European MP Bernard Connolly declared in 2009 that the nations of Europe were looking to use “global crises” to revive their position in the world:
Connolly’s opposition to UK involvement in the EU dates back to 1997, where he warned that it would result in the creation of a European superstate with power concentrated in a Franco-Germanic elite, serving as a “protectionist” power between the UK and USA in the West and the Russians in the East.
France and Germany have fought with each other, but have maintained close and overlapping cultural and economic ties throughout history.
France and Germany both had overseas empires at one point in their history. The French empire was much larger than that of Germany, and included holdings throughout Africa, South America (French Guyana), southeast Asia, Syria, and prior to 1830 much of the USA and Canada as well as parts of eastern India. Germany’s colonial empire was much more short lived and smaller in range, which were made up of the African nations of Cameroon, Namibia, Tanzania, and Togo as well as holdings in Papua New Guinea and nearby small island nations. Germany lost her colonies in her defeat during the First World War, and her territories were divided between the French and the British. France’s empire started to break up during the 1950s with her wars in Vietnam and southeast Asia, and finally began to formally de-colonize throughout the 1960s.
Africa represented the largest of France’s colonial holdings, and the most important. In 1958, during the years when decolonization was beginning and people in Africa were seeking to leave French control, French President and confirmed Gladio Operative Francois Mitterand declared that:
A central, strongly structured power in Paris, autonomous federated states and territories at the heart of an egalitarian and fraternal community whose borders will go from the plains of Flanders to the forests of the Equator: such is the perspective which we must specify and propose, for without Africa there will not be any history of France in the 21st century. (…) How, then, will France which adjoins the Rhine, where the horses of Europe all drink in turn, go north? Or east? Or west? (…) Only the route to the south is available, vast, overflowing with countless peoples but also with uninhabited spaces… Already France knows how much Africa is necessary to it. (source, source)
Grow or die
France’s position in Europe throughout history has influenced her to enter into a series of what may seem to be confusing alliances. For example, France has historically been and ally of Germany as well as an enemy of Germany, and at times an ally of both Russia or the Ottoman Empire, just as she has enforced policies at times of promoting anti-clericalism externally but the Catholic Faith internally.
A look at France’s geographical position shows that she is located between three major powers- Germany, Spain, and England. The English and the French have been in conflict with each other since medieval times, and is as much a joke as well as the acknowledgement of a serious reality through today. The Germans are the closest historical ally of France, but France also wants her own space that is not completely taken up by Germany, as the Germans will attempt to dominate her. Spain is separated from France and historically filled with division, but the northern regions close to the French border will ally with Germanic kingdoms, thus making rising Spanish power a potential “threat” to French sovereignty. Her location as a crossing point between those three nations and her flat plains in the north along with relative maritime access gave way to her being the center of constant invasion but having the ability to expand outside of Europe using the seas as her method of travel.
The height of French power was in the early 19th century under the rule of Napoleon. However, she could not conquer and subjugate all of Europe, as the entire continent turned against her and she realized, as an article from STRATFOR notes, that she did not have on her own power the capacity to rule Europe by her own means, yet her historical friend and enemy in Germany did:
From 1803 to 1815, France nearly overwhelmed the rest of Europe before a coalition of nearly every major and minor power on the Continent combined forces to defeat it.
The lesson was a simple one, again rooted in geography. Even when France is united and whole, even when it is not under siege, even when its foes are internally distracted and off balance, even when it is led by one of the greatest organizational and military minds in human history, even when it holds the advantage of nationalism — it still lacks the resources and manpower to rule Europe.
The Napoleonic Wars were the highpoint of French power, made possible by a constellation of factors that are unlikely to be repeated. The English, Spanish, Dutch, Russians and Italians all recovered. Napoleon was exiled. But most of all the advantage of nationalism spread. Over the next few decades the political innovation of the nation-state spread throughout Europe and in time became a global phenomenon. The result was stronger governments, better able to marshal resources for everything from commerce to war. And no people benefited more — much to France’s chagrin — than the Germans. (source, source)
France has the fifth strongest military in the world after the much larger and more heavily populated USA, Russia, China, and India. The UK comes in as sixth, Turkey, eighth, and Germany ninth. In contrast to the image that many Americans have of the “weak Frenchman”, the French are very strong and capable in handling their martial affairs.
