IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/swpcom/279945.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

France's Africa policy under president Macron: Good intentions, partial reform and the fiasco in the Sahel

Author

Listed:
  • Tull, Denis

Abstract

Since his election in 2017, President Emmanuel Macron has tried to distance himself from established and widely criticised patterns of France's Africa policy. He diversified relations with Africa in regional and substantive terms, integrated non-state actors and cultivated a comparatively open approach to France's problematic past on the continent. However, Macron's efforts to craft a narrative of change was overshadowed by path dependencies, above all the continuation of the military engagement in the Sahel and incoherent relations with autocratic governments. The involuntary military withdrawal first from Mali (2022), from Burkina Faso (2023) and finally from Niger (announced for late 2023) marks a historic turning point in Franco-African relations. The question is no longer whether relations between France and its former colonies will change; the real question is whether Paris will be able to shape this change or if it will be a mere bystander to a transformation that is largely driven by African actors.

Suggested Citation

  • Tull, Denis, 2023. "France's Africa policy under president Macron: Good intentions, partial reform and the fiasco in the Sahel," SWP Comments 51/2023, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:swpcom:279945
    DOI: 10.18449/2023C51
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/279945/1/1860418546.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.18449/2023C51?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:swpcom:279945. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.swp-berlin.org/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.