France's Colonial Legacies

Memory, Identity and Narrative

Fiona Barclay, Fiona Barclay

• Publisher: University of Wales Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781783165858
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Historia
• Subtopic: Historia francesa

In an era of commemoration, France's Colonial Legacies contributes to the debates taking place in France about the place of empire in the contemporary life of the nation, debates that have been underway since the 1990s and that now reach across public life and society with manifestations in the French parliament, media and universities. France's empire and the gradual process of its loss is one of the defining narratives of the contemporary nation, contributing to the construction of its image both on the international stage and at home. While certain intellectuals present the imperial period as an historical irrelevance that ended in the years following the Second World War, the contested legacies of France's colonies continue to influence the development of French society in the view of scholars of the postcolonial. This volume surveys the memorial practices and discourses that are played out in a range of arenas, drawing on the expertise of researchers working in the fields of politics, media, cultural studies, literature and film to offer a wide-ranging picture of remembrance in contemporary France.

Chapter One Amnesia about Anglophone Africa: France’s Rhodesian Mindset, its Manifestations and its Legacies, 1947–1958

JOANNA WARSON

After the amnesia of the immediate aftermath of decolonisation, France’s overseas empire has become, in recent decades, an object of study amongst French academics, as well as a more accepted part of public discourse.1 Whilst debates on the nature and legacies of French colonial rule in both scholarly and popular spheres remain contentious, France’s imperial ventures are now firmly part of the nation’s history. Yet, whilst France’s empire may be part of the historical record and, as such, part of our memory of the French past, the same cannot be said for the spaces beyond France’s traditional spheres of colonial influence. This is particularly true with regards to France’s African policy where, despite recent advances in the historiography, the francophone world remains the principal focus for scholars of the late colonial and post-colonial periods, such as Bourmaud, Médard and Chafer.2

By contrast, French involvement in anglophone Africa has been overlooked by historians. The selective nature of the historical memory is surprising given the long-standing Anglo-French rivalry, which since the late nineteenth century has dominated the interaction on the African continent between these two former Great Powers. Yet, in the same way that the Fashoda incident of 1898 drew a line between the British and French empires in Africa, the historiography continues to separate francophone and anglophone Africa. This disregard also extends to the scholarship of Anglo- French relations. Whilst historians, most notably Thomas, have explored Anglo-French relations in French North Africa, no scholar has looked at the reverse scenario and examined Franco- British interaction in the British African context.3 Put simply, anglophone Africa is not part of the history and, by implication memory, of France overseas.

This chapter aims to provide a corrective to this neglect of a forgotten, but potentially illuminating, aspect of France’s foreign policy in the post-war period, focusing on the case study of Southern Rhodesia.4 In contrast to the absence of anglophone Africa from the existing historiography, the archival record reveals that France’s presence in this British colony expanded dramatically from 1947 onwards. This chapter outlines this new French engagement with Rhodesia and analyses its significance in terms of France’s wider post-war foreign policies. It argues that French participation in Rhodesia was founded upon a set of beliefs about France’s position in the world, shared by French politicians, diplomats, civil servants and businessmen alike, which will be described henceforth as France’s foreign policy mindset. This chapter explores the key features of this mindset before examining how these common conceptions about France’s world role manifested themselves in perceptions of and policies towards the British colony of Rhodesia. Within this discussion, it analyses the interrelationship between France’s new interest and involvement in Rhodesia and its wider African colonial policies. In light of this investigation, the chapter demonstrates the theoretical and practical legacies of the French experience in francophone Africa for its participation in British-ruled territories, and vice versa. It argues that this two-way process of interconnection and exchange renders the memory of France’s African policy incomplete without reference to anglophone Africa. As such, it is vital to reinstate British Africa into the historical narrative of France’s involvement in Africa and challenge the dichotomy between anglophone and francophone Africa. In doing so, we enhance our understanding not only of French foreign policy, but also of Anglo-French relations and the history of Africa in the twentieth century.

Putting France ‘on the map’ in Rhodesia5

The British colony of Rhodesia was established south of the Zambezi River by Cecil Rhodes in 1895. In 1923, the territory attained the unique status of a self-governing colony within the British empire. Henceforth, Rhodesia’s expanding and influential settler population dominated the economy, society and politics of the colony at the expense of the African majority population. This landlocked country was orientated towards Britain and, although some of the first European missionaries in the surrounding regions were French, notably François Coillard of the Société des missions évangéliques de Paris, Rhodesia had no significant geographical or historical ties with France or its empire.6 As such, it is assumed that the absence of a historical memory of France in Rhodesia can be explained by the lack of French involvement in this British-ruled territory during the colonial and post-colonial epochs.

