‘Du Bon Usage de la Tournée’: DG8’s Quest for Legitimacy

Abstract

’Ideas that are found in some (African) circles on the relationships between Europe and Africa are often basic. The creation of a Eurafrica, in the spirit of the Treaty of Rome, must be backed by political action and day-to-day propaganda. It is a long-term task, an urgent one. Indeed, Europe and the Association with Overseas Territories will only be built through an act of faith that needs to be backed up by reason’ (Chauler, Marchés tropicaux, 1958b, p. 2472). Propaganda was all the more urgent because, as already mentioned, African faith in the mission of the Association was weak. To the great disappointment of DG8, an ‘information visit’ organized in Brussels in April 1960 for African students and academics ended up in an uncontrolled tide of criticisms against what was seen as a new ‘colonial pact’ (AEC/25/1980/1493, minute of the information meeting for African students (Brussels, 6–7 April 1960), 18 April 1960). In March 1960, asked by a Belgian newspaper (l’Echo de la Brousse) to comment on the feelings of the African politicians and students about the Association, Modibo Keita, the future president of Mali, answered that Europe had to clarify its intentions and stop thinking about Africa as a potentially exploitable market … (AMAE/722, letter from Bousquet to the MAE, 3 March 1960). Clear indications of this mistrust were to be found by the Commissioner for Development, Lemaignen, during one of his trips to Africa in February 1959.