Africa, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, American dependence, Ukraine, the place and role of the Quai d’Orsay
France’s African policy, seeking renewal, seems stuck in a cycle of strategic errors and diplomatic ineptitude. In this incisive interview, we explore with Erwan Davoux the paths to an ambitious overhaul of relations between Paris and its African partners.
Between colonial heritage, the rise of rival influences, and widespread loss of trust, how can France hope to regain its place on a continent undergoing a full transformation? A no-holds-barred analysis of the priorities that must be redefined to definitively turn the page on past failures.
In your opinion, what should be the priorities of a new French African policy in order to avoid past mistakes?
France miscalculated the extent to which West Africa wanted to move from formal independence to real independence. It took too long to realize the renewed pan-African sentiment and failed to respond to it.
Our leaders even spent their time contradicting the principles they were enunciating with inappropriate behavior. When Emmanuel Macron visited the University of Ouagadougou in November 2017 to lay the foundations for a renewed relationship between France and West Africa, he made proposals and outlined interesting and promising paths. But, he contradicted the spirit of his speech with his condescending and contemptuous behavior. «He went to fix the climate,’ he would say of the Burkinabé President. Unfortunately, this kind of tasteless nonsense will be repeated. In this sense, he will perpetuate the antics and dubious jokes of François Hollande, who would dare, for example, to say »Manuel Valls has returned safely from Algeria,« even though restoring a relationship of trust with Algeria was one of his priorities.
Emmanuel Macron will also try his hand at foreign policy in the famous «at the same time» approach, in Senegal for example. He will send a delegation from the African cell to meet the then President, Macky Sall, while also instructing the mission to meet Ousmane Sonko in a discreet manner as well. What naivety and amateurism...
Without respect for its partners, there can be no sound and healthy policy. To begin with, we must treat each other as equals; France has nothing to dictate to its African partners. Trust is currently broken. It is easy to break it, but much more laborious to rebuild it. France must work to develop its soft power: the Francophonie, French teaching abroad, the sharing of expertise, vocational training, culture, and strive to regain sympathy before hoping to restore strong diplomatic relations.
We can, fortunately, also count on the mistakes of our opponents. It is likely that those who have taken advantage of the rejection of French politics will, in turn, be subject to great distrust, as their actions appear for what they are: imperialists with behaviors that reveal a total lack of understanding and empathy towards the populations.
Which more coherent and effective approach would you recommend to redefine France’s relations with its African partners?
First of all, we must stop claiming privileged relations with African leaders while presenting Africans themselves through the sole negative lens of the migration risk. Our relations with Africa are not limited to that; far from it!
The military bias has also served us well. François Hollande’s only African policy has been limited to interventions in Mali and the Central African Republic… The misfortune of our African friends is to exist. Jean-Yves Le Drian, then Minister of Defense, greatly unbalanced the policy conducted in Africa, with the military taking over from the political sphere. Unfortunately, armed operations without an inclusive political process to resolve the crisis lead to nothing but chaos, and nature hates emptiness…
That is exactly what happened in the aforementioned two countries. Failing to anticipate the situation, France was forced out of the way to make way for the Russians. It itself helped install Wagner and then Russian troops in Africa. In fact, when the Central African president demanded weapons to equip his embryonic army, François Hollande hesitated. Then Emmanuel Macron took the matter to the Security Council. A windfall for the Russians, who responded quickly and even beyond what the Central African authorities had requested. The process was then set in motion: sending trainers and advisers, supplies of new weapons requiring the dispatch of more and more military or paramilitary personnel…
France thought it was in conquered territory and it belatedly and with meager means apprehended the Russian, Chinese, and Turkish influences that were working against it.
Our authorities always lag behind and have difficulty gauging the state of mind of African public opinion. By proposing to drastically reduce its military presence in Africa, France thought it could please its partners. What could have been considered a breakthrough just five years ago is now viewed as a means of «saving face.».
We must put an end to this practice of «special envoys,» this parallel diplomacy that leads to no proven results. And we must start by choosing specialists in Africa for the Elysée African cell. This seemed to be simple common sense and is no longer the case.
France’s policy in Africa must be reformulated in a collegial manner, involving diplomats, researchers, members of African diasporas, entrepreneurs established in Africa, and overseen by the Quai d’Orsay. It must be multidimensional and based on a sound diagnosis and comprehensive analysis.
Do you think that France will be subjected to as much vassalization under Donald Trump as under the Biden administration?
Unfortunately, I think so. Trump has shown no great consideration for Emmanuel Macron. Yet, from the moment he took office in July 2017, when Donald Trump visited Paris, the latter wanted to showcase a one-way friendship. This recent handshake, coupled with the recent video footage in which Trump makes fun of the French President and even threatens to possess «documents,» add to a series of unflattering videos in which Trump makes a mockery of the French President and even threatens to possess “files.” With such an unbalanced personal relationship without Emmanuel Macron wavering, I see no possible improvement.
There is, structurally, an ideological infodemic since the neo-conservative left took control of the Quai d’Orsay. From Kouchner to Fabius, through Séjourné, this line has prevailed, strongly Atlanticist to the detriment of the Gaullist-Chiracian line. With the same diplomats holding this ideology in key positions, with great continuity in this area between Hollande and Macron.
