PRESIDENT MITTERRAND AND AFRICA

Abstract

PRESIDENT MITTERRAND HAS NOW BEEN in power for more than two years. The era of Giscard D'Estaing already seems very far away: recent history sometimes seems the furthest. It is instinctive to go back and read press cuttings from May 1981, and remember the tremendous outburst of euphoria at the arrival of a Socialist President in power, followed in June 1981 by a landslide parliamentary victory for the socialists, to the point that they did not even need communist support to rule. A defeat of the conservative majority after 23 years hegemony (the life of the Fifth Republic) had been in the past often speculated about, but had never seemed to happen. Thus for most of that summer France was under what Jean D'Ormesson, right wing commentator in Le Figaro called, witheringly, a 'rose-coloured cloud'. What was special, and most unusual in the relations of any European power with Africa or any other third world continent, was that there was also considerable euphoria in certain countries of French-speaking Africa at the change. The rejoicing in the streets in Bangui and Kinshasa, as well as a much wider satisfaction that in some countries were expressed at government level, can have few parallels in history, and spoke much about France's close connection with, and impact on, Africa. To some extent this was a reflection of discontent with many aspects of Giscard's African policy, but it was also a sign of the expectations that the arrival in power of the Socialists would lead to an improvement both political and economic for the people in the countries in question. Now, nearly two years on, those that expected change are disillusioned, and have not hesitated to say so. There is a fine old French saying plus ga change, plus c'est la mime chose, which has been applied in all sorts of situations in French politics, and it has certainly been applied to Mitterrand and Africa, because of the apparent ease with which he has slipped into both the style and policies of his predecessors. The issues came to a head last December after the youthful co-operation minister Jean-Pierre Cot was eased out of the government, and Mitterrand was obliged to summon correspondents to the Elysde to deny that Cot's departure represented a split between 'idealist' and 'realist' views of cooperation policy, and reassure them he was still 'on the side of the angels'.'