Introduction: Peace Operations and Francophone Spaces

Abstract

This introductory article presents the history of francophone spaces to critically assess their specificity, and to situate them in academic debates on peace operations. It argues that the specificity is the inescapable a priori context of peace missions, even if this context is rapidly evolving and in interaction with non-francophone spaces. The specificity is nevertheless increasingly difficult to identify, as new practices and conditions emerge and as the lines between different francophone spaces and between francophone and non-francophone spaces are increasingly fluid. The article explores the range of possibilities that emerge from such interrogations, and emphasizes that to add the experiences of ‘francophone spaces’ to analyses of peace operations is to confront the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion already expressed by the terms ‘francophone’ and francophonie. This approach points to where and how hegemonic practices move and change between locations and different contexts, and where and how the organization or reorganization of power is negotiated, imposed and/or resisted across ‘francophone’ and ‘non-francophone’ spaces.

This special issue of International Peacekeeping seeks to critically examine peacebuilding, humanitarian interventions, and peace operation practices and experiences (broadly conceived) in francophone spaces, including but not limited to conflict prevention and resolution, security sector reform, francophone politics and North–South relations. There seems to be no end to the literature on peacebuilding and peace operations. Yet, there are relatively few analyses that seriously study such activities in francophone contexts. While analyses are found in French publications, these seem only rarely to transfer to or appear in English-language debates and publications. More importantly, English-language publications for the most part seem largely to exclude experiences from francophone contexts. This special issues seeks to partly remedy this state of affairs by exploring whether peacebuilding and peace operations in francophone spaces have exceptional characteristics when compared with those carried out in other parts of the world, and to assess whether an analysis of peace operations in francophone spaces can make a specific and original contribution to wider international debates about peacebuilding and peace operations.

Historically speaking, francophone spaces include French colonialism and the French Empire. The expansion of the French language and culture was intimately tied to dynamics of conquest, domination and control. These dynamics have evolved since decolonization and rapidly so since the end of the Cold War. Any appreciation of peace operations in ex-French colonies and/or by French troops must consider these postcolonial dynamics in order to appreciate how they interact with the international practices and politics of peace operations. The specificity of these shared and complex historical experiences, however, quickly transforms into theoretical and methodological difficulties of great significance. As Michel Liégeois discusses in his article, the object under study is clouded by conceptual fuzziness: what are francité, francosphère, francophonie, Francophonie and ‘francophone’? Can we isolate these experiences from non-francophone ones? Can we even talk of a ‘francophone country’ if it is multicultural, and French is only the language of the elite few or of formal exchanges? While we deploy the term ‘francophone spaces’ to express the diversity and the continuously transforming characteristics of these spaces, the theoretical and methodological difficulties are not so easily solved. After all, to seek to add the experiences of ‘francophone spaces’ to analyses of peace operations is to confront the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion already expressed by the terms ‘francophone’ and francophonie. What is defined as and included within the sphere of francophone/francophonie is too often reduced to simple claims about the (higher) value of French language and culture, as ardent proponents of Francophonie often articulate.1 It is, at the very least, a reflection of a world once divided between French, British, Belgian, Portuguese and other empires.

While the literature on francophone countries, on Francophonie, on the French Empire, on France–Africa relations and French African security and military policy is vast, literature on francophone peacekeeping is scarce. This might point to a need for further research, but it may also point to the significance (or irrelevance) of discrimination between francophone and non-francophone experiences of peacekeeping, peacebuilding and peace missions in general. The first section of this article shows how the processes of globalization – broadly conceived – increasingly challenges the notion of a francophone specificity. The second section critically examines debates concerning the international politics of peace and peace interventionism. The publication of this special issue might suggest a self-fulfilling prophecy about the specificity and relevance of francophone experiences for larger debates about peace operations. We do not wish to overemphasize or essentialize francophone experiences. We do not claim that the analysis of francophone experiences is of any more importance than that of other experiences. Nor do we claim that such analyses can change or challenge dominant positions. Yet, francophone experiences offer fertile ground for exploring further, and bringing new light to, many issues surrounding peace operations and their critique. Our ultimate goal is not to complete a story per se or to provide a more comprehensive account of peace operations. Instead, we interrogate where and how francophone experiences provide a comparative perspective that can (or cannot) challenge theoretical approaches and various debates. Such a comparison helps us to examine how hegemonic peacebuilding practices move and change between locations, between different historical contexts, and how these dynamics point to the ways in which the organization or reorganization of power is negotiated, imposed and/or resisted across ‘francophone’ and ‘non-francophone’ spaces.

