Permanences et Ruptures de la Politique Économique de la France vis-à-vis de l'Afrique sub-Saharienne

Abstract

Over the cold war period, French economic policy towards sub-Saharan Africa reflected the importance which Paris attached to this region. With the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989, however, Africa lost much of its economic and strategic significance, and France moved some way towards normalising its relations with this continent. Yet France never completed this process and has recently begun to accord greater priority to a part of the world which has been marked by conflict, terrorist activity, and tensions over oil supplies. This article will examine and explain continuities and changes in French economic policy over the global era. It will argue that Franco-African economic relations have not been subject to any major overhaul and will attribute this relative continuity to the complexity of the policy-making process. It will note, however, that important changes have taken place and will explain these in terms of Africa's increasing economic marginalisation and shifts in the wider European and global context.