Africa - France: The Era of Humility...
4 February 2015
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The Franco-African Forum for Shared Growth is taking place on Friday, February 6th in Paris, co-organized by Medef International and the economic and finance ministries of the countries concerned.
For better or for worse, trade has always shaped the relationship between France and Africa. There was the shameful time of slaves traded for trinkets and ivory exchanged for trade guns. Then came the time of concessionary companies that controlled entire territories under the protection of the sword and the blessing of the church.
At the beginning of the 20th century, people were not, with rare exceptions, anti-colonialist on moral or political grounds, but because they considered the colonial adventure chimerical and expensive. Between the two World Wars and until the dawn of independence, the governors of the empire therefore had instructions, a bit like today's ambassadors, to "make numbers" and to organize themselves so that the return on investment was as high as possible for the mother country.
A system of direct exploitation soon deemed obsolete and underperforming by the business community, whose determining role in the colonial liquidation process carried out by General de Gaulle has long been underestimated.
The way was clear for half a century of Françafrique, a perfectly oiled organization for the economic tutelage of a large part of the continent and the golden age of a control, or even predation, mechanism implemented by a man, Jacques Foccart, who was also - often forgotten - an entrepreneur.
Swept away by the whirlwind of globalization, the Franco-African hydra is dead and France has lost most of its captive markets. Even in countries where its influence was overwhelming (Ivory Coast, Gabon, Congo, Djibouti...), the emergence of Chinese, European, Indian, Brazilian, Turkish, Emirati, and American competition has reduced its comparative advantages to nothing. After a period of disarray, it was necessary to review everything, rethink everything, and for businesses, diplomacy, and foreign trade, this cultural revolution was painful. A lost decade, the first of this century, during which it was necessary to escape the laziness of automatically renewable contracts and the culture of zero risk, to compete with adversaries who were tearing down, one after the other, the fences of the famous "pré carré".
Certainly, friendly pressures, help from the Élysée, Bercy or the Quai d'Orsay are still common with heads of state sensitive to what is said about them in Paris, especially during pre-election periods. Economic diplomacy is also that.
But threats no longer work, the "missi dominici" have mostly disappeared, and the number of major "political" markets obtained by force is decreasing each year, especially when it comes to winning them outside the Francophone area.
For French companies in Africa, the time is for competitiveness, combativeness, but above all, humility. On the continent too, the customer is king, and you have to know how to seduce him.
www.jeuneafrique.com
For better or for worse, trade has always shaped the relationship between France and Africa. There was the shameful time of slaves traded for trinkets and ivory exchanged for trade guns. Then came the time of concessionary companies that controlled entire territories under the protection of the sword and the blessing of the church.
At the beginning of the 20th century, people were not, with rare exceptions, anti-colonialist on moral or political grounds, but because they considered the colonial adventure chimerical and expensive. Between the two World Wars and until the dawn of independence, the governors of the empire therefore had instructions, a bit like today's ambassadors, to "make numbers" and to organize themselves so that the return on investment was as high as possible for the mother country.
A system of direct exploitation soon deemed obsolete and underperforming by the business community, whose determining role in the colonial liquidation process carried out by General de Gaulle has long been underestimated.
The way was clear for half a century of Françafrique, a perfectly oiled organization for the economic tutelage of a large part of the continent and the golden age of a control, or even predation, mechanism implemented by a man, Jacques Foccart, who was also - often forgotten - an entrepreneur.
Swept away by the whirlwind of globalization, the Franco-African hydra is dead and France has lost most of its captive markets. Even in countries where its influence was overwhelming (Ivory Coast, Gabon, Congo, Djibouti...), the emergence of Chinese, European, Indian, Brazilian, Turkish, Emirati, and American competition has reduced its comparative advantages to nothing. After a period of disarray, it was necessary to review everything, rethink everything, and for businesses, diplomacy, and foreign trade, this cultural revolution was painful. A lost decade, the first of this century, during which it was necessary to escape the laziness of automatically renewable contracts and the culture of zero risk, to compete with adversaries who were tearing down, one after the other, the fences of the famous "pré carré".
Certainly, friendly pressures, help from the Élysée, Bercy or the Quai d'Orsay are still common with heads of state sensitive to what is said about them in Paris, especially during pre-election periods. Economic diplomacy is also that.
But threats no longer work, the "missi dominici" have mostly disappeared, and the number of major "political" markets obtained by force is decreasing each year, especially when it comes to winning them outside the Francophone area.
For French companies in Africa, the time is for competitiveness, combativeness, but above all, humility. On the continent too, the customer is king, and you have to know how to seduce him.
www.jeuneafrique.com
