Great Britain succeeded in binding her former colonies to herself in the Commonwealth. France created an organisation commonly knows as the Francophonie for the same purpose.

What is the Francophonie?

The term Francophonie can mean both the totality of all countries where French is spoken and the International Organization of Francophonie (OFI), in which 84 states and governments cooperate. 54 of them are full members and 7 are associate members. 27 have observer status. Among them are many former French colonies, but also other interested states. They represent a population of about 300 million people. French is still the fifth most spoken language in the world.

The OFI has its headquarters in Paris and representations in 7 countries, as well as at the African Union in Addis Ababa, at the EU in Brussels and at the UN in New York and Geneva. Members meet every two years for a summit. The last one was held in Tunisia in 2022. The Francophonie is a kind of counterpart to the British Commonwealth.

African members of the Francophonie

In 21 of the 55 African countries, French is an official language. According to the size of their population. The Democratic Republic of Congo ranks first with over 80 million inhabitants. It is followed by Madagascar, Côte d’Ivoire and Cameroon with over 25 million; Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali with over 20 million; Senegal and Chad with over 15 million; Guinea, Rwanda, Burundi and Benin with over 10 million; Togo, CAR and the Republic of Congo with over 5 million; Gabon, Djibouti, Equat. Guinea and Comoros with over 1 million; Mayotte and the Sechelles with under 1 million.

Other African countries that are not Francophone also belong to OFI, such as Egypt, Ghana, Gambia, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique.

The history of the Francophonie

The origins of the International Organization of Francophonie (OFI) go back to the creation of the Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation (ACCT) in 1969 by 28 governments of Francophone countries. Among the founding fathers were Léopold Senghor and Habib Bourguiba.

Francophonie’s goals are:

– To promote the French language and its cultural and linguistic diversity

– The promotion of peace, democracy and human rights, and partnership in crisis and conflict management

– Promotion of education and research

– Economic and technical cooperation for sustainable development.

The Franc CFA- A tool of Exploitation

One example of cooperation among francophone countries is the African Economic Community  (CFA=Communauté Financière d’Afrique). Its official currency, the Franc CFA is used in the eight West African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, the Ivory Coast, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Niger, Senegal and Togo. It was introduced at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1945 and pegged to the French Franc with a fixed exchange rate. Due to the devaluation of the Franc, the exchange rate was changed several times and was pegged to the EURO with its introduction. The CFA countries are thus de facto members of the EURO zone.

This peg guarantees a certain stability of the Franc CFA. However, since the African governments have no say in the decision making process and cannot devalue their currency, the common currency has proved in practice to be a brake on the development of the individual states. Also, at independence, the former colonies were forced to sign contracts under which they must sell raw materials to France far below the world market price to this day and so lose more than they gain from French development aid.

Future Perspectives

Europe has lost much of its influence on the African continent in recent decades. New players are taking its place. Through the “Silk Road Project” and massive loans for infrastructure projects, China has tied many African states to itself and become Africa’s strongest trading partner. Russia has expanded its influence through military training and arms exports to dictatorial regimes and has replaced France as the protecting power in Mali, Burkina Faso and the Central African Republic. Republic, China and Russia have also the advantage that they were never a colonial power in Africa and have helped many African countries to obtain their independence. Turkey has opened 31 new embassies in African countries since 2002, and Turkish Airlines flies to 52 cities in Africa. While Europe insists, at least in theory, on respect for fundamental human rights, the new partners ignore the political conditions and are thus interesting partners, especially for dictatorial regimes.

Wolfgang Schonecke