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All the French presidents are at one point in their mandate with the adjective "Africain" attached to their name. "De Gaulle the African", "Mitterrand the African", "Sarkozy the African". Of the six presidents of the Fifth Republic, nobody deserved this nickname as much as Jacques Chirac, for whom close personal ties with the leaders were an important dimension of his African policy. On this topic, interview with Christophe Boisbouvier, specialist journalist for Africa and author himself of Holland l'Africain .
When did Jacques Chirac go to Africa for the first time?
Jacques Chirac went very young to Algeria. Three times. A first time as a tourist, in the early fifties, a second time between 1956 and 1957, as a private and officer, during the war in Algeria, and a third time, between 1959 and 1960, as a young man civil servant, still during the war of Algeria. On the other hand, he did not go to sub-Saharan Africa until much later. His first known visit took place in Chad in 1976. As prime minister of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, he was received by President Félix Malloum and signed with him a Franco-Chadian defense agreement. At the same time, during a visit to Tripoli, in March 1976 more precisely, he met Colonel Gaddafi, with whom he has a very long head to head. It was also during this first visit to Matignon (1974-1976) that he established a lasting relationship with King Hassan II of Morocco. But it was only after his election to the mayor of Paris in 1977, and after the creation of the International Association of Mayors of France (AIMF), in 1979, that he will multiply travel in Africa.
But African affairs are complicated. Where does his taste for Africa come from?
Thanks to Jacques Foccart, who introduced him to African affairs. Foccart was Mr. Africa of General de Gaulle. In the first volume of his memoirs , whose subtitle Each step must be a goal (Nil, 2009), Chirac recounts that one day in 1969, he attended a meeting in Paris between Foccart and the Central African President Jean- Bedel Bokassa. " Stop calling the General" Daddy ", that annoys him, " says Foccart to Bokassa ... When Chirac appears in the 1981 presidential election against Giscard and Mitterrand, he asks Foccart to put him in touch with leaders of African states likely to help him finance his campaign. The first Chirac-Bongo meeting took place in October 1980 at the Paris City Hall. 28 years later, in 2009, Giscard will say on Europe 1 that the petrodollars of the Gabonese president Omar Bongo arrived at the time in the coffers of the candidate Chirac. And after his victory in the legislative elections of 1986, when Chirac returns to Matignon, he asks Foccart to follow him to counter the African policy of Mitterrand. Another Chirac mentor, Ivorian President Félix Houphouët-Boigny. Often at this time, Chirac goes to Abidjan to consult the " old man ". It is also after one of these interviews that he will say one of his biggest blunders. In February 1990, in the middle of a national conference in Benin, he declared in Abidjan, at the microphone of RFI, that multipartism is a "kind of luxury" for African countries.
Chirac knew African leaders well. You say in your book Hollande l'Africain (La Découverte, 2015) that he had an emotional connection with the continent and its leaders. Which leaders was he closest to?
For Chirac, " friendship " was an added value in politics. When an African president showed good intentions towards France, he was trying to make one
" Friend ". And the more this head of state had influence, the more Chirac cultivated his relationship with him. Hence the great "friendships" Chirac-Houphouet and Chirac-Bongo. The former French president also called himself the "great friend" of the Togolese Gnassingbé Eyadema and the Congolese Denis Sassou Nguesso. With former Senegalese President Abdou Diouf, the " friendly " relationship continued after Chirac's departure from the Elysee Palace. Indeed, Diouf has joined the Fondation Chirac for sustainable development and the dialogue of cultures. And when, on April 26, 2008, Diouf " married " one of his daughters in Paris, the mayor of the 7th arrondissement, the couple Chirac moved. Another head of state for whom Chirac had a real affection - almost paternal - King Mohamed VI of Morocco. On the death of his father Hassan II, in 1999, Chirac guided his first steps on the international scene. And in return, when the young king decided to take a wife, he introduced his fiancée to Chirac before everyone else.
Jacques Chirac, who liked to present himself as the heir of Gaullism, had he pursued De Gaulle's African policy or had he tried to print a break with the traditional French politics of the African pre-square?
For Chirac as for Foccart, an African people was incarnated in its leader, whoever it may be. Relations between France and Africa were therefore based on a man-to-man relationship, a personalized relationship between two heads of state. And as he always preferred the pre-square, a good African president was in his eyes a friendly president of France and himself. For him, respect for democracy and human rights was therefore not a priority. He liked this joke: " We must let the African presidents win the elections, otherwise they will not organize any more. And all Tunisians remember his little phrase, during a visit to the very authoritarian Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali, in December 2003: " The first human rights is to eat and be treated. Amazing coincidence: The two friends, the Tunisian and the French disappear a few days apart. Where Chirac innovated is on economic issues. From the summit of Evian, in June 2003, he imposed on the American George Bush the presence of Africans in the G8 and fought for the creation of a solidarity tax on air tickets, the " Chirac tax ". He has also worked hard for Unitaid, a device to facilitate access to medicines for HIV, malaria and tuberculosis. After leaving the Elysee Palace in May 2007, he and his Foundation also rallied against the trafficking of fake medicines in Africa. On the African scene, Chirac was backward in politics and precursor in economics.
