| Summary/Abstract |
THE EMERGENCE OF FRANCE AS THE GENDARME OF AFRICA goes back to the 1960s and the independence of its African colonies. Unlike other European colonial powers, such as the United Kingdom, France was faced late with decolonization and, most of all, wished to maintain an exclusive influence over its former colonial empire. French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa disappeared, but France sought to maintain privileged and lasting political, cultural, economic, and military relations with the former colonies. The new African regimes would receive military and technical assistance from France in return for backing its international policies. Paris thus established a type of nested neocolonial association with these sub-Saharan states of limited sovereignty. This defined France's pré carré in Africa, its area of exclusive action.
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