The French in Congo/Zaire: a History of Convoitise

The Democratic Republic of the Congo, formerly known as Zaire, was a Belgian colony that came into being during the Berlin Conference of 1885. This specific territory was endowed with immense natural resources and represented a promising source of revenue for rival European powers. However, aside from King Leopold’s Belgium, the titular colonizing power, one other country, France, held a keen interest in the Congo basin and sought to expand its influence in the region. This interest has exerted itself numerous times throughout history, most notably during the founding of the country at the Berlin Conference (France helped Leopold consolidate his power via diplomatic maneuvers and le droit de preference in the hopes of later taking over his possession), shortly after the Second World War (in the period of decolonization, de Gaulle made advances to Congo/Zaire and sought to incorporate the country into the francophone community), and the period associated with Zairianisation (1973-74) under the corrupt and dictatorial presidency of Mobutu Sese Seko. These three periods mark significant turning points in the history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and further, they allow scholars to draw insightful analyses of how French influence has maintained itself and flourished in this African nation that was once the colony of a rival power. In more recent times, however, France has had to rethink its African policy in the present-day DRC due to changing international norms and increasing levels of globalization. A multipolar world order has replaced the bipolar system of the Cold War, and countries are becoming more and more interconnected in terms of ideological and economic linkages. Old ties have broken down—one can see this with Rwanda defining itself as an Anglophone country or the Eastern European countries defining themselves as members of the EU—and countries are shedding the ideological conceptions of traditional postcolonialism. In the DRC, Mobutu and his predecessors started to identify itself with France instead of Belgium due to common linguistic and cultural norms. Beginning with de Gaulle’s two famous speeches at Brazzaville in 1944 and 1960, and cemented during the period of Zairianisation, one can see a change of patrons in the patron-client relationship as Zaire responded favorably to French advances in terms of cooperation, which can be defined as economic, cultural, and military aid/alliances. This is unusual in that France maintains a kind of de facto rivaling of the Belgium’s traditional role of European metropole to the former colony. In sum, France still maintains a strong interest in the country, but this interest has shifted from the archetypical metropole-colony relationship (which is based on traditional principles of exploitation of the colony by the European power) pioneered by the influential Chief Advisor on African Policy, Jacques Foccart to an alternative approach of cooperation that focuses more on language and economic policy than on classical bilateral post-colonial ties. Instead of continuing a strict international patron-client network, France is increasing its influence by expanding access to French instruction and by increasing Franco-Congolese economic ties. In this way, France has maintained a neocolonialist approach throughout the centuries and continues to perpetuate a common culture—or identity—that facilitates exploitation well into the 21st century.