three years at the end of their training, thus repaying the debt constituted by their education, before being free to return and practice in their country of origin.
Institutional francophonie
The Organisation internationale de la Francophonie is an underexploited diplomatic tool. Sovereign France reinvests in this tool and accepts to share its leadership with the major francophone African countries within a genuinely multilateral framework. The development of francophonie as a lever of global power, beyond Africa, is addressed in the following section.