When French military influence in Africa disappeared, can he rely on soft power? | News about politics

After more than six decades, the French troops ended their Withdrawal from Chad This week before the deadline of January 31, the latest blow to France, a military posture is reduced in its former stronghold of Western and Central Africa.

N’Djamen abruptly interrupted ties with Paris in December and ended the military pact in which 1,000 French soldiers were stationed in the country. The widespread nation is the main place for monitoring and launching missions against the swarm of armed groups that acted in the problematic Sahel region, but also for monitoring activities in neighboring Libya.

This wind is part of a recent trend that has been interrupted or reduced by military and diplomatic ties with their former ruler because of the resentment of the perceived French interference with their countries.

In Niger, military military, Burkina Faso and Mali, about 4,000 French soldiers came out, while Russian troops flooded to help fight armed groups.

Chad, Senegal and the shore of ivory have since followed a suit.

“For these countries, it is a sovereignty,” she told Al Jazeera, the safety analyst of Francophone Africa Beverly Ochieng with control risks.

“If you have a foreign force in your country, it means that in some way you teach sovereignty, and these countries see it as a release from that mixing.”

The popular indignation against France has flown into “La Francafique” since colonial time, but has now erupted. In the last decade, protesters from Abidjan to Niamey marched through the streets, accusing France for all, from election to instability.

However, even when the French military bases are close up, analysts say that Paris still has a subtle but deep power. From French language and common currency among former colonies to telephone networks and Baguetta, the influence of France is visible and ubiquitous in everyday life of people from these countries, which could be a completely impossible divorce.

French: ‘number one language’

France’s greatest soft power lies in the reach of French.

Of the 300 million French speakers in the world by 2022, nearly 50 percent lived in Africa, according to the organization of countries spoken by French. There are more French speakers in the Democratic Republic of Congo than anywhere else except France.

Over time, the locals have adapted the language of the rules to their needs over time. In Cameroon, where French and English official languages, mixed phrases like Tu Go Où, which means where you go, are common.

However, in several Francophone countries, official communication, such as public communications, news or even lectures, is held in standard French. In Malija, where the military government broke French in unofficial status in August, French was still working many months later.

Recognizing the power of the French language, the administration of President Emmanuel Macron in 2018 initiated the urge to offer French lessons in most African cities. In a speech to students in Burkina Faso that year, before the two countries have dropped out, Macron stated that the French language would be “number one language in Africa … and maybe even the world”.

The language is already observed favorably in countries spoken by English like Nigeria, where elite schools attract parents with promises that their children will learn French.

Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who in April 2024 was voted on the promise of promising policy against establishing and reducing the relationships with France, tried, however, tried to shake the tongue.

His official speeches are held in both France and the dominant language of Wolof.

Faye has also moved to establish a new agency that will rename the streets and squares across the country to pay tribute to the locals.

The French centuries -old rule of the country was so covered that the streets, bridges and squares were named after colonial officers or carried French words.

Scientists say such moves are key to land like Senegal, who is eager to renew the identity of the independent of France. “It is part of the decolonization process that contributes to the return of self -esteem and the outbreak of the trauma of colonialism,” said Ferdinand de Jong, a researcher at the University of Eastern Anglia in the UK, for Al Jazeera.

CFA: Complicated usual currency

They are equally strong economic connections that attached France to their former colonies from before independence.

Mobile network providers, supermarket chain Auchan or nuclear company Orano are all French -owned companies that are now part of a business scene in several French -speaking countries. Although these companies were increasingly targeted in violent anti-French protests, there are no signs that they plan to leave.

Then, there is the usual CFA currency zone. Created in December 1945. At a time when independence calls were already increased, the CFA currency zone included 14 countries of Western and Central Africa. It was originally known as the “French French colony of Africa”, issuing the original intentions of France with a currency. Today he is known as the Frack African Financial Community and is voluntarily. Only Guinea-Konkri and Mauritania left the independence zone.

Some see the currency as a powerful stabilizer against inflation, but controversy is full of its conditions: countries must retain 50 percent of their reserves in the French treasury to keep the currency in the French euro. Many scientists and African leaders notice this limits the growth of CFA, and in turn, the economies of the countries that use it. Others called him a neocolonial tool of the French.

In August 2015, former Chadian President Idris Deby, in a speech about the anniversary of independence, called for a change: “We must have the courage to say that in Africa in Africa he prevents the development of a cable that must be separated,” said Deby.

However, no African leaders, including military, left the zone.

In Senegal, President Faye promised during his election campaign to reject CFA and stop working with Western monetary institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but did the opposite.

“They quietly let CFA’s question die,” said Mahmoud Ba, a professor of international relations at Cornell University in New York, for Al Jazeera, referring to Faye’s administration. “They also continued a very close employment relationship between the state and the IMF -AI World Bank, despite the strong criticism they had for these institutions.”

Analysts say that countries can be afraid of French return reactions: after Guinea voted the abandonment of the CFA zone in 1960, the French government launched a secret mission, surgery to Persil, to flood the country with a new Guinean Frank and engineer hyperinflation. Paris also planned to deliver weapons to start a local conflict, although his surgery was overjoyed.

The abandonment of the CFA zone establishing a new local currency, at least in West Africa, is also complicated by the regional encouragement in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to form a common currency for the EUR EU Roman EURA. However, this procedure has been delayed several times, and let France blame for it: 2019, the day before Ecowas countries were set up to adopt the final conditions for “Eco” currency, announced Ivor President Alassane Ouattar – Firm French ally – announced that the CFA zone countries were set to adopt a new currency. His name? Also “eco”. Until now, no currency has emerged.

While the countries are still turning from France, Paris has started implementing a new African strategy launched at the end of 2024: it is planned to permanently reduce the presence of troops in countries that have not yet expelled French forces, such as Gabon, where there are still about 300 French soldiers.

Jean-Marie Bockel, a special envoy of President Macron in Africa, said in May that France wants to “reduce his visible presence, but maintain a logistical, human and material approach to these countries, at the same time increasing our action in response to their aspirations.”

France is also increasingly forming a closer relationship with former British colonies such as Nigeria and Kenya, which do not carry the same injury and resentment towards Paris as their Francophone neighbors. In December, Macron brought Nigerian President Ahmeda Tinubu in his address of welcome addresses, using Pidgin English.

“For France, it’s like pure slate,” said analyst Ochieng.