Ever Just the Same? French Foreign and Security Policy in Africa

Abstract

This chapter discusses the characteristics and the evolution of French foreign policy and reviews France’s longstanding foreign and security policy-making in Africa since the end of the Empire. Continuous French interventions and the re-emergence of seemingly old patterns of behavior suggest that a linear reading of history may not be the most suited approach to understand present French policies in Africa. The chapter’s last part focuses on the multilateralization of French military interventionism and by so doing establishes the context within which Operation Serval in Mali and Operation Sangaris in the Central African Republic are embedded.