I will take a very significant example. Jacques Chirac had considered France returning to the integrated command of NATO. But he wanted this to happen in a framework where France would exert its full weight. The prerequisite was that France obtain NATO’s active command in Naples, in accordance with its Mediterranean vocation. He had written in a message to Bill Clinton: «It is of capital importance.» Faced with the American refusal, Jacques Chirac stopped everything. Nicolas Sarkozy, for his part, went along with the status quo, without achieving anything in return. Since then, France has abandoned everything that made its foreign policy unique and powerful, content to try to appear as the United States’ best ally, which, in turn, doesn’t really know where it’s going.
Can we say that the collapse of French diplomacy has accelerated under Emmanuel Macron?
We have fallen one step behind after the departure of Jacques Chirac, who was the last President to lead a great foreign policy because he had the required experience, founding principles, and a keen sense of the message that France should carry out in the world, strengthened by its history and the values it embodies.
Nicolas Sarkozy had a talent for leadership and for creating coalitions that temporarily masked the diplomatic decline. But it turns out that the decisions made at the time had a detrimental effect in the medium and long term.
With Hollande and Macron, we have completely entered into what Georges Malbrunot and Christian Chesnot rightly called «the decline of France». We are no longer even able to deceive ourselves.
François Hollande came to power without any other experience than the lens of the socialist international. He had, for example, never visited China before being elected. He pursued an extremely partisan foreign policy. He sowed the seeds of the Franco-German divorce, acting as party leader, for example receiving the leader of Angela Merkel’s rival German SPD in the Elysée Palace during the election campaign.
In Tunisia, he supported the Troika (2012-2014), which was undermined by Islamists on the pretext that two of its members had real power. In Africa, he preferred relations with the heads of state belonging to this socialist club.
While François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron are two very different personalities in foreign policy, the latter has merely been the continuation of the former. There is a certain logic: the same diplomats are placed in strategic positions, driven by the same ideology.
How do you analyze Emmanuel Macron’s management of international politics since his accession to power?
It is probably, without exaggeration or partisan bias, the area that has been the most completely wrong since Emmanuel Macron came to power.
We have been driven out of Africa; we are now almost hated in the Arab world (without any positive counterpart on the Israeli side) or considered a second-rate partner at best. The Franco-German couple is broken; we are not leaders on any major issue.
We have failed in our primary mission as a member of the Security Council: to uphold international law and abandon the promotion of multilateralism. We no longer play the role of facilitator between the North and the South as in the past; we are now a secondary member of the «Western bloc.» We have been reduced to purely declaratory diplomacy, lacking influence.
What is the state of the disintegration of the Quai d’Orsay? What are the reasons for it?
The Quai d’Orsay is no longer a central player in France’s foreign policy. All decisions are taken in the Elysée Palace. This dysfunction was introduced by Nicolas Sarkozy and amplified by these successors. At least Nicolas Sarkozy took the precaution of surrounding himself with extremely experienced diplomats in the diplomatic corps, which was not the case with his successors.
Emmanuel Macron’s distrust of diplomats is well known to everyone. In fact, he broke the diplomatic corps just as he broke the prefectural corps. Two bodies of excellence.
The expertise that obviously exists at the Quai d’Orsay is marginalized, and close associates of Emmanuel Macron are being placed in key positions to keep the Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs under close surveillance.
To top it all, the arrival of the two last ministers who had no expertise in the matter reduced the Quai d’Orsay’s role to that of a «ministry of words,» one of hastily issued press releases with no real impact on the events.
Finally, a human resources policy worthy of the name still needs to be implemented. Far from fanciful appointments, flattery, or the latest fads.
Are our current political leaders more culturally aware of international issues than their predecessors?
Yes, absolutely. When he came to power, Nicolas Sarkozy had an international experience under a particular prism, that of the former Minister of the Interior he was. These two successors have none. However, foreign policy is not invented on the fly. It is not enough to swallow notes, publish agreed communiqués, and attend international summits to influence world affairs. It requires a long apprenticeship that is gained through travel abroad that allows one to develop networks, to intimately know one’s counterparts, to absorb a sensibility, to tame foreign cultures, and thus to be able, through a bold, distinctive, avant-garde foreign policy, to win the sympathy of the public and enable France to solve the square of the circle: How can a medium-sized country with a population on a global scale be able to influence world affairs? The answer is to adopt a grand foreign policy. That is the famous phrase of General de Gaulle: «It is because we are no longer a great power that we need a great policy; because if we do not have a great policy, just as we are no longer a great power, we will be nothing.«
In the absence of a previous international track record and while simultaneously putting the Quai d’Orsay on the defensive, the presidents expose themselves to the risk of incoherence and diplomatic gaffes. This is what most of the French ambassadors stationed in the Arab world rightly denounced in a letter in November 2023, deploring incoherence, total alignment with the Netanyahu government, and the massive loss of influence for France that resulted. The whistleblowers were severely admonished for their overcautiousness (in reality a sharp sense of their mission to serve France) by the small masters of the Macron clique, promoted to positions for their loyalty and not their experience.
Or, worse still, to take up the idea of the last visitor of the evening. This is what led Emmanuel Macron, for example, to propose «an international coalition against Hamas on the model of that against Daesh,» which sparked ridicule, disbelief, and even consternation from those to whom it was intended, the Israeli authorities.
Reconstructing France’s foreign policy will be one of the essential tasks of the next head of state.
French 
English 
Chinese 
Arabic