Disappeared at the age of 94, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, who presided over the destinies of France from 1974 to 1981, had a special relationship with Africa, as much on the political level where he tried, without completely succeeding, to break with the Gaullian approach to the relationship between France and Africa than on a personal level. Illustration: Africa is the setting for his latest novel Mathilda, which tells the tragic story of a German family living in Namibia. For Africa Point, Antoine Glaser reproduces the vision and action of President Giscard d’Estaing in Africa.
What was his vision of Africa in the international context of the time?
Antoine Glaser : President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing had a much more geostrategic vision – integrating all the defenders of the West against the Soviet Union – than traditional Gaullism, which had retained a strategy of “France-Africa” precinct in the only old ones. colonies. This vision came to fruition when French paratroopers intervened in Zaire at the end of the 1970s, a little behind the backs of the Belgians, of which it was the former colony, but with the support of the Moroccans under Hassan II. and Americans. France was then playing its role of “gendarme of the West” to the full. By comparison, under Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, France monitored the influence of the Anglo-Saxons (hence the support for the Biafran war) as much as the Soviets, and only from its former colonies in Africa. West and Central Africa.
What conception did he have of France’s relationship with the continent?
Above all, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing had a passionate and secret relationship with the immensity of the equatorial forest, which explains his unconditional support for Emperor Bokassa, for whom he provided the funding and logistics for the coronation. It is no coincidence that his latest novel (Far from the noise of the world) which has just been published by XO tells the story of a French politician who disappears overnight to find happiness in the Central African forest. On the political level, he did not like too much the heads of state of the traditional precinct, which he found too close to his Gaullist competitors in Paris. He had tried to initiate a new triangular policy “Europe-Africa-Arab World” which never really worked. He continued the diplomacy of French influence in Africa through the Franco-African summits that he had initiated and the pursuit of the management of the Franc Zone which he had already managed as Minister of the Economy and Finance. Are CFA francs not always printed in Chamalières in the stronghold of Giscard d’Estaing?
What did he bring new, he who is presented as a modernizing president of France?
He tried to get out of the head to head of France with its former colonies without meeting any more success than his virtual “dolphin”, Emmanuel Macron today. We cannot really cite a founding act on his part for the emancipation of Africa and Africans. On the other hand, he worked a lot in favor of the French arms industry in apartheid South Africa, including in the nuclear field.
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