The recent political tide in West Africa has turned into an assertively anti-French movement. In West African countries such as Niger, Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso and Chad, anti-French protests are proliferating and new governments are declaring a new way of independentism and self-determination. In an analysis in the Washington Post in September 2021, professor Elizabeth Schmidt writes: "In explaining the coup (in Guinea), Western media coverage has largely overlooked the historical context, ignoring the political, economic and social structures at the root of popular discontent and the roles of French colonialism, exploitation by international mining companies and Western counterterrorism initiatives in precipitating military action."

The growth of anti-French sentiment has a long history that is not likely to fade away. Rather, that history and its economic outcomes may fuel growing anger and produce drastic events. France’s power to dodge or suppress events when possible is rapidly eroding. The French colonial heritage, coupled with the current neo-colonialist policies and reigning poverty in West Africa, fed the popular discontent against France.

French colonial past in West Africa

Why is there a negative sentiment about France in so many countries in West Africa? The answer is not so complicated; all these countries are former French colonies. That is their second major common characteristic other than their location. Continued poverty and lack of economic development in these countries are attributed to their past (path dependence), during which they were devastated by French colonial administrations.

French colonialism started in the 17th century with Louis XIV, also known as Louis the Great or the Sun King.

The Sun King is well-known for his social engineering efforts to convert the French agricultural society into an aristocratic and "luxury-seeking" one. But he also introduced commercial mercantilism to France through his protege Minister of Economy Jean-Baptiste Colbert. During the long reign of the duo, France followed the footsteps of its tiny northern neighbor England (not yet the United Kingdom or Great Britain) in invading any country anywhere that it could; the objective was to transfer wealth to the mainland.

The obvious first target was Northern Africa, but the Northern African countries could defend themselves against invaders at the time. So, the second choice followed: (Western) sub-Saharan Africa, where the societies did not have military means to protect themselves against colonial forces. They were relatively less developed but were not too poor (according to economic historian Angus Deaton’s estimates) compared to France. Lying on trade routes, West Africa had a number of economic sectors to rely on, such as agriculture, fishing, natural resources and trading. Mansa Musa, the Emperor of Mali in the 14th century, is still recognized as the wealthiest person ever in history.

By the end of the 18th century, France had an empire that extended all over the world. The sub-Saharan part of the French Empire included countries that are named today as Senegal, Dahomey (Benin), Upper Volta (Burkina Faso), Mali, Mauritania, Niger and Guinea. Combined with France’s equatorial colonies (Gabon, Congo, Ubangi-Shari and Chad), French colonies in West Africa had a size of nearly 7.2 million square kilometers, which is roughly 13 times the surface area of France today. That figure does not include other territories such as Algeria, Cameroon, Togo and Ivory Coast. Nor does it have French colonies in Eastern Africa, such as Madagascar, St. Helena and Somalia.

French colonialism was quite bloody, with no tolerance toward attempts of liberty. Only in Algeria alone the French army killed 1.5 million Algerians (almost entirely civilians) to suppress attempts at freedom between 1954 and 1962. In Cameroon, French soldiers killed over 400,000 Bamileke tribesmen in Cameroon between 1948 and 1971. More recently, in 1994, France supported the massacre of more than 500,000 Tutsi tribesmen in Rwanda.

In addition to the bloody massacres and military suppression, French colonial strategy was built on implanting the belief in African societies that French culture and language were superior to local ones. Christianity likewise was introduced as the true religion through government-supported missionary activity. French colonialism had the objective of "civilizing the Africans" and "showing them the true path."

African ‘independence,’ French neo-colonialism

During the first episode of French colonialism, local military and political organizations had no power to assert themselves against French military strength and brutal suppression. However, all this changed after World War II when French military power was eradicated by the Germans in Europe in a matter of days. Following World War II, French military dominance and its "reputation" in West Africa started to perish. That was when the West African countries declared independence from France one after the other. By the late 1960s, almost every former French colony in West Africa was independent. Well, on the face of it.

But then, France found a new type of colonial dominance. Firstly, in all the former French colonies, French was now the single and "superior" lingua Franca. So, the West African people with a number of different local native languages had a handy common language, diligently taught in a French-engineered education system. Secondly, the French-designed educational curricula had given the impression to all West Africans that French culture was superior to the local ones. Thirdly, the French colonial administrators had established an economic and political system where all roads led to Paris. Fourth, West African nations had long forgotten how to run an independent state really independently. Fifth, they didn’t have a well-trained military. Sixth, the economies were undeveloped, badly poor and dependent on France. It was so much so that the Anglo-Saxon-influenced economists Daron Acemoğlu and James Robinson published research that suggested that the economies of former French colonies did much worse than the former British colonies after independence. Seventh, the newly independent societies were politically highly fragmented, which made it almost impossible to make the necessary hard decisions.

Recent developments

West African countries remain among the poorest nations of the globe despite significant manpower and natural resources. Moreover, political systems have remained highly unstable.

The freshly evolved French neo-colonialism did not need to dominate its former colonies by military means (which was highly costly) any more but rather with its economic and technological superiority. The West African countries even did not have an independent monetary system or central bank. Their currencies were rigidly pegged to the French franc through the so-called CFA (Communauté Financière Africaine/African Financial Community). Their official international reserves had to be kept in French francs and in France. The 14 West African members of the CFA zone lacked one of the first signs of national sovereignty: a domestic monetary system.

France used other ways to transfer wealth from its former colonies to France. For example, France used Niger’s uranium resources to become the biggest electricity exporter in Europe. Niger’s uranium made France produce about three-quarters of its electricity from nuclear energy. In return, according to a recent academic research paper by myself, Saim Karabulut and Ali Osman Karcı, France paid Niger less than 3% of the economic value generated from Niger’s uranium.

All these are the core of today’s political trauma in West Africa and anti-French sentiment.