The name Chirac is associated with Françafrique. What role has President Chirac played in this hidden network of business, corruption and influence-peddling?
Obviously, an important role. As we have seen, Chirac finances part of its 1981 campaign with Gabonese money - at least according to Giscard d'Estaing. Does he do the same for his 1988 and 1995 campaigns? We do not know. But for the 2002 campaign, two testimonies indicate that Africa has become for him a " cash machine ". In September 2011, in the Journal du
Sunday Chirac lawyer Robert Bourgi - one of Jacques Foccart's disciples in Africa - reveals that for this 2002 campaign, Chirac received a total of 10 million dollars in cash from five African heads of state Senegalese Abdoulaye Wade, Burkinabe Blaise Compaore, Ivorian Laurent Gbagbo, Congolese Denis Sassou Nguesso and, of course, Gabonese Omar Bongo. According to Mr. Bourgi, the agent went through briefcases or djembes and arrived on the office of the Secretary General of the Elysee, Dominique de Villepin. Despite his threats, Villepin will never bring a complaint against Bourgi. Second testimony. In June 2014, in the book-interview For truth and justice, published by Editions du moment, the former Ivorian President Laurent Gbagbo, questioned by François Mattei in his prison of the ICC, in the Netherlands, recognizes that, when of a visit to Paris in December 2001, he gave money to Jacques Chirac. " Villepin and Robert Bourgi asked me to spit the bassinet for the election in 2002 in France. [...] I'm not proud of this episode, but I thought I would gain the necessary leeway to move towards our goals. Clearly, Gbagbo hoped to buy the benevolent neutrality of Chirac, Bédié's old friend. The sequence of events will show him that it was a miscalculation ... In the discharge of Chirac, many other French politicians siphoned the money from Gabonese oil for their campaign expenses. In 2001, in the case-book Affaire Elf, a state affair published by Cherche Midi, the former CEO of Elf, Loïk Le Floch Prigent, admits that, via his bank, Fiba, Elf Gabon became in the years 1980-1990 the main black fund of the French state. The Floch claims that the oil company financed both the campaigns of the socialist François Mitterrand and the Gaullist Jacques Chirac. He even said that in his office at the Elysee, Mitterrand asked him to continue to support his opponent Chirac! " Make the system work as General de Gaulle wanted. [...] Elf served for the political financing of the Gaullist party. It was even created for that, "says Mitterrand to Le Floch. According to the French examining magistrates Eva Joly and Laurence Vichnievsky, Elf was robbed between 1980 and 1995 of some 20 billion francs (300 million euros) to the benefit of African heads of state, including Omar Bongo, and of several French political parties, including the Socialist Party and the RPR ... This will be the biggest financial scandal in French judicial history. Another case where the name of Jacques Chirac was quoted, that of the French arms company Thales, suspected of having paid South African politicians for contracts. According to a South African witness, Ajay Sookal, the former French president has asked his South African counterpart Thabo Mbeki to bury his country's justice investigation.
President Chirac did not only have friends in Africa, he also had his Turk's heads. How can his difficult reports be explained, particularly with Laurent Gbagbo?
For Chirac, a " good " African president was a " friend " president of France. And as Houphouet was the best " friend " of France in Africa, any opponent of Houphouet was suspicious. In the time of Houphouet, who was the Ivorian opposition the most determined and the most enduring? Gbagbo. During the many Houphouët-Chirac tete-a-tetes between 1980 and 1993, we can guess that Gbagbo was not at the party ... And that day in February 1990 when Chirac said at the microphone of the RFI correspondent in Abidjan: " The multipartyism is a kind of luxury that developing countries can not afford, "he comes out of a long interview with Houphouët and aims first of all the Ivorian Popular Front (FPI) Gbagbo, which contests the Democratic Party of Côte d'Ivoire (PDCI) of Houphouet as a single party.