Decolonization and the Specificity of a ‘Francophone Space’

The notion of a francophone space with its own specific characteristics, culture and identity has roots in the experience of French decolonization in sub-Saharan Africa. Here, in contrast to its experience in Indochina and Algeria, France was able to negotiate a largely peaceful transfer of power to African political leaders (except in Cameroon), which enabled it to maintain a privileged sphere of influence. At independence France signed a network of exclusive defence, military assistance, technical and cultural cooperation accords with the newly independent African governments. It maintained up to 60,000 pre-positioned troops at French military bases (although this number declined rapidly to some 10,000 by the 1970s). Its former colonies were the privileged recipients of French overseas development aid. The currencies of the newly independent states were in the franc zone and remained tied to the French franc. Large numbers of young French people went to Africa to work as coopérants, often as an alternative to military service. Moreover, President Charles de Gaulle regarded West and Central Africa as a key arena for the projection of French power overseas and he maintained a special ‘Africa cell’ at the Elysée Palace, managed for years by his close collaborator and éminence grise, Jacques Foccart. France and Francophone Africa came to constitute a transnational francophone space that was bound together by a dense network of links. Underlining the specificity of this space and the special nature of the relationship, Francophone Africa was known as France's pré carré (meaning ‘enclosed area of influence’).

The Cold War afforded France an opportunity to maintain the pré carré as an exclusive sphere of French influence.2 With the US keen to keep African countries in the Western bloc, France was able to use the Cold War context to carve out a role for itself as the guarantor of Western interests in West and Central Africa. As the only external power with the capability and the political will to intervene in the region, France undertook some 35 military interventions in Francophone Africa from political independence in 1960 to 1995 (an average of one a year), usually to sustain in or restore to power governments that were friendly to France.3 Its military activism earned it the reputation of being the gendarme of Africa.

With the end of the Cold War, major changes took place in global power relations which fundamentally affected France's African pré carré. With the demise of the Soviet bloc, Africa no longer had the strategic importance that it had enjoyed during the Cold War. At the 1990 Franco-African summit, President Mitterrand sent a warning to African leaders that they could no longer expect unconditional French support and that French aid would in future go to those African governments promoting political reform and democratization. However, implementation of the new policy was in practice uneven. It was only after revelations of France's shameful activities in Rwanda in the early 1990s, criticism of its role following the 1994 genocide, and the crisis that then unfolded in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo [DRC]) that a far-reaching reappraisal of French military policy in Africa began.4

By 1997, French influence in Africa, even in its traditional pré carré, seemed to be on the wane. Unqualified French support for President Sese Mobutu led France into diplomatic isolation and raised questions about its claim to be the privileged interlocutor for the Francophone African states.5 Renewed instability in the Central African Republic (CAR) in 1996–97, which was home to France's second-largest military base on the continent, further undermined French military policy in Africa.

Moreover, the US seemed ready to exploit French discomfiture in the Great Lakes area by extending its links with African states. In 1997, it announced the African Crisis Response Initiative (ACRI), a programme to enhance the capacity of African militaries to respond effectively to peacekeeping and humanitarian relief operations on the continent. ACRI's emphasis was on training African troops on the basis of a common peacekeeping doctrine and the supply of interoperable communications equipment that would enable deployed units to work together more effectively. Against this background, it was clear that, if French strategic objectives in Africa were to be met, a drastic overhaul of military policy was needed.

After winning the 1997 legislative elections the Socialist government of Lionel Jospin introduced reforms.6 He called for a ‘new partnership’ with Africa and, while acknowledging that France's military commitment to Africa should continue, he proposed thorough revision. First, he launched the RECAMP (Reinforcement of African Peacekeeping Capacities) programme. Conceived in response to the US ACRI programme, its purpose was to increase the military capacity of African countries to engage in peacekeeping operations by providing training and capacity-building support. The programme was placed under UN auspices and sought to work in close collaboration with the Organization of African Unity and Africa's sub-regional organizations. The programme was seen as in keeping with France's commitment to African solutions for African problems, and was supposed to make it possible for French troops to take a less prominent role in maintaining security and stability on the continent. Second, the Jospin government undertook a review of France's pre-positioned forces. Discounting troops posted to the island of La Réunion, there were some 8,500 stationed at seven bases. The idea was to reduce troop numbers by approximately one-third by 2002 and to concentrate them on five bases. Underlining the increased mobility and capability of the remaining forces, Jospin argued that the adverse impact on France's ability to deploy its forces on the continent would be negligible. Third, Jospin wanted to shed France's reputation as the gendarme of Africa. He therefore sought to set French military commitments within explicitly multilateral frameworks by gaining approval for interventions through the UN Security Council, and by working with African regional and sub-regional organizations.7 Finally, he set out to redefine the terms of French military cooperation. This meant replacing coopération de substitution, whereby French officers replaced African military officers in key roles, with a new approach, coopération de partenariat, whereby French officers acted as advisers working alongside African officers. From the French point of view, this had the advantage of reducing costs, as the number of French military cooperation personnel declined. It also freed up resources for the RECAMP programme, which was now seen as the centrepiece of France's new approach to military cooperation.

Moreover, in a further break with France's unilateral approach to military interventions in Africa, the French and British governments signed the St Malo agreement at the 1998 Franco-British summit. Long divided on defence and security issues, France and the UK agreed to work together more closