Abstract
This chapter provides an account of recent French peacekeeping operations, under President François Hollande, in Mali (Operation Serval), the Sahel (Operation Barkhane), and the Central African Republic (CAR) (Operation Sangaris). French military engagement has provided security for governing elites in pro-French regimes, for French businesspeople, and for expatriates. This neo-colonial approach to security has evolved to include humanitarian intervention under the doctrine of the responsibility to protect (R2P). Now it includes the “war on terror”. But such mission creep dramatically overstretches French military capabilities. The chapter argues that this military overextension not only may result in French armed forces being unable to accomplish the peacekeeping goals of protecting civilians and preventing genocide, but also could leave France in a position so reduced that it will not be able to defend itself in the future.
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- 1.
Christopher Griffon, “French Military Interventions in Africa”, paper presented at 48th annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Chicago, 28 February 2007.
- 2.
Bruno Charbonneau, France and the New Imperialism: Security Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa (London: Routledge, 2016), p. 66 (see tab. 4.2, “French Military Interventions in Africa, 1945–2005”).
- 3.
François-Xavier Verschaeve, La Françafrique : Le Plus Long Scandale de la République (Paris: Stock, 1998), is the French-language classic.
- 4.
David Revault d’Allonnes, Les Guerres du Président (Paris: Seuil, 2016), p. 34.
- 5.
Revault d’Allonnes, Les Guerres du Président, p. 35.
- 6.
“François Hollande à Bamako: ‘Nous Serons à Vos Côtés’”, Le Monde, 2 May 2013.
- 7.
Revault d’Allonnes, Les Guerres du Président, p. 50.
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Michael Shurkin, France’s War in Mali: Lessons for an Expeditionary Army (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2014), p. xi.
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Vincent Nouzille, Les Tueurs de la République: Assassinats et Opérations Spéciales des Services Secrets (Paris: Fayard, 2015), p. 7.
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Jean-Christophe Notin, La Guerre de la France au Mali (Paris: Tallandier, 2014), p. 175.
- 11.
Shurkin, France’s War in Mali, pp. 6–7.
- 12.
Vincent Desportes, La Dernière Bataille de France: Lettre au Français Qui Croient Encore Être Defendus (Paris: Gallimard, 2015), p. 31.
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Nouzille, Les Tueurs de la République, pp. 382–383.
- 14.
Nouzille, Les Tueurs de la République, p. 385.
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Mériadec Raffray, “Les Rébellions Touarègues au Sahel”, in Les Cahiers du Retex (Centre de Doctrine d’Emploi des Forces, January 2013), cited in Nouzille, Les Tueurs de la République, p. 389.
- 16.
Notin, La Guerre de la France au Mali, p. 83.
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Nouzille, Les Tueurs de la République, p. 394.
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Christophe Cornevin, “DGSE, au Cœur de Nos Services Secrets”, Le Figaro, 11 July 2014.
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Yanis Thomas, Centrafrique: Un Destin Volé—Histoire d’Une Domination Drançaise (Paris: Agone, 2016), p. 2.
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According to South Africa’s Mail & Guardian, the huge losses from Areva’s purchase of Uramin were actually used to cover up a gigantic operation of corruption of African National Congress (ANC) leaders during the presidency of Thabo Mbeki to obtain the market for the construction of nuclear reactors (worth tens of billions of dollars) before this plan was foiled by the election of Jacob Zuma . According to the French watchdog Mediapart, some of the retro-commissions paid for Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign. See R. Granvaud, Areva en Afrique (Paris: Agone, 2012), and articles by journalist Martine Orange at http://www.mediapart.fr.
- 26.
Mehler, “Central Africa”, p. 220.
- 27.
Sango was one of the official languages, along with French, adopted by the coalition of armed movements. Concretely the Séléka were composed of Central Africans coming from the northeast regions of the country, notably the Bakaga and Bainguit-Bangoran, but Chadians and Sudanese.
- 28.
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- 29.
Serge Michailof, Africanistan: L’Afrique en Crise Va-t-Elle se Retrouver dans Nos Banlieues? (Paris: Fayard, 2015), is the latest in a series of works drawing an analogy between the Sahel and Afghanistan. See also Marwan Bishra’s English-language Al Jazeera episode of Empire: “Africanistan: The Scramble for Africa”, http://www.blacklistednews.com/Africanistan_-The_New_Scramble_for_Africa/37040/0/38/38/Y/M.html (accessed 13 May 2016).
- 30.
Usually attributed to Samuel Clemens, but there is no proven attribution.
- 31.
Adrien Jaulmes, “Centrafrique: Les Soldats Français au Milieu des Haines à Bangui”, Le Figaro, 9 December 2013.
- 32.
“Il Reste Moins de Mille Musulmans à Bangui”, Le Figaro, 7 March 2014.
- 33.
UN High Commission for Refugees, “Le HCR Appelle à Protéger 15,000 Personnes Directement Menacées en République Centrafricaine”, 25 February 2014.
- 34.
See http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/minusca (accessed 13 May 2016).
- 35.
Sandra Laville, “UN Aid Worker Suspended for Leaking Report on Child Abuse by French Troops”, The Guardian, 29 April 2015.
- 36.
The French watchdog Mediapart made this report available in July 2015.
- 37.
Marie Deschamps, Hassan B. Yallow, and Yasmin Sooka, Report of an Independent Review on Sexual Exploitation and Abuse by International Peacekeeping Forces in the Central African Republic, 17 December 2015.
- 38.
Cyril Bensimon and Marie Bourreau, “Nouvelles Accusations de viols en RCA”, Le Monde, 2 April 2016, p. 3.
- 39.
“Aux Armes”, The Economist, 7 May 2016, p. 20.
- 40.
Martial Foucault, “Les Budgets de Défense en France, Entre Déni et Déclin”, Focus Stratégique no. 36 (April 2012).
- 41.
Desportes, La Dernière Bataille de France, p. 11.
- 42.
Desportes, La Dernière Bataille de France, p. 27.
- 43.
Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000 (New York: Random, 1988), pp. 438–439.
- 44.
Kenneth Omeje, “Whose Security? The Global Security Debate and the African Paradox”, in Jamila Abubakar, Kenneth Omeje, and Habu Galadima (eds.), Conflict of Securities: Reflections on State and Human Security in Africa (London: Adonis and Abbey, 2010), pp. 17–42.
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Yates, D.A. (2018). French Military Interventions in Africa. In: Karbo, T., Virk, K. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Peacebuilding in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62202-6_22
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