This explains the focus on Africa that France has, which to the surprise of many, while having formally given up their colonial holdings, France maintains a policy of Francafrique, where she possesses nearly all of the “rights” of a colonizer but without the official direct title and rule of a colonial nation.
France: The Banking Power of Africa
There are various articles that discuss claims to France’s “rights” in African nations, but few give clear details about most of the specifics in a well-documented way. However, there is a single unifying theme in all of France’s colonies, which is that they all use a system of money called the CFA Franc and is separated into two denominations for West and Central Africa respectively, and all their national currency reserves are held in the national bank of France.
It is attributed to Meyer Amschel von Rothschild that he said he who controls a nation’s currency controls that nation regardless of the laws. It does not matter if he made this statement or not, because the government of France uses this same policy to extend a colonial-like air of control over her former colonies, as they are financially dependent on the French for national stability as well as the ability to conduct commerce. For most of the currency’s history, it has been valued at a high rate, which helps allow for the purchase of imported goods while at the same time prevents African nations from selling their goods at a high price, at which time the French (or another nation) can buy them at cheap prices.
France also maintains a series of military bases throughout Africa. The most recent of these bases is in Chad as a part of Operation Barkhane, which was an outgrowth of Operation Epervier. To summarize, Epervier’s purpose was to wage war again what was then Muammar Qaddhafi’s Libya. Notes from the CIA Archives suggest the CIA was involved in the French-backed Chadian war and victory over Gaddhafi.
Gaddhafi’s destruction was planned for decades as a part of what appears to be Operation Gladio in order to create a pathway through which to traffick Africans from sub-Saharan Africa into Europe. As Gaddhafi said before he died, “If I go down, Europe goes black.”
Following Gaddhafi’s murder, what he predicted came true to his word. Libya became a hub of trafficking, with many people migrating through Chad to the Mediterranean Coast. It was there that they did not “invade”, but they were directly trafficked into Europe with the assistance major corporations and NGOs working on lucrative government contracts. Shoebat.com definitively showed the extent of human trafficking in 2016 and has continued to emphasize this point, much to the non-response of many.
The Africans are NOT invaders, but they are trafficked pawns in a game of geopolitics. If one is going to call them “invaders,” then the “leaders” of the “invasion” are the heads of the very corporations, NGOs, businesses, and government that the people of those nations represent. While they will blame “those (African) people”, they will laud and look up to their “leaders” and not criticize them, yet they are the ones who manufactured the current crisis for political gain.
The enemy is in the mirror, not outside of it.
Operation Barkhane is the French presence in Chad for the purposes of “counterterrorism” beginning in 2013, and yet as it is known, terrorism has continued to rise, and the French “presence” was there during the migrant crisis of 2015 and 2016.
Were the French there to provide “security,” or were they there in order to “secure” the success of the “migrant crisis” as well as to train terrorists, for it is well known that terrorism is a cornerstone of US foreign policy?
In May 2019, I published an article describing the connections of an Israeli company to attempts at using social media to influence elections in Angola, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Togo, and Tunisia. Three of those nations (Niger, Senegal, and Togo) are former French colonies. Is is possible that as Israel is a major US ally, that this company was contracted to work on behalf of the French as well, especially since the US and France have been working closer with each other as of late on geopolitical projects, the most recent and public one being the sailing of US and French ships through the strait of Taiwan to the anger of the Chinese but also potentially with work in Africa?
These are two questions which have yet to be conclusive answered. However, what one can say is that French control over their former colonies never died. While on paper they do not have control, their domination over the currency has given them direct control for decades and this seems to be the policy moving forward. To that, it is arguable that France had a degree of control over parts of the refugee crisis, but refused to do anything because she wanted the crisis not only in order to justify her own return to militarism, but to assert her presence in her former colonies because, as Mitterand noted, France does not believe that she will be able to survive or “be relevant” in the future without them. What she lacks in terms of her continental power to confront Germany she compensates for with her colonial power, and as such makes herself as “ally” of the Germans with some influence as opposed to being a vassal subject to her rule.
This is also likely a reason why in many of the former French colonies, there are regular “anti-colonial” rallies and messages against French influence, mostly coming from persons holding to communist sympathies. As one remembers that Russia promoted international socialism to counter the national socialism of the West, the advancement of communism was as much about expanding the Russian sphere of influence as it was about destabilizing and weakening France in order to prevent the formation of a potential ally to Germany in the event of a future war, as a strong France would side with Germany against Russia. Likewise, a weak France may side with Russia against Germany for her own protection, as this would follow the example of historical precedent because France has done this before.
France appears to be aware of this, as well as the Americans, UK, and Germany. Therefore, it only would make sense that the US would boost her African presence not only for her own interests, but to help the French because a strong France is an asset to the current US geopolitical program. Given the alliance with the UK as well, the three nations provide a mutual “check” on Germany that while having her as an ally do not allow her to, historically speaking, indulge her traditional arrogance and militarism so as to rise up and start waging a complete war on all her neighbors save for those which would theoretically “benefit” all of them, of which the main one is Russia. It is also why the US is waging a proxy war in Ukraine, for that nation is historically agitated by Germany before a war and will be overrun by Germany in a future major war because it is the most direct road to the oil fields of Baku in Azerbaijan and the Caspian Sea Basin that Germany will need in order to sustain herself as well as eventually conquer Russia, and in doing this the US is “preparing” the way for a future German march to the Caucasus.
In this sense, the claim that the German nationalists and their overseas sympathizers make is correct that Germany is in “shackles” in so far as it is the direction to which her martial aspirations are directed and for which end they are being used, which is to advance the common interests of all three nations as opposed to just those of Germany.
It is true that without Africa, France will be nothing. However, without Africa the US and the UK also lose tremendous influence because France becomes a potential adversary with Russia while at the same time letting Germany out of their sphere of control. If Germany were to be on her own completely, she would likely do what she has done before, which is to ally with Russia to divide up Eastern Europe, and then go to war against Western and Northern Europe, conquering most before finally turning on Russia and attempting to march to Moscow, at which time she would likely be stopped and eventually turned back before being defeated.
The current situation is similar to the tides of history from older wars, but the difference now is the shackles on Germany that have been placed on her and held by several important points, one of which is France’s African influence. Germany’s shackles that she so often complains about may in fact be the very thing that she wished for later, because it is by being in bondage that her martial ambitions are focused constantly on the east and has the assistance of the first, fifth, and sixth most powerful militaries in the world. Given that Turkey is a historical ally of Germany and the eighth most powerful military in the world and Germany is the ninth most powerful military in the world, Russia finds herself on the heavy defense on her Western front. This does not even account for the situation on her Eastern front, which is dogged by the Japanese as well as the potential for rebellion from the Turkic peoples of Siberia and Central Asia.
Russia is the second most powerful military in the world, and her main “ally” in the Chinese, which is the third most powerful military in the world. However, the Chinese are not to be trusted, and Russia knows this, as the Chinese may attempt to seize territory from Russia. As such, she is isolated and left to fend for her own needs. It is why Putin has been promoting an autarchal-like structure in Russia, because he knows that war is coming and she will need this if she is going to hope to survive, especially since Russia is very weak with a declining population overall, and what few children she does have are usually of Turkic stock. In addition to the tremendous amount of disease, poverty, and general misery which wracks most of the nation as well as her large size, it is going to be difficult for Russia to stay unified, and as the Jamestown Institute has noted, she could potentially break up into a series of smaller nations.
As noted above, all of these things exist because of the French situation in Africa, for without the continent it would be difficult to realize the same consistency as well as prolonged focus and intensity on Russia.
There are no signs of changes to this current policy, save for becoming more intense as the current “scramble for Africa” does not appear to be stopping at all. Rather, it is for one to watch carefully, as the probability for a serious war is going to dramatically increase.