The French Tie That Binds

Sitting cross-legged in an Arab tent, the guest of honor munched on a hunk of roast lamb as a local entertainer offered animal imitations. "Monsieur le President, I'm a cock," the man announced, crowing convincingly. "Monsieur le President, now I'm a dog," he then barked. As the guest sipped Coca-Cola and Evian water, a group of Moorish women serenaded him in Arabic: "De Gaulle entrusted his testament to Georges Pompidou. Welcome." Thus did the 200 guests at a meshwi, an Arab-style barbecue, greet France's President on his arrival in the Mauritanian capital of Nouakchott last week at the beginning of his ten-day tour of five Black African states.

Pompidou's visit to francophone Africa is the first by a French President since Charles de Gaulle's historic preindependence tour in 1959. It will take him from the tent encampments of Nouakchott to the modern towers of Abidjan in the Ivory Coast, from the arid desert of Mauritania to the deep green rain forests of Cameroun, from the sight of heavily clad Berber women in the Sahara to bare-breasted girls in Yacunde. Scrupulously impartial, he and his entourage of 160--including Wife Claude, cool in summer outfits by Chanel, Cardin and Lanvin despite the oppressive heat--were scheduled to remain about 48 hours in each capital.

Continuing Dependence. The very fact that Pompidou could make such a trip in relative cordiality and splendor was an indication of the enduring bond between France and its former colonies. Last month the British Commonwealth was plunged into a crisis because several former British African colonies bitterly opposed the Heath government's plan to resume arms sales to white-ruled South Africa. Yet the 14 countries of what was once French Africa scarcely seem perturbed by the fact that French sales of Mirage jets, submarines, helicopters, AMX-13 light tanks and other arms to South Africa will reach the $2 billion mark within the next four years. As if to underscore the irony, Mauritania's President Muktar Quid Daddah, in an after-dinner tribute last week to President Pompidou, roundly condemned the British government's policy and blithely glossed over the fact that France is Pretoria's principal arms supplier.

The explanation for the double standard lies in the degree of French-speaking Africa's cultural identification with --and economic dependence on--the mother country. France still pours some $250 million in annual aid into its former African colonies (although 85% of this amount flows back to France in the form of wages to French employees and profits for French companies). Some 200,000 Frenchmen still live in the former colonies; not only do they dominate power companies, railways, airways and broadcasting, they also strongly influence most branches of governments--including armies and police forces. The French army, moreover, is never far away. "As soon as a cloud hangs over a presidential palace," says a Senegalese journalist, "the French troops are immediately confined to their barracks awaiting orders to intervene."

Future History. Though the ties still bind, anti-French sentiment is rising. Students and workers particularly feel that their leaders have sold out to Paris, and they would like to have their countries run without French constraint. For such tiny or unviable countries as Togo, Chad and Dahomey, this is an impossible dream. But for Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Cameroun and Mauritania, such a transition is inevitable. In the view of most African observers, French-speaking Africa faces a second revolution, if only because the first one didn't change anything.

Sensing the changing mood, Pompidou has sought to encourage greater private investment in Africa, and called for increased "Africanization" of local management. Whether he is doing all this in order to strengthen the Africans' ability to manage their own affairs or in order to improve France's image and thereby ensure its continued dominance is not yet clear. In an address to the Senegalese National Assembly at week's end, he emphasized the importance to developing nations of selfhelp. "Whatever its form and size," said Pompidou, "external aid could never, by itself, ensure the success of a policy of development."

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