LConfusion, clumsiness and amalgamations are undoubtedly what relations between France and the Sahel, poisoned by a series of military putsches fueling hostility against Paris, need the least. However, these are the unwelcome ingredients of the administrative instruction sent, Monday, September 11, by the regional directorates of the Ministry of Culture to the national drama and choreographic centers which depend on it.
Lapidary, this message orders the suspension of “all cooperation projects” with Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso, as well as “all financial support” to these countries. “No invitation from any national of these countries should not be launched”, even adds the document.
The Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, tried to put an end to the controversy sparked by the publication of this note on Thursday, September 14, and to respond to protests from unions in cultural circles by declaring that France “never boycott artists anywhere”. The President of the Republic himself wanted to lift the ” confusion “ specifying that cultural actions were stopped “in the Sahel but not here”. But the damage is done: the message gives credence to the idea that Paris would break cultural ties with three Sahel countries in retaliation for the seizure of power by soldiers who are hostile to it.
A dangerous gear
That France suspended its development aid and budget support actions in November 2022 in Mali, then this summer successively in Niger and Burkina Faso, can be justified by the concern not to see such funds, intended for States, be misused or used in a hostile manner. French emergency aid and humanitarian aid have also been maintained.
But the argument, put forward by the minister, of the material impossibility of issuing visas to artists, due to the departure of consular services, is not convincing. Paris fortunately issues visas to Afghan nationals at risk, in the absence of representation on site. For the same reason, the brakes placed on university exchanges and studies in France for students from the Sahel who do not yet have a visa are unjustifiable.
Such decisions initially appear paradoxical, while diplomatic relations with the three countries concerned have in no way been broken – France even maintains its ambassador in Niger, whose departure the junta is demanding. Incomprehensibly, they target representatives of civil society (artists, intellectuals, students), the very people with whom Emmanuel Macron claims to favor dialogue, as during the Africa-France summit of 2021. Finally, these choices risk be counterproductive and start a dangerous spiral. The targeted populations have every reason to perceive them as a way of prejudging their undifferentiated support for coups, and of sanctioning them.
It is certainly not by collectively punishing African populations – especially those who nurture cultural ties with France, or wish to come there to study, and with the Francophonie – that France will regain the credit that its support for unpopular regimes , or a military presence with ambiguous objectives, makes him lose. If Paris can hope to win back the hearts of Africans, in the Sahel and elsewhere, it is precisely by using the soft power that its language, its universities and its cultural institutions give it, and by keeping a lucid look at an old and rich shared history. .