By Joseph E Schmitz, Former advisor to Donald Trump
THE 1st Century Roman satirist Juvenal posed a question as pertinent to 21st century French-African relations as it was to ancient Rome: Quis custodiet ipsos custodies? Or: Who will watch the watchmen? Who will watch the French courts while they’re busy watching African leaders?
French officials recently charged the daughter and son-in-law of Congo’s President, Denis Sassou Nguesso, for “money laundering and misuse of public funds”, marking the latest in a long series of France’s post-colonial attempts to control sovereign African states. Regardless of what one may think about France’s recognised authority and legal legitimacy (or lack thereof) in initiating such proceedings, it’s hard to overlook their overt hypocrisy.
After all, just days before the Congolese President’s daughter was charged, President Emmanuel Macron’s new Minister for Territorial Planning, Richard Ferrand, was accused of nepotism, leveraging business contacts for personal gain, and other offenses relating to conflicts of interest in business dealings. A few days later, Mr Macron’s freshly-appointed Defence Minister Sylvie Goulard resigned in the midst of an investigation for “allegedly having used aides receiving European Parliament salaries to perform work for the party”. Meanwhile, as reported by Libération and Politico EU, French Labor Minister Muriel Pénicaud could come under investigation for alleged nepotism, concealment and complicity for actions during her stint as head of Business France, a public organisation that promotes French enterprises abroad.
The questionable dealings of these ministers are only a small handful of the scandals plaguing modern French politics. In a recent Le Monde article, historian Frédéric Monier explains the post-war Fifth Republic’s struggle against corruption, noting that, “since the 1980s, the issue of political corruption has returned to the forefront”.
With so many top-ranking French officials embroiled in scandals and facing corruption charges, it’s a wonder that the French legal system still regards itself as a crusader for justice in Africa. The French Declaration of the Rights of Man, Article 9, proclaimed in 1789 that “all persons are held innocent until they shall have been declared guilty”. That is still the law of the land in France (and in most other Western nations.”
From the Congo to Algeria, Cote d’Ivoire, Niger, Equatorial Guinea and across the African continent, citizens of sovereign, post-colonial states will be the first to attest that liberté, égalité, fraternité were ideals that seldom permeated their borders before winning their independence decades ago.
Even President Macron acknowledges that France’s colonisation of Africa was a “crime against humanity.”
And now, a few short decades later, is France – a reborn, open and modern France – so blind as to make the same mistakes again? Are the French so immodest as to presume, once again, that they’ve got it right and Africa has it wrong?
To paraphrase the poem Invictus,”famously recited by Nelson Mandela while in prison: Is it not time to recognise Africa as the master of its own fate? Is not time for France to respect Africa as the master of its sovereign soul?
Joseph E. Schmitz was a foreign policy and national security advisor to Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential campaign. He is now a partner in the law firm Schmitz & Socarras LLP
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