On the contrary, however, the archives reveal that, despite the domestic and international challenges faced by the Fourth Republic in the post-war period and the paucity of geographical and historical ties between France and British-ruled central southern Africa, French policymakers, diplomats and bureaucrats expressed an interest in Rhodesia from as early as 1947. The most obvious manifestation of this new-found focus on central southern anglophone Africa is the establishment of a French vice-consul in Salisbury, the capital of Rhodesia, in September 1947.7 Henceforth, relations with this ‘young and expanding country’ were encouraged, notably by the Afrique-Levant department of the Quai d’Orsay, which openly claimed to attach ‘the greatest price’ to the development of France’s presence in Rhodesia.8 As such, the Afrique-Levant department sought to promote Rhodesia within the French Foreign Ministry, leading calls for the establishment of a chair in French at the new university in Salisbury in 1952 and, from 1953 onwards, for the elevation of the French consulate to a consulate-general.9 The department also sought to champion Franco-Rhodesian links beyond the walls of the Quai, notably within the Ministère de la France d’Outre-Mer. In 1952, for example, the Afrique-Levant department was vocal in its encouragement of French colonial participation in the Rhodes Centenary Exhibition planned for 1953 to mark one hundred years since the birth of Rhodesia’s founder, on the grounds that the potential economic benefits made French involvement in this event ‘indispensable’.10

This enthusiasm in the Afrique-Levant department was, however, tempered by the realities of foreign policymaking in post-war France, as problems in Indochina and North Africa, along with domestic political instability, created obstacles to the formulation of an assertive overseas strategy beyond France’s traditional domain. As such, funds for the establishment of a French chair at the university in Rhodesia were not forthcoming, and it was left to the Alliance Française in Salisbury and the institution itself to foot the bill for this venture.11 Similarly, financial constraints and preoccupations elsewhere meant that calls for the elevation of the status of the consulate in Salisbury were rejected.12 Put another way, despite a growing awareness of the potential opportunities for France in British-ruled central southern Africa, Rhodesia was not a foreign policy priority in Paris.

Whilst Paris may have lacked the funds and the political will to implement a coherent strategy with respect to Rhodesia, the French authorities were happy to allow the development of a Franco- Rhodesian connection, albeit on an ad hoc basis. In the early 1950s, France became the first country outside the sterling area to have formal trade agreements with the newly established Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, such as the 1953 deal exchanging Rhodesian tobacco for French automobiles manufactured by Renault, Citroën and Peugeot.13 France’s diplomats enjoyed a privileged position in the region, maintaining close personal relations with high-ranking Rhodesian politicians including Godfrey Huggins (prime minister of Southern Rhodesia, 1933–53 and prime minister of the Central African Federation, 1953–6) and Roy Welensky (prime minister of the Central African Federation, 1956–63), and were invited to official state events, such as the opening of the Supreme Court in 1955, often as the sole foreign representatives in attendance.14 French technical expertise was held in high esteem in the region, permitting a team of hydraulic technicians, led by then state-owned Électricité de France (EDF), to play an instrumental role in the planning stages of the Kariba Dam project in 1954 and 1955.15 Cultural connections were also formed, notably through the establishment of a branch of the Alliance Française in Salisbury in April 1951.16 Thus, in line with a developing interest towards Rhodesia in Paris, it is possible to detect a growing Franco- Rhodesian connection during the life of the Fourth Republic, in contrast to the widely accepted memory of France’s African policy as a uniquely francophone project.

This expanding presence was, however, largely the result of initiatives from France’s representatives on the ground in anglophone Africa, who in light of Paris’s more pressing concerns at home and overseas, were largely left to their own devices. In 1947, France’s vice-consul to Rhodesia was the first to propose the establishment of an Alliance Française branch in the Rhodesian capital, whilst, in 1948, it was the French consul in Kenya who initiated the extension of the commercial network which existed between Madagascar and British East Africa to Rhodesia.17 Even official trade negotiations were initially the responsibility of Frenchmen based in southern Africa, notably in 1953, when the brokering of an official Franco- Rhodesian trade accord was led by the commercial advisor to the French Embassy in South Africa.18

The Quai was also willing to delegate to private companies and individuals who, whilst operating largely within the broader interests of the French state, were nominally independent. NEYRPIC, a Grenoble-based producer of hydroelectric turbines, was the first private French company to obtain significant supply contracts in Rhodesia, amounting to £1.1 million by the beginning of 1957. These deals were the result of four years’ hard work by representatives of the company based on the ground in Rhodesia, underlining the importance of individual effort in the absence of any concerted metropolitan drive.19 The actions of the Union aéromaritime des transports (UAT) followed a similar trajectory. After the d...