A Mutual Dependency: Postcolonial Relations between the French Athletics Federation and French-Speaking African Athletics Federations (1956–1969)

Abstract

While scholars of postcolonial Franco-African relations in the field of sport regularly examine football, they have paid little attention to athletics (track and field). Yet French athletics remains closely linked to the African countries that emerged from France’s former colonies, offering financial, material and human resources to develop the sport. This connection has led some of the best African athletes to represent French clubs or even to opt for French nationality. A variety of postcolonial processes were at work in the relationship between the French Athletics Federation (FFA) and the athletics federations of French-speaking African countries that emerged after independence. The time period studied begins when the North African states under French domination gained independence in 1956 and ends in 1969, before these relations were redefined around Francophonie (the community of countries that use the French language) and took on new forms. The corpus studied included specialist press archives and reports from French and international athletics federations. The results distinguish two periods since 1956. The first reveals a loose relationship of mutual dependence: the FFA needed colonial athletes following independence, and the new African federations needed the FFA in order to develop. In the second period, from 1963 onwards, this mutual dependence became institutionalized by a more official cooperation policy supported by the French government, in which the organizations involved each had an interest. This relationship would characterize relations between the FFA and the athletics federations of French-speaking African countries in the postcolonial period.