Picture: French President Emmanuel Macron and his Senegalese counterpart, President Macky Sall
By Noufou Ouedrago, Ph.D., Managing Partner of Afro-Mediation inc. Montréal (Québec), Canada
The image of France is further tarnished in the eyes of its former colonies in Africa. Many of these former French colonies are seeking to diversify their partnerships with other foreign powers such as Russia, China and Turkey. But this new policy of openness does not seem to be of France’s taste. Thus, this anti-French feeling which is growing all over Africa is starting to annoy President Emmanuel Macron who, during the annual conference of French ambassadors held in early September 2022, urged the French media to be “more active” to counter hate speech against France in Africa. For the French head of state, this speech presents France as the main responsible for the chaotic situation that prevails in many African countries.
At the end of the year 2020, a survey of young people from several countries by a South African organization, known as the Ichikowitz Family Foundation, indicated that 58% of Togolese, 60% of Malians, 68% of Senegalese and 71% of Gabonese had a bad opinion of France. This negative opinion vis-à-vis France very often manifests itself through hate speech, caricatures and derogatory images that denigrate and vehemently criticize the French presence on the continent. Also, during the demonstrations organized in several African countries such as in the Central African Republic in 2013, in Senegal in 2015, in Mali in 2020, in Burkina Faso in 2021, and very recently in Niger in 2023, slogans such as “Down with France !”, “France, get out!” “We need Russia”, etc. were repeatedly chanted by the demonstrators. In some African countries, the “anti-imperialist” demonstrations that degenerate often cost French companies very dearly – such as Auchan, Areva, Total, or Bolloré, etc. – often accused of neo-colonialist firms. For these young protesters, France would be the main responsible for their precarious situation which is characterized by endemic unemployment and intolerable underdevelopment.
However, this anti-French feeling is undoubtedly due to factors of political, financial and military domination that the country has been exercising for a long time. Indeed, France is sometimes accused of protecting and supporting African dictators and of establishing French military bases, often in a restrictive manner, in sovereign nations. For example, a French military convoy on its way to Niger was blocked in Kaya in northern Burkina Faso in November 2022 to demand the disclosure of the contents of the vehicle which, according to the protesters, would contain weapons and food which would be used to supply the terrorists. Similarly, during the demonstrations which followed the second putsch perpetrated on September 30, 2022 in Burkina Faso, French diplomatic and cultural representations were targeted in Bobo-Dioulasso [the second biggest city] as in Ouagadougou [the capital city], where many demonstrators set fire in front of the diplomatic enclave building and vandalized the two French cultural centers. Even more recently, during the coup by the Nigerien army in July 2023, the French embassy was vandalized by protesters. The latter waved Russian flags to demand the strengthening of military cooperation with Russia and the immediate departure of French troops from the Sahel.
The media battle is on!
To counter the growing anti-French sentiment, the French authorities are counting on the fourth power represented by the media. In front of the French ambassadors gathered at the Elysée Palace during their annual conference, French President Emmanuel Macron called for “assuming a strategy of influence and influence for France”. In his speech in which he pointed to “the Russian, Chinese or Turkish narrative” in Africa, Emmanuel Macron urged “better use of the France Media World network, which is absolutely key, which must be a strength for us”; specifying that his country is “often attacked and it is attacked in public opinion, by social networks and manipulations”, he added. For the French head of state, Emmanuel Macron, the anti-French narrative comes to explain to public opinion and the international community that “France is a country that engages in neo-colonization and installs its army on their soil”.
Nevertheless, Emmanuel Macron recognizes that the response goes above all through a “real partnership policy” with African countries. The French head of state calls on his fellow citizens to be more active in order to counter the anti-French narrative: “collectively, we must be much more reactive, much more mobilized on social networks”, he indicated.
However, this call to use the French media to counter anti-French sentiment does not find a favorable wind among representatives of major media groups such as France 24 and Radio France Internationale (RFI). In a press release published the day after the president’s speech, the journalists of these two French media remind the Head of State of the independence of their editorial line. “France 24, as part of media of the FMM group (France Media Monde), is in no way the official voice of France. It is a public service media, not a government media. It is not, either, an operator of the diplomacy of influence”, wrote the Union of Journalists (SDJ) of RFI and France 24, while stressing that the France Media Monde group “is not the door-voice of the Elysée”.
The major fear of these two transnational media is its credibility with its African listeners and viewers who, moreover, considered the France Media Monde group to be the mouthpiece of French imperialism and neocolonialism, as was the case in Mali and Burkina Faso with the suspension of RFI and France 24.
