III. African-European Relations

The record of African-European relations in 2007 was mixed. On the one hand, the fi rst Africa-EU summit in seven years took place, but on the other there was mounting dissat- isfaction among African leaders with EU policy – not least on trade – and with what was denounced as the EU’s “patronising attitude”. There was a renewed geostrategic interest in Africa on the part not least of China and the US – but also increasingly by India and others. These changes in Africa’s global importance had an impact on European-African relations by increasing the policy space available to African leaders. Pressure was mount- ing on Europe to (re)direct its policies. Africa and the EU signed a strategic partnership covering a range of topics, which were enshrined in an action plan. The topics included, among others, foreign and security policy, governance, development, climate change and cultural cooperation. These topics came as no surprise and differences remained in a number of areas. Even so, a new quality in rela- tions among the parties was emphasised. For the G8 summit at Heiligendamm, invitations were extended to an outreach group comprising China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa, as well as the then AU president, Ghana’s President John Kufuor; the head of the AU Commission, Alpha Oumar Konaré; and Nigeria’s new president, Yar’Adua (6–8 June). Although the Heiligendamm Process fell short of an institutionalised enlargement of the G8 to a G13, the G8 under German presidency created through that process an insti- tutionalised dialogue with the so-called Outreach-5, including South Africa. That country continued to be viewed with high hopes as an economic and political anchor within its region and for Africa as a whole.

Bilateral Relations between Africa and European States

Africa featured higher on the agenda of European leaders than in previous years, in part because of the increasing attention paid to Africa by other world powers such as China and the US, and to a lesser extent by India and other emerging powers. With the presidential change in France in May, a fundamental shift in French Africa policy was expected. Nicolas Sarkozy, who took offi ce in May, was said to be the fi rst president of the 4th Republic without personal links to African elites, unlike his predeces- sors of all political persuasions, such as Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac. Sarkozy appointed Jean-Marie Bockel as junior minister of cooperation in 28 • African-European Relations

June, an appointment that reinforced the fears of the new president’s African counterparts. Bockel, a member of the Socialist Party, was an explicit critic of ‘la Françafrique’, the concept of politically interlocking French and African elites. This policy approach – while often denounced as neo-colonial – continued to be defended by a number of African lead- ers, among them President Omar Bongo of Gabon. It had, however, lost appeal for numer- ous other African countries and had lost ground in France. In July, Sarkozy visited Senegal and Gabon (26–27 July). This brief and somewhat awkward trip was widely interpreted as underscoring the absence of the announced renewal of France’s Africa policy, since no countries besides these two close French allies in Africa were visited, even though Ghana, South Africa and DR Congo had been previously discussed as additional destinations. Sarkozy’s speech to the University of Dakar was particularly ill-received and attracted the most attention. The speech was viewed as maladroit, to say the least. During the speech, Sarkozy spoke of the “traditional African” as someone who “never launched himself towards the future. The idea never came to him to get out of this repetition and to invent his own destiny”. The Senegalese media harshly criticised the speech for its patronising clichés and insulting observations. In June (9–11 June), French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner visited Chad and Sudan for talks on the civil war in Darfur. France was pushing hard for international troops to protect Darfurian refugees in neighbouring countries (see below). EU engagement in the crisis was also on the agenda of Kouchner’s visit to the AU Commission on 26 July. France was active in the Sudan contact group, which held meetings in Paris (25 June), but was unable to mediate an end to the confl ict. More prominent on the French foreign minister’s agenda was the Middle East and the crisis in Lebanon. Trips to African states were mostly left to the French junior minister for development cooperation. Brigitte Girardin, ‘ministre délégué’ under Chirac until May, visited several West and Central African countries (Mali, Benin, Guinea, Congo, DR Congo, Sudan) as well as the Indian Ocean island states of Mauritius and Seychelles in the fi rst half of the year. As a political statement on the successful integration of migrants into French society, a number of posts in the new cabinet were given to fi rst- or second-generation French citizens (as Sarkozy himself is), including a young female politician of Senegalese origin, Rama Yade. Ms. Yade was appointed junior minister of external affairs and human rights. However, much of France’s policy on Africa was interpreted as loosening (if not cutting) ties to African ex-colonies. This fear of French ‘disengagement’ from Africa was not new, for it had been voiced for more than a decade. However, it took on a new character that was particularly refl ected in the contentious debates on the controversial topic of migration. The French National Assembly adopted a draft law on immigration that per- mits DNA tests on applicants for visas of more than three months on for the purpose of family reunifi cation (19 September). The French national consultative ethics committee for health and life sciences expressed “concern over the abnormal burden of proof weighing on the applicant” (4 October). After several amendments – providing for matrilineal genetic