The professor of philosophy in Quebec and researcher in the ethics of international relations, Amadou Sadjo Barry, examines how hostility to France has spread among public opinion in Niger and more generally in West Africa.

One needs to make a clear distinction between anti-French sentiment and anti-French military presence. Some 1,500 French soldiers have been in Niger since Paris made the country the heart of its Sahel operation last year. We are witnessing the political instrumentalization of hostile sentiment against certain aspects of the colonial legacy, including the CFA franc and military cooperation. This is fertile ground for leaders lacking legal legitimacy who need popular legitimacy. The slogan "France, get out" has become a new way of legitimizing political and military power in French-speaking Africa.

When coup leaders stir up anti-French sentiment, they prevent us from thinking about France's real mistakes, but also from recognizing the Africans' own sins, for example, their governments' failure to set up institutional frameworks to cooperate on an equal footing with France and other countries such as the US and China. The anti-French sentiment is the result of African leaders' inability to think through their relations with the international system since independence.

The mistakes have been more serious than mere clumsiness. Statements such as Emmanuel Macron's criticism of the birth rate [with over six children per woman, Niger has the highest fertility rate in the world] are paternalistic and fundamentally offensive.

Certain inconsistencies cause controversy, for example when France gives lessons in democracy but its president travels to N'Djamena to attend the dynastic succession of Idriss Déby's son, Mahamat. Macron came to endorse an ally he needs in terms of security but whose governance is authoritarian. From a realistic standpoint, as Raymond Aron pointed out, this foreign policy does not respond to a logic of justice or ethical considerations but rather to a logic of capture and domination. Finally, the diaspora's malaise has an impact on the continent. The question of multiculturalism in France and of the integration of French Africans into society also raises questions in Africa.

You have 41.39% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.