Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-26T09:56:45.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

France and Africa: “Long Live Neo-Colonialism”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 May 2019

Claude Wauthier
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

“Yes, of course we are neo-colonialists. The proof lies in the fact that we are trying to help this country: we are granting her financial aid. If that is neo-colonialism, then long live neo-colonialism.”

This outburst of French indignation occurred in January 1972 at a press conference in Fort Lamy. Georges Pompidou had just been asked by a journalist to comment on the slogans which appeared throughout the Chadian capital accusing the French of being neo-colonialists. President Pompidou’s first trip to Chad was drawing to a close, and French troops continued to work with government forces under President Tombalbaye in combatting guerrilla action led by Moslems in the north. The press conference also afforded the opportunity to protest earlier broadcasts from Radio Libya which had urged the people of Chad to boycott Pompidou’s visit. “Those broadcasts bordered on insults,” the President declared. (Le Monde, January 30-31, 1972)

Type
Research Article
Information
African Issues , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , Spring 1972 , pp. 23 - 26
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1972 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

* Ndiaye, Jean Pierre, La jeunesse africaine face è l’impérialisme, (Paris: François Maspero, 1971), p. 19.Google Scholar

** Political opinion among African students was the subject of Ndiaye’s first book, Enquête sur fes étudiants noirs en France. In another study, Négriers modernes, Ndiaye examines the situation of African workers in France.