[Tribune] In France as in Africa, Sarkozy is sadly “entered in history” – Jeune Afrique

In Dakar, in 2007, Nicolas Sarkozy affirmed that “the African man has not entered enough history”. The former French president will be remembered for his role in the destruction of Libya and his sentence to prison.

“For once, he has entered history! This thought crossed my mind when, on March 1, I learned of Nicolas Sarkozy’s sentence to three years in prison, including one year, for “active corruption”. A first for a French head of state. Also found guilty of “influence peddling”, the former president appealed against the judgment.

My brain obviously brought me back to the infamous speech given on July 26, 2007 at the University of Dakar, in which Nicolas Sarkozy announced to us that he had solved the mystery of the “drama of Africa”; the latter, he then indicated, is that “African man has not entered history enough.”

In reality, Nicolas Sarkozy had already “entered into history”, at least in that of Africa, for the eminent role he played in the elimination of Muammar Gaddafi and the destruction of Libya. A decade after this sinister intervention, the situation in the country remains chaotic. Whole regions of Africa have been durably destabilized and continue to suffer the consequences of Sarkozy imperialism.

Disappointed hopes

Apparently, however, everything had started well. In a speech delivered in 2006 during a stay in Benin, the one who was then Minister of the Interior in the pre-presidential campaign indicated “to believe it essential to develop, beyond words, our relationship”. Because, he justified, “the vast majority of Africans did not experience the colonial period. 50% of Africans are under 17 years old. How can we imagine continuing with the same reflexes? “

Sarkozy promised a relationship with Africa devoid of paternalism

The revolution he announced promised to “rid the Franco-African relationship of networks from another time, official emissaries who have no other mandate than the one they invent”, and to establish “a uninhibited relationship, without feeling of superiority or inferiority ”, devoid of“ paternalism ”and“ imprint of respect ”.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s arguments were simple: he embodied a new generation, by definition far from the time of Françafrique; it was transgressive in terms of form, which foreshadowed a fundamental break; he was full of an energy that nothing could resist.

Apart from a few cynics – who felt that, in fine, just as “it is the dead who rule the living” (in the words of Auguste Comte), it is the institution of the presidency, that is to say, History, which directs the president and not conversely – we felt that Nicolas Sarkozy was benefiting from a a priori favorable among a significant part of African public opinion.

Stereotypical vision

And then came the Dakar speech. In his book The cause of the people, Patrick Buisson, one of his former advisers, describes “a personality devoid of the slightest conviction, consumed by his ego, cynical as possible.” If this bitter criticism undoubtedly stems from the exacerbated resentment of a former relative ousted, it does not surprise those who have followed the political course of Nicolas Sarkozy.

However, this does not prevent the fact that, failing to have an assertive political vision of France-Africa relations, the French president had, which is basically the same, a certain relationship to Africa as his Dakar speech, which could read as a policy statement, unintentionally clarified. The rhetoric of the rupture was a veil that masked the stereotypical vision of a frozen, irrational, retarded Africa.

Under the presidencies of Sarkozy and Macron, the medieval regimes of the pre-square have often been reinforced “

This vision outlined a political project. When Nicolas Sarkozy explained that “Muslim civilization, Christianity, beyond the crimes and faults which were committed in their name and which are not excusable, have opened African hearts and mentalities to the universal and to the history ”, he suggested all the same that these“ crimes ”, in view of the considerable benefit they generated, could be put into perspective (the famous“ positive role ”of colonization). He implied that the end justifies the means. The political application of this doctrine led to the Libyan catastrophe.

Macronism, a soft sarkozysme?

But the tragedy of Sarkozysme, at least in its African incarnation, is that it did not stop with the departure of Nicolas Sarkozy. Faced with the peoples of French-speaking Africa, Emmanuel Macron also exhibited his youth, his voluntarism, his modernity. With these supposed assets, he also promised to wring the neck to “Françafrique”; he too has promised to establish an uninhibited relationship with Africa; but he too, like Nicolas Sarkozy, stopped at words.

Under the presidency of the latter, like that of Emmanuel Macron, the monetary yoke of France was preserved, the French army was deployed in French-speaking Africa, the medieval regimes of the pre-square were often comforted.

Commenting on recent Senegalese news, marked by popular riots following the arrest of the opponent Ousmane Sonko, during which French symbols were targeted, the editorialist Éric Zemmour recently indicated on the French television channel CNews to have been informed that “Macron had hesitated, that he had thought of sending the French navy, a military intervention, then that he had retracted …”.

Macronism, a soft sarkozysme? Whatever in fine : it is up to Africa, not to “enter into history”, but to write its own history.

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