The case of Mali is even more telling after the military regime came to power in 2020. The country was gripped by a pan-Africanist and nationalist fever under the leadership of Assimi Goïta, making grimmer the relations with France – which has deployed thousands of soldiers for almost ten years as part of an anti-terrorist force – to the point of being forced to expel Joël Meyer, the French ambassador to Mali. These differences are also visible in the media. The information war between Mali and France began after a bloody terrorist attack in Mourah – a locality situated in central Mali – between March 23 and 30, 2022 in which the transitional military regime, led by Assimi Goïta and Choguel Kokalla Maïga, said the French “imperialist media” were fueling the crisis [or intensifying the terror] by spreading misinformation about the Malian armed forces. While official information released by the government reported 203 terrorists killed by the armed forces during the attack, the two largest French transnational channels, RFI and France 24, spoke of “civilians arbitrarily executed by Malian soldiers”. Consequently, the Malian government could not tolerate what it considered to be “ill-intentioned disinformation”, constructed by the French authorities because they opposed the support of Russian forces to the National Armed Forces of Mali (FAMa) in their battles to eradicate terrorism from their territory.
In December of the same year [2022], it was the turn of neighboring Burkina Faso to suspend RFI, which it accused of having relayed “a message of intimidation from a terrorist leader”. The same scenario is repeated in March 2023 with the suspension of France 24 by the Burkinabè authorities: “By opening its newsroom to the first head of AQIM [a terrorist group linked to Al-Qaida in the Maghreb], France 24 is not only acting as a communication agency for these terrorists, worse it offers a space for legitimizing terrorist actions and hate speech conveyed to satisfy the evil aims of this organization on Burkina Faso”, declared in a press release the spokesperson for the Burkinabè government Jean-Emmanuel Ouédraogo on March 27, 2023.
The necessity of reframing the relations between France and Africa
French President Emmanuelle Macron must review the terms of France’s engagement in Africa. Faced with African youth, he had already announced his desire to establish a partnership of equals with African states. “I am not part of the generation of colonization and I think that those who have the most difficulty in turning the page are the French. We must enter into the construction of a common future”, wanted Emmanuel Macron.
Instead of continually complaining about the anti-French narrative in Africa, France would benefit from being much more discreet on the continent as other former colonizing countries like Belgium and England do. In all likelihood, a country, like France, which practiced slavery, colonization and such a long process of decolonization, should not expect to be particularly “adulated and praised” by the colonized peoples. During the period following decolonization and the long period of the Cold War, France intervened militarily in many conflicts, through cooperation agreements or more or less restrictive defense agreements, until the tragedy of the Rwandan genocide.
Pan-African influencers – such as Kemi Seba, Franklin Nyamsi, or Nathalie Yamb – are multiplying in France and Francophone Africa, using social networks in particular as a forum for expression. Some of them, who advocate a radical anti-Western and sovereigntist ideology, claim to be responsible for the regime changes in Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Niger. This narrative is similar to that of Moscow which is trying to advance its strategic paths in Africa.
The diversification of partnerships necessarily involves controlling media power
Countries like Turkey, Russia and China are now presenting themselves as new partners for many African states. Each of these new partners constitutes an alternative to France and pronounces rather soft, seductive and reassuring discourses. These soothing speeches are delivered via their new transnational media such as the Russian channels RT [Russia Today] and Sputnik, the Chinese channel CCCTV, or the Turkish global media group TRT World.
In this perspective, on April 5, 2022, TRT World – the Turkish Transnational Television Broadcasting Corporation – launched its French-language information platform, called TRT Français, whose audience is deliberately French-speaking countries, with of course in line of sight for the States of French-speaking Africa.
According to the first leaders, TRT Français will reach the French-speaking public around the world by practicing “fair and transparent” journalism. Very recently, TRT Afrika was also launched. The editorial line of TRT Français and TRT Afrika aims to focus on news and analysis of politics, culture, business and lifestyle of the countries concerned. According to the deputy general manager of the TRT World group, Omer Faruk Tanriverdi, the new broadcasting platform is not chasing the number of audiences. On the contrary, “we are interested in bringing the truth to light”. As for the general manager, Mehmet Zahid Sobaci, “we will continue to keep our global audience at the heart of our narrative, and we will make sure to bring you the most balanced news. As public radio and television, “we will continue to give people reliable information and content that is inspiring and useful to them”, he added. The main objective is deliberately to challenge the other global French broadcasting channels like the BBC, VOA, Aljazeera, France 24 and CNN to name a few.
Indeed, the television ecosystem of French-speaking African countries remains characterized by the hegemony of Western channels, particularly European and American; including certain programs imported from the countries of the North as well as certain countries of Latin America. This is illustrated in particular by the enormous consumption of European, American or Brazilian television series in the vast majority of African countries. Thus, despite the extraordinary proliferation of media companies in Africa, Professor Guy Berger of the Rhodes University School of Journalism and Media Studies in South Africa estimated in 2007 that “Africans were the least well-served populations in terms of broadcasting information”. For him, African states have few journalists per capita if we compare the continent to other regions of the world. However, international news channels and, more broadly, digital media have contributed, according to Australian researcher Gérard Goggin, to a “radical personalization of newsgathering”.
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