In Chirac's eyes, Gbagbo was twice wrong. The Ivorian was not only the " enemy of his friend " (Houphouet until his death, in 1993, then Bédié from that date), but also the " friend of his enemy " (Jospin from 1997 ). Indeed, at the beginning of the Chirac-Jospin cohabitation (1997-2002), the French socialists - notably Prime Minister Lionel Jospin and the first secretary of the PS François Hollande - relied on the Ivorian opposition Laurent Gbagbo to try to break the monopoly of Jacques Chirac's RPR on French-Ivorian networks. And logically, during the military coup of Christmas 1999, when Chirac wanted to send French soldiers to the rescue of Bédié, Jospin has opposed and has multiplied the political gestures to help Gbagbo to take power, ten months later. As summarized by the essayist Antoine Glaser, from October 2000, " Chirac has always considered Gbagbo as the illegitimate child of cohabitation, a parenthesis that would not last. "
Did Jacques Chirac help Burkina Faso's Ivorian opposition leader Alassane Ouattara to stand up in September 2002 via Burkina Faso's Blaise Compaore? Nothing proves it. What is certain is that, despite Gbagbo's appeal for help, Chirac only responded with half a measure. To the chagrin of the Ivorian president who waved the Franco-Ivorian defense agreement signed in 1961, he did not order French troops to reconquer the rebel zone in northern Côte d'Ivoire. Then, in January 2003, through the Marcoussis agreement, he tried unsuccessfully to impose on Gbagbo a power-sharing in Abidjan. We must see the photos of Chirac and Gbagbo side by side, the day after the Marcoussis agreement. Obviously, the two men hate each other and are in an almost open war. Assassination of Jean Hélène, the RFI correspondent in Abidjan, on October 21, 2003, fierce crackdown on an opposition demonstration in Abidjan - at least 120 deaths according to the UN - March 25, 2004, kidnapping and disappearance of French journalist Guy-André Kieffer April 16, 2004 ... At that time, the regime of Laurent Gbagbo hardens and multiplies the abuses. On November 6, 2004, during an attempt to reconquer the north of the country, the Ivorian aviation kills nine French soldiers. After the destruction in retaliation of the Ivorian fleet by France, a hunt for " whites " is launched and a shootout erupts in Abidjan between French soldiers and demonstrators Ivorians. Balance: several dozen Ivorians killed and more than 8,000 French evacuated in a hurry.
It is at this point that the verbal exchanges between Chirac and Gbagbo are the most violent. Chirac: " We do not want to let develop [in Abidjan] a system that can lead to anarchy or a regime of a fascist nature. Gbagbo: " President Chirac has supported the single party in Ivory Coast for forty years. What is closer to the single party than fascism? The Gbagbo-Chirac relationship is a bit like the story of an African who stands up to a very paternalistic Frenchman, but who then skips and offers his adversary the opportunity to weaken him. In May 2007, when Jacques Chirac left power, Laurent Gbagbo is still there and seems to come out victorious from this fight. In fact, four years later, in April 2011, the Ouattara-Sarkozy couple will have the last word.
In your opinion, did Jacques Chirac deserve his " African " qualifier?
Yes and no.
Yes, because unlike his two successors, Nicolas Sarkozy and François Hollande, Jacques Chirac has traveled extensively in Africa, has established relationships - more or less interested - with many politicians and sincerely loved the culture African. Hence the creation in Paris in 2006 of the Museum of Arts and Civilizations of Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas, known today as the Museum of Quai Branly - Jacques Chirac.
No, because this " African passion " was far from exclusive. There are countless trips to Japan, probably the country on the planet that fascinated him the most. Chirac had a real Asian tropism. The former president also had very strong ties with the Arab world, including the king of Morocco - father and son - and former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. After his assassination in February 2005, Chirac moved heaven and earth, especially at the UN, for the perpetrators to appear before an ad hoc tribunal, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL). . Would he have done it for an African statesman? And after his departure from the Elysee, it is in a Paris apartment belonging to the Hariri family that Jacques Chirac settled, with his wife ... without paying the least rent!
If we say " Chirac the African ", why not say " Chirac the Asiatic " or " Chirac the Arab " - to remember that he was also the man who said no to George Bush in February 2003 when the United States decided to invade Iraq? In fact, Chirac's passion was France. In good Gaullist, he wanted to give his country a maximum radiation in the world. And since Africa was the last continent - outside Europe - where France still exerted influence, he had to say to himself: " Go for Africa. "
That said, he learned to love Africa for real. His men and his cultures. One day in 2008, he let go, in a form of mea culpa both cynical and premonitory: " We only forget one thing is that a large part of the money that is in our wallet comes precisely from the exploitation of Africa for centuries. So, you have to have a little common sense, I do not say generosity, a little common sense, justice, to give back to Africans .. I would say what we took them as much as it is necessary if we want to avoid the worst convulsions or difficulties with the political consequences that this entails in the near future ". (1)
(1) Jacques Chirac, May 10, Africaphonie (2008), written by Alain Bidjeck, Modeste Sallah and Michaël Gosselin.