French abroad: what presence in Africa?
Senegal is the only country to have seen the number of French people present increase in 2020 despite the pandemic.
Here, a view of Dakar.
Getty Images/Bloomberg
Text by: Sabine Cessou Follow
4 mins
Every year, the Quai d'Orsay publishes a report on French people abroad.
These precise data make it possible to put into perspective all kinds of preconceived ideas about the presence of French communities in Africa – the 3rd continent of emigration from France, including bi-nationals.
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The Quai d'Orsay estimates the French presence abroad at 3.4 million people on five continents, or the equivalent of 5% of the French population.
A significant figure that remains curiously unknown, and much less commented on than that of immigration, while it has continued to increase in recent years.
Of this total, 1.6 million are registered in consulates - an increase of more than 12% over the period 2010-20, and 35% over 2005-15.
Africa, the third destination continent for French people abroad
To be more precise, about 14% of French people abroad registered with consulates are in Africa, including 117,500 in French-speaking Africa and 109,000 in North Africa in 2020. Non-French-speaking Africa attracts much less, even if the Nigeria (1,177 registered in 2019, 800 in 2020) is France's fourth African trading partner, after Tunisia and before South Africa (7,300 registered).
Africa therefore represents the third continent of destination for French emigration after Europe (400,000 in the EU zone and 350,000 outside the EU) and North America (275,000, including nearly 100,000 in Canada) .
Next come the Middle East (150,000) and Asia Oceania (150,000).
A very large proportion of bi-nationals
Important data, again very underestimated in analyzes of the French presence in Africa, sometimes likely to fuel anti-French resentment: the large proportion of bi-nationals. They are more than two thirds (71%) among the French living in North Africa and almost half (48%) in French-speaking Africa, against an average of 42% for all French living abroad.
As sociologist Francis Akindes, a teacher at the University of Bouaké, reminds us of Côte d'Ivoire, “
Anti-French resentment has never succeeded in destroying the emotional bond between the two peoples. This link is found more in Côte d'Ivoire than elsewhere, with the French presence in the private sector, social life, and a large French community, present for sometimes three generations. The Franco-Ivorian mestizos reflect a stronger cultural and religious proximity than in Senegal, for example, with administrators and entrepreneurs who bear French names, and are of Ivorian stock through their mother. Côte d'Ivoire under Houphouet-Boigny made room for these children, considered as those of the new Ivorian homeland”.
Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia lead in African destinations
The main countries of destination for French “expatriates”, who have both working and retired people, are, in that order, Switzerland, the United States, the United Kingdom, Belgium and Germany.
Morocco and Algeria represent the 8th and 11th destinations, Tunisia the 18th, before Senegal (19th), Côte d'Ivoire (22nd) and Magadascar (24th).
In 2020, the pandemic has reduced their numbers everywhere.
Except in Senegal (+1.8%), one of the few countries to attract more French people in 2020 with Cambodia, Turkey, Mexico and the United Arab Emirates.
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© RFI / Sabine Cessou
What about other former colonial powers?
However, French emigration remains lower than other Western European countries with a colonial past like France, such as Great Britain (10% of the emigrant population) and Portugal (20% ).
In English-speaking Africa there remains a “British diaspora” which is an integral part of the population of South Africa, Zimbabwe or Zambia.
These descendants of settlers do not necessarily have British nationality, but remain identified as such.
In South Africa, this “diaspora” reaches 1.6 million people (compared to 40,000 in Zambia and 30,000 in Zimbabwe).
It must be distinguished from British emigrants, 212,000 Crown subjects in South Africa in 2005 according to the Institute for Public Policy Research, out of 5.5 million Britons abroad, including 1.3 million in Australia.
In Portuguese-speaking Africa, where the settlements established by Lisbon had experienced a strong movement of return ("
retornados
") during Independence in 1975, Portuguese emigration to Africa caused ink to flow at the turn of the 2010s. There would be 115,000 and 17,000 Portuguese established in Angola and Mozambique according to the Portuguese Observatory of Emigration, out of a total of 2.3 million Portuguese abroad.
These flows have slowed down considerably in recent years due to the economic crisis.
► Also to listen:
Rising cost of living: the impact of the pandemic on expatriates
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