Africa: Just a Corner of France

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In Niamey, the tiny capital of Niger, the dust clouds rise at midday to nostril level. They made no exception last week for the 13 African chiefs of state who met there to discuss the future of their Afro-Malagasy Common Organization (OCAM), including efforts to persuade the European Common Market to renew their tariff concessions. There was something else in the air, however, that proved even more pervasive than dust: the unmistakable presence of France.

The French government paid the bulk of the $500,000 bill for the gathering and provided most of the economists for the discussions. Some of the chiefs of state flew in aboard Caravelle or Mystere jets. Everyone spoke French at the meetings. In one of the most important speeches, President Leopold Senghor of Senegal, the unofficial poet laureate of black Africa, made an extraordinary statement for an area that has gloried in shucking off colonial rule. Said Senghor: "We desire to keep and use fruitfully the positive aspects of Francophone colonialism."

French culture and influence are probably as strong in the 15 former French territories running southward from the Sahara* as anywhere outside of France. French is the official language of those countries, bringing order out of a confusion of tribal tongues.

The inhabitants eat French food in restaurants, shop for French bread, sip crèmes and demi-pressions (beer) in sidewalk cafés, grow up on French textbooks and must be familiar with Racine and Corneille by the tenth grade in school. Most of all, the top men are firm partisans of Charles de Gaulle. "I consider the general my adopted father," says Brigadier Jean-Bedel Bokassa, ruler of the Central African Republic and a former officer in the French colonial army. "Politics does not enter into our relationship."

Second Country. The admiration for De Gaulle reflects not only the healthy portions of aid that France still ladles out but also the success of French colo nial policy, which taught the Africans that loss of French culture could only bring a reversion to barbarism in their countries. Also, the French government gave African politicians a voice in the affairs of both France and the empire. Though no Africans ever sat in the British House of Commons, men like Senghor were Deputies in the French National Assembly long before their countries became independent.

Such men look to France as their second country. These days, Senghor lives abroad several months of the year on the farm in Normandy where his French wife was born. President Hamani Diori of Niger takes an annual trip to France for a "cure" in the baths at Vichy. When the son of the President of the Ivory Coast married the niece of the President of Togo, all the chiefs of the French-speaking African states got airline tickets with their invitations. The wedding was, of course, in Paris.