By RFIPalled on 26-09-2019editing 26-09-2019 at 15:30

The former French president died Thursday morning at the age of 86. President of the French Republic for 12 years, from 1995 to 2007, he had not appeared in public for several years. Major figure of the French right, it is also a major figure of the French policy vis-à-vis the African continent.

Jacques Chirac has often been presented as Africa's advocate for major international bodies, arguing for example for the partial cancellation of debt, and for development. In the early 2000s, with the British Tony Blair, he will be the sponsor of Nepad, the new partnership for development in Africa, which aims to coordinate development programs at the continental level.

Africa is rich, but Africans are not rich.

Jacques Chirac advocates for Africa

26-09-2019 - By RFI

In general, the lawyer Chirac pleads for greater involvement of rich countries in the fight against epidemics such as malaria, AIDS or tuberculosis in Africa. Jacques Chirac will even come to the G8 Evian, in 2003, 19 emerging countries. The hopes of a Marshall plan for development are then showered, victims of the cooling relations between Paris and Washington because of the war in Iraq.

Under Chirac's presidency, France's official development assistance will have increased to 0.5% of GDP in 2007. We also remember the "Chirac tax" on airline tickets in 2006, which will not be finally levied only on passengers departing from France. An action that he wishes to continue through the foundation he sets up when leaving the Elysee, and which is dedicated to the fight against fake drugs, against deforestation, and for access to water; major themes in Africa.

Heir of Françafrique

On the political level, Jacques Chirac is a conception of Africa sometimes qualified as "paternalistic", inherited from the Françafrique Gaullist. In 1990, the opponent Chirac believes that multipartism is a " luxury " for African countries. In 1995, as soon as he was elected, he sent Jacques DeGulle's M. Africa to Élysée Jacques Foccart.

I love and respect Africa.

Jacques Chirac in Cannes at the 2007 France-Africa Summit

26-09-2019 - By RFI

In 2003, visiting Ben Ali's Tunisia, the French president will have this sentence: " The first human right is to have food, to be treated and to receive an education. From this point of view, Tunisia is ahead . "

Jacques Chirac's two presidential terms have been marked by a number of French military operations in Africa. The most important is the Licorne operation in Côte d'Ivoire. In 2002, French forces intervened between the northern rebels and forces loyal to President Gbagbo in the south of the country.

The operation will then go under UN mandate. Operation marked in 2004 by the French response to the bombing of one of its bases and the death of nine of its soldiers. Jacques Chirac orders the destruction of Ivorian planes. An episode that raises the anti-French tension that culminated in the shooting of the Hotel Ivoire in Abidjan, during which French soldiers, trapped, opened fire on a host of hostile protesters.

Several interventions in the Central African Republic

In 2003, France intervened militarily in eastern DRC, on behalf of the European Union and under a UN mandate, to end the conflict in Ituri. Sometimes under UN mandate, interventions of the Chirac era often rely on defense agreements with the countries concerned, but they can be justified by the need to protect French and foreign nationals, as in Brazzaville and Kinshasa in 1997 and 1998.

In the Central African Republic, the French military intervened in 1996 during a mutiny to protect the French and the Patassé regime. Later, in 2006 and 2007, the French military will save the Bozizé regime, fighting a rebellion in the north-east of the country. In Chad in 2006, under the defense agreements binding Paris and Ndjamena, French planes will arrest a rebel column 250 km from the capital. But the first intervention authorized by President Chirac is that to arrest Bob Denard and his men in the Comoros, where the mercenary had attempted a coup.

Jacques Chirac also cultivated personal friendships with controversial regime leaders. Omar Bongo, Gnassimbé Eyadéma and Paul Biia among others are among his " relatives ". The personal relations that will often be blamed on him and that have given rise to mistrust or even hostility among many opponents and within the new generation of African leaders.

It's a loved one that France loses ...

Reaction in Abidjan after the death of Jacques Chirac

26-09-2019 - By Pierre Pinto

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