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| Title: | Overview of French imperial ideology in Africa |
| Author: | Mentan, Ngek Tatah |
| Year: | 1989 |
| Periodical: | The African Review: A Journal of African Politics, Development and International Affairs |
| Volume: | 16 |
| Issue: | 1-2 |
| Pages: | 72-81 |
| Language: | English |
| Notes: | biblio. refs. |
| Geographic terms: | Africa France colonial territories |
| Subjects: | imperialism Imperialism, Colonialism Ideology history |
| Abstract: | This historical overview of the development of the ideology of French imperialism in Africa highlights its military, economic, cultural, and political dimensions. First, France's colonial military expansion was a response to its insecurity in Europe following its defeat by the Prussians and the Germans in the 19th century. Second, its inability to cope with capitalist competition in Europe after the industrial revolution necessitated its drive for protected overseas markets and sources of raw materials. Third, France's demographic decline due to the ravages of war and economic hardship made French imperialists search for colonies on which to impose so-called French 'cultural civilization'. And, finally, when independence for French African colonies became imperative, imperial France was fundamentally threatened. French imperialists, therefore, devised an 'indirect' form of colonialism to maintain the fragmentary States within the French capitalist orbit. The ubiquitous French monetary system was intensified, and occasionally adjusted, to negotiate capitalist accumulation. The French Franc Zone became the pillar for the extraction of surplus value from Africa for the development of the 'autocentric (French) centre' and the underdevelopment of the 'extraverted (African) periphery'. This process of development and contradictory subordination and exploitation represents two opposites of the dialectical unity called 'imperialism'. Notes, ref. |
