With France’s military influence in Africa gone, can it rely on soft power?

French troops’ withdrawal from Chad this week, just before the deadline of January 31 was set, is the most recent blow to France’s shrinking military hold in its former West and Central African strongholds.

In December, N’Djamena abruptly ended a military pact that resulted in 1, 000 French soldiers stationed in the nation. The sprawling country serves as a hub for both monitoring and launching operations in the troubled Sahel region and in neighboring Libya, which is also a hub for monitoring and launching operations.

Due to resentment over perceived French interference in their nations, ex-French colonies have recently cut off or downgrade military and diplomatic ties with their former rulers.

In military-led Niger, Burkina Faso and Mali, some 4, 000 French soldiers have exited, while Russian troops have flooded in to help battle armed groups.

Chad, Senegal and Ivory Coast have since followed suit.

“For these countries, it’s about sovereignty”, Francophone Africa security analyst Beverly Ochieng with the Control Risks consultancy told Al Jazeera.

“If you have a foreign force in your country, it means you are in some way surrendering sovereignty, and these countries see it as freeing themselves of that interference”.

Popular resentment against France has festered in “La Francafrique” since colonial times but has now erupted. In the past ten years, protesters have marched in the streets from Abidjan to Niamey, blaming France for everything from instability to election interference.

However, even as France’s military bases close up, analysts say Paris continues to wield subtle but deep power. The influence of France is omnipresent and visible in all of these nations’ daily lives, making a divorce nearly impossible because of the French language and a common currency among former colonies.

French: ‘ Number one language ‘

France’s biggest soft power lies in the reach of the French language.

Of the 300 million French speakers in the world by 2022, close to 50 percent lived in Africa, according to the Organisation of French-Speaking Countries. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance, has more French speakers than any other country.

Across the continent, locals have over time adapted the rule-rigid language to suit their needs. In Cameroon, where French and English are official languages, mixed phrases like tu go où, which means where are you going, are common.

However, across several Francophone countries, official communication, such as public communiques, the news, or even lectures, is delivered in standard French. French is still the official language in Mali despite the military government’s decision to remove it from its list in August.

President Emmanuel Macron’s administration launched a campaign to provide French lessons in most African cities in 2018 acknowledging the power of the French language. Prior to the two countries’ split, Macron declared that French would be the “number one language in Africa… and possibly the world” in a speech to students in Burkinabe that year.

In English-speaking nations like Nigeria, where elite schools entice parents with the promise that their children will learn French, the language is already popular.

Senegal’s President Bassirou Diomaye Faye, who was voted into office in April 2024 on promises of delivering anti-establishment policies and reducing ties with France, has, however, attempted to shake the hold of the language.

His official speeches are delivered in both the widely used Wolof language and French.

Additionally, Faye has made a move to establish a new organization to honor locals on streets and squares across the nation.

France’s centuries-long rule of the country was so encompassing that streets, bridges, and squares were named after colonial officers, or bear French words.

According to experts, such actions are necessary for a nation like Senegal, which is determined to reclaim its national identity outside of France. Ferdinand De Jong, a researcher at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom, stated that “it is part of a process of decolonization that is intended to help recover self-respect and heal the trauma of colonialism.”

CFA: Complicated common currency

The economic ties that have kept France in its former colonies afloat since before independence are just as strong.

French-owned companies that are now active in several French-speaking countries include mobile network providers, supermarket chain Auchan, and nuclear powerhouse Orano. There is no indication that these businesses intend to leave, despite the fact that they have been increasingly the targets of violent anti-French protests.

Then, there’s the common CFA currency zone. The CFA currency zone, which was established in December 1945 at a time when calls for independence were already roiling, covers 14 West and Central African nations. It was first referred to as the “franc of the French colonies of Africa,” which was in contrast to France’s original intentions when it issued the currency. It is voluntary and is known as the French Franc of the African Financial Community today. Only Guinea-Conakry and Mauritania left the zone upon independence.

Some believe the currency to be a powerful stabilizer against inflation, but there are many disagreements over its terms: nations must maintain a 50% deposit in the French Treasury to maintain a currency that is a euro-like currency. This, according to many scholars and African experts, restricts the CFA’s growth and, in turn, the economies of the nations using it. It is considered a French neo-colonial tool by some.

In a speech honoring the country’s independence in August 2015, former Chadian president Idris Deby called for change. “We must have the courage to say that there is a cord preventing development in Africa that needs to be severed,” Deby said.

However, no African leaders, including the military ones, have since left the zone.

President Faye in Senegal promised to end his campaign against the CFA and stop working with Western monetary organizations like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, but he has since done the opposite.

“They have quietly let the CFA question die down”, Mahmoud Ba, a professor of international relations at Cornell University in New York told Al Jazeera, referring to Faye’s administration. Despite the severe criticism they received for these institutions, they have continued their close cooperation with the state, the IMF, and the World Bank.

Analysts say countries may fear France’s backlash: After Guinea voted to leave the CFA zone in 1960, the French government launched a secret mission, Operation Persil, to flood the country with the new Guinean franc and engineer hyperinflation. Paris also planned to ship weapons to start a local conflict, although its operation was intercepted.

A regional push to create a common currency that would compete with the European Union’s (EUR) is also making it difficult to leave the CFA zone and establish a new local currency, at least in West Africa. Some have criticized France for the delay in moving forward with that initiative, but some have attributed it to France: In 2019, Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara, a steadfast French ally, announced that the CFA zone countries would adopt a new currency the day before the final terms for the “eco” currency were set to be adopted. Its name? Also the “eco”. So far, neither currency has emerged.

Paris has also begun putting a new Africa strategy into place as nations continue to flee France, such as Gabon, where there are still about 300 French soldiers.

Jean-Marie Bockel, President Macron’s special envoy to Africa, said in May that France wants to “reduce its visible presence, but maintain logistical, human and material access to these countries, while reinforcing our action in response to their aspirations”.

France is also establishing stronger ties with former British colonies like Nigeria and Kenya, both of which don’t suffer the same pain and resentment toward Paris as their French neighbors. In December, Macron feted Nigerian President Ahmed Tinubu, using pidgin English in his welcome address.

Source: Aljazeera