Question: We are witnessing the collapse of France’s neocolonial policy system, once referred to as Françafrique. What’s your take on this process which is clearly gaining momentum?

Maria Zakharova: Indeed, after the African peoples gained independence in 1950s-1960s, that continent has, in fact, experienced a second wave of liberation from the French and, more broadly, Western hegemony. Clearly, this process will affect more African countries going forward.

Despite the successive presidents of the Fifth Republic promising to abandon the Françafrique policy, Paris never stopped to view that continent as its fiefdom, to use Africans to promote its geopolitical games, and to deplete the African countries’ natural resources. Whenever they showed signs of independence or desire to gain independence, Paris used a massive array of coercive measures, including political pressure, economic sanctions, and sometimes even outright military interventions.

In doing so, the French and their allies failed to overcome any of the continent’s pressing issues, such as poverty, food shortages, illiteracy, or terrorist threats. To justify its setbacks, Paris is trying to shift responsibility to other countries, including Russia and China. However, these mantras find the majority of Africans increasingly less responsive to them, because they now know for a fact that the Fifth Republic’s imperial policy has aggravated the problems plaguing the African continent.

Following NATO’s military aggression against Libya in 2011 and the break-up of the Libyan statehood, the Sahara-Sahel region, which France has always considered an area of its influence, has become one of the most unstable African regions. Numerous well-armed and well-trained members of terrorist organisations affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS have moved into the Sahel. France’s attempts to use military force to normalise the situation have failed. After nearly a decade of inglorious implementation of the French Operation Barkhane in Mali, the terrorist threats in the region have increased.

Other French military and economic endeavours have failed as well. The G5 Sahel (Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Burkina Faso) projects spearheaded by Paris have remained mostly on paper. The G5’s joint military forces never became truly capable and eventually ceased to exist. The Sahel Alliance created by France and Germany in 2017 to finance the development projects failed to make any significant difference for the economy of the Sahara-Sahel region. The military contingent involved in the Takouba counterterrorism operation which was initiated by France in conjunction with its European allies in the summer of 2020 to train and provide combat support to the Malian army, failed to deliver and left Mali two years later.

Clearly, this state of affairs caused discontent among the Africans and exacerbated the anti-French sentiment. The military who took power in a number of countries, such as Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, and the Republic of Guinea, minimised their countries’ ties with the former colonial power and are pursuing an independent foreign policy. As a result, the French have lost their erstwhile military, political and economic influence and no longer control this important source that they used to replenish their national budget.

The Sahara-Sahel region countries’ push to strengthen multilateral cooperation with other partners, including Russia, is sharply rejected by France. Paris keeps trying to topple the existing governments in the Sahel countries, puts them under economic pressure, and conducts widespread campaigns to discredit the transitional governments’ policies in these countries. They are making wide use of the NGOs and various human rights organisations under their control which compile reports that suit their interests. The French diplomacy was involved in the Economic Community of West African Countries (ECOWAS) imposing brutal economic and financial sanctions on Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger, which significantly worsened the already difficult situation of ordinary people in these countries. The above three countries’ activities in ECOWAS have been suspended. In late 2023, ECOWAS even considered the option of a military invasion of Niger, which would have inevitably led to a regional conflict with dire consequences.

Considering these circumstances, the three countries made a logical move when they decided to withdraw from ECOWAS and to conclude an agreement on mutual defence and security commitments, the Liptako-Gourma Charter, which envisages the creation of an Alliance of Sahel States. Bamako, Mali; Niamey, Niger; and Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso have thus embarked on a steady path towards comprehensive and systemic integration within the Alliance relying on the support of friendly countries, of which France is not one.

For its part, Russia is firmly committed to expanding interaction with the Sahel countries using the formats that they believe will ensure a consolidated response to the existing economic challenges and security threats.

It appears time has come for Paris to realise that the Africans’ push to gain true independence is a natural thing, and that the ongoing wave of decolonisation cannot be reversed. Just like the Soviet Union in its time, Russia stands ready to provide the necessary assistance to its African partners.