France has had dubious dealing with African countries throughout her post-colonial period. Regardless of the party in power, her successive governments have been busy funnelling money and weaponry to the African dictators du jour. In a few occasions, the Foreign Legion was even sent to help one side or the other in local conflicts. Until recently, these events did not make headlines in the international press, probably because the French enterprises looked too complicated and seemed anyway to have little impact on the big African mess. It was more popular to complain about American imperialism, a favorite European bugaboo.

To understand these African shenanigans, one must go back to the post-WW II period, when France was losing her colonies. De Gaulle and his successors, paranoid about "Anglo-Saxon" hegemony, elaborated an African strategy that would continue for the long term the economic agreements of the separation treaties. The strategy rested on generous aid programs to the new nations that included money, free access to French higher education for the elites, economic advisers, military advisers, educators, etc. In exchange, the practice of the French language would be maintained---at least in the upper classes---and France would have preferential trading status, including guaranteed access to strategic raw materials and petroleum. Finally, French positions on international matters would enjoy the former colonies' support in the UN. In short, France set out to prop and bribe corrupt leaders to get special treatment.

The French greatly feared a takeover of Africa by an unholy US-UK alliance that they called "Anglo-Saxon." The phrase is intriguing in itself, as it was routinely used during World War II by Nazi propagandists and the collaborationist Vichy government. Propaganda being what it is, I suspect that the label "Anglo-Saxon" was intended to tap into ages-old French resentment---a good five centuries of various forms of conflicts with "Perfidious Albion." I don't claim that the French are still acutely smarting from Agincourt and Waterloo, but the history textbooks that I could peruse last year in the Latin Quarter shops still suggest a latent grudge. In any case, an analysis of the French paranoia should likely include a sour view of history, which the loss of world-power status in the past century has only deepened.

The importance accorded to the use of the French tongue in former colonies is no less intriguing. France seems to consider her language a strategic weapon, and likes to measure her influence in world affairs by the number of "francophone" countries, as if these were components of a new French Empire. The official tally lists fifty countries, which is impressive enough. A closer look, however, reveals that Canada, New Brunswick, and Quebec count for three countries. I was also puzzled to find in this tally Bulgaria, Moldavia, Rumania, and Cape Verde. The inclusion of Switzerland and Belgium ignores the other languages widely spoken there. Even though such delusive tabulations should not fool anyone, the French believe that these countries constitute a linguistic Maginot Line against Anglo-Saxon encroachment. The fort is kept in good repair with yearly summits of the "Francophone Community" where delegates of participating countries can gorge on canapés and petits fours paid for by the French government. As might be expected, La Francophonie includes former French and Belgian African colonies .

When François Mitterrand became president in 1981, he hired his son Jean-Christophe in the agency of African affairs. Mitterrand fils's credentials included a few years of undistinguished employment as an Agence France-Presse correspondent in Africa, during which he earned a reputation of party animal. Yet, life in the fast lane allowed him to establish personal connections. In 1986, he was promoted to the position of chief adviser for African affairs and head of the agency. In reality, he was his father's courier to a crowd of businessmen, traders, and African heads of state. His position gave him access to useful address books put together by his predecessors and other Africa "strategists," among whom one Charles Pasqua, friend and political ally of Jacques Chirac and former Interior Minister, figures prominently. The network included SOFREMI, a government company set up for the sale of weapons and other military wares. Elf, the national oil company, which had obvious interests in the strategy, served as a discreet conduit for money transactions between Paris and Africa. In 1992, Jean-Christophe quit his job for unknown reasons, and papa found for him an unlikely position at the national Water Company. When Jacques Chirac was elected president, Jean-Christophe went into business for himself as a "consultant" on African affairs.

The nuts and bolts of the African strategy remained a secret until a recent chain of scandals implicating high officials of the Mitterand administration and the Elf company triggered a flurry of investigations for corruption. Six months ago, Jean-Christophe stood accused of embezzlement, illegal arms deals, and influence peddling, and was sent to jail for six weeks pending a court appearance. The charges pertained to an illegal $500-million shipments of computers and Russian arms and military equipment to Angola in 1993 and 1994. Mitterand Jr received $1.8 million for setting up the deal with two international arms traders, Arkady Gaydamak who has taken refuge in Israel to escape a French arrest warrant, and Pierre Falcone, once in the escargot business and now in jail. There are indications that the African strategy entailed many generous kickbacks, some to politicians and magistrates for protection, some that found their way to the coffers of French political parties. The reasons for which President Chirac granted Gaydamak the Medal of National Merit in 1996 are still a puzzlement to most observers. The corruption has been so deep and wide for so long that it seems practically impossible to unravel its complexities. In his defense, Jean-Christophe declared that the deal he had arranged as a private citizen---being an employee of the Water Company notwithstanding---was no different from others that he had managed for the French government as papa's agent. The inquiry has uncovered some other questionable business with the former French and Belgian Congos in 1995.

The Angola deal had a dual purpose. On the one hand, supporting Jose Eduardo Dos Santos's Marxist regime, one of the most corrupt dictatorships of the continent, seemed like a guarantee against the "Anglo-Saxon" encroachment represented by Jonas Savimbi's UNITA One the other hand, exclusivity in the potential development of new oilfields was a major economic incentive.

The investigation of this affair has brought to the fore the shady role of France in the Rwanda massacre. Rwanda, although a former Belgian colony, is a member of the francophone Maginot Line. Trouble started there in 1990, when exiled Tutsis returned home from Uganda and tried to reclaim a participation in the government. France looked on these "invaders" as potential "Anglo-Saxon" agents---weren't they English-speaking?---and swiftly set out to support Hutu president and strong man Habyarimana with weaponry, money, and military advisers. This emboldened a Hutu faction in power to take the civil war to a new dimension by plotting the complete elimination of its political opponents, Tutsi and Hutu alike. The 1994 death of Habyarimana whose plane was apparently shot down provided a good pretext for the implementation of the plan. Within three months, nearly a million people were slaughtered.

The role of the French military advisers, who had trained some of the executioners, remains a mystery in this matter. Now it seems that France kept supplying weapons to the killers during the massacre. According to a later report in the French daily Le Figaro, President Mitterrand would have said at the time that genocide was no big deal in countries like Rwanda.

If the Europeans are so adamant about enforcing international law and dragging the Milosevics of the continent to The Hague, why haven't they yet started investigating France's part in the Rwanda massacre, as well as in other shenanigans that have supported brutal African dictators? First, I think that no one there is in a hurry to create trouble for a founder of the EU and an active booster of its "new" socialism. Second, the evolution of the EU into an anti-American bloc may have dulled moral sensibilities toward activities aimed against "Anglo-Saxon" preeminence. Pecksniffian Europeans, I say!