Africa and France – historically and in these times.

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe

doi:10.5020/23172150.2012.807-822

Authors

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe Lancaster University Head of Team

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5020/23172150.2012.807-822

Keywords:

French colonialism. Human rights in Africa. Genocide in Africa. African-French relations. French military interventionism.

Abstract

For France, the so-called francophonie Africa or the total of 22 countries, mostly in west, northeast, central and southeast Africa (Indian Ocean) that France conquered and occupied in Africa during the course of the pan-European invasion of Africa during the 15th-19th centuries, belong to France in perpetuity. This is in spite of the presumed restoration of independence, since the 1960s, of each of the states concerned. French presidents and top officials of the French republic since the end of World War II, irrespective of ideological or political orientation, attest to this key position in French international politics. Quests for African freedom from this subjugation will be central in charting the salient defining transformative features of African-French relations of this new millennium.

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Author Biography

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe, Lancaster University Head of Team

He specialises on the state and on genocide and wars in Africa in the post-1966 epoch, beginning with the Igbo genocide, 29 May 1966-12 January 1970, the foundational and most gruesome genocide of post-(European)conquest Africa. Among his books are Longest genocide - Since 29 May 1966 (forthcoming, 2016), Readings from Reading: Essays on African Politics, Genocide, Literature (African Renaissance, 2011), Biafra Revisited (African Renaissance, 2006), African Literature in Defence of History: An Essay on Chinua Achebe (Michigan State University Press, 2001), Africa 2001: The State, Human Rights and the People (International Institute for African Research, 1993), and Conflict and Intervention in Africa (Macmillan, 1990).