“Françafrique” Systemic Crisis

Abstract

Recent global geopolitical shifts have deformed the postwar world order. These tectonic shifts mark the beginning of the end of French dominance in West and Central Africa, changing dramatically the layout of international relations in the region that has always been considered France’s zone of interests. There is a rapid degradation and disintegration of the French military-political system known as “Françafrique”, the essence of which lies in the latent ties between the corrupt elites of the Fifth Republic and certain African countries that are dependent on their former metropole both economically and politically. The purpose of this article is to examine the collapse of this system as a whole and its constituent parts in order to come closer to understanding how the destruction of its individual fragments causes the crisis of interconnected structural elements of the entire system. Within the framework of a short article, it is only possible to outline a general approach to considering the problematic situation, based on the theoretical and methodological approach, which implies a systemic analysis of the object, i.e., the phenomenon of “Françafrique”. Recently, a number of works have appeared devoted to various aspects of this problem (the change of elites in African states, the disappointment in the effectiveness of the former metropole’s Africa policy, the reduction of the French military presence in the Sahel and Central Africa, the failure of the military operation Barkhane, the collapse of the Fifth Republic-inspired military-political blocs of African countries). The novelty and relevance of this work lie in demonstrating the need to study these trends in their integrity and interrelationship. This approach requires a comprehensive study of the causes, course, results, and consequences of the collapse of the military-political system of “Françafrique” as part of a future large-scale study of this phenomenon.