Editorial: Macron's third invitation to Biya as French influence declines!.

This time, it is not for the Summer Olympics or the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the landing in Provence.

President Biya is one of the revered guests at the Summit of the International Organisation of La Francophonie, OIF, which will be held on October 4 and 5 in Villers-Cotterêts, North East of Paris.

Also confirmed to participate are the Ivorian president, Alassane Ouattara; Senegalese president Bassirou Diomaye Faye, and curiously the Gabonese junta leader, Brice Clotaire Oligui Nguema.

Curiously, as if in double standard diplomacy, other military leaders from Mali, Niger, Burkina Faso and Guinea, are not invited because they got to power through the bullet, not by the ballot.

It is not even certain the quartet in West Africa would have accepted the invitation, given their vitriolic criticism of France as a neocolonialist exploiting African resources and dictating monetary policies in the Franc zone of the continent.

They are not the only critics of the French strangle hold on its former colonies, through questionable economic, monetary and military accords. 

In his book: "Le néocolonialisme en éducation en Afrique Francophone" [Neocolonialism in Education in French-speaking Africa], Elisanne Pellerin writes that: "France exerts an influence on the daily lives of Africans in its former colonies, long after the independence of the majority of colonised territories on the continent. This influence is often called “neocolonialism,” and it permeates French discourse".

The author adds that: "Under an appearance of humanitarian benevolence, the current interventions of the French in Africa hide a persistent domination, particularly in terms of language. Education is also one of the areas where French influence is most felt on a daily basis. And since the education of a population is closely linked to its identity, it is the identity of these peoples that is still affected by colonisation".

Paris is aware of that negative narrative of the OIF. At the last summit in Djerba, Tunisia in 2022, there was unanimity that "the Francophonie of the future is precisely in question".

Solution: "Under the leadership of Louise Mushikiwabo, [Secretary General] the modernisation process will continue. The 2023-2030 strategic framework, adopted at the Djerba Summit, offers an innovative vision of the Francophonie and new strategic objectives that match the ambitions of ever more relevant French-speaking multilateral cooperation".

At the forefront of these ambitions is the strengthening of the "influence of the Francophonie and French speakers: on the international scene, in the face of global issues, via the political advocacy actions of the Secretary General, who can now rely on a network expanded external representations, but also through economic, cultural and scientific diplomacy; in the territories, as close as possible to the populations, with decentralised cooperation; on societal issues by mobilising civil society; in the media and the digital world".

Given that the youth are the leaders of the future and most acerbic critics of France, the Paris Summit, the first organised in France since 1991, will have "Youth employment create, innovate and undertake in French”,

But in a world dominated by social media, English has 70 percent of content while French has only three percent, based on recent studies. 

That explains why the French are determined to promote their language, which, according to the French Institute for Research and International Cooperation, is used by some 40 percent in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Marcon's France may be interested in using OIF to promote its language and the French economy. For countries like Cameroon using the FCFA, language isn't its urgent priority but an educational system that produces job creators.

Other issues on the front burner in Francophone Africa are free, fair, transparent and credible elections, protection of human rights, rule of law in governance, corruption and freedoms.

The OIF has not delivered or at least been critical of leaders whose policies are at variance with such global democratic values. Even when OIF tries, it does so discriminately like in the case of suspending former colonies which military regrettably overthrew elected officials and at the same time embrace the putschist in Gabon.

If the French, with their OIF, want it to be a growing movement to generate the people power sufficient to translate even the most pointed declarations into gritty change, they should promote democracy by sanctioning countries that twist constitutions, and violate human rights as it has done to Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Guinea.

This article was first published in The Guardian Post issue N0:3233 of Wednesday September 18, 2024