CONVERGENCE:

America Tugs at French-Accented Lands: It's Not Peanuts (SOMINI SENGUPTA, 1/28/04, NY Times)

With the advent of the campaign against terrorism [...] things began to change. Africa once again figured in Washington's strategic thinking, and there was something to be gained for an overwhelmingly Muslim country by cozying up to the Americans and, not coincidentally, threatening the French with a loss of influence.

These days, because of a swirl of additional circumstances ranging from a drop in French foreign aid to bitterness over French immigration policy to the power of American hip-hop to a variety of slights and perceived slights, Senegal is marching headlong into the arms of a new empire run out of Washington.

This is by no means a line in the sand, ending French influence here. It's more as if the dunes are shifting, slowly but perceptibly. France remains the biggest donor and trade partner, but Senegal's relations with the United States have already created some Paris-Dakar frisson.

Publicly, both sides say all is well. Africa-watchers are fond of likening it to a difficult moment in the life of an old couple, a love-hate dialectic born of an intimate familiarity.

"It's a period of friction," said Mamadou Diouf, a historian at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and Senegalese by origin, "where two partners are trying to adjust to a new moment."

The "moment" that Mr. Diouf refers to has as much to do with the global primacy of American power as the diminution of French power in the shadow of a united Europe. Complicating matters, just as the former colonies on the continent still need France, France still needs its former colonies: French influence in Africa allows it to punch above its weight in the world.

Influence, of course, comes at a price. And the price of supporting a swath of destitute countries in Africa has lately proved to be too much. French aid to its former colonies has plummeted.

The simple truth is that Africa matters more than France now and, unlike France, has a future

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 28, 2004 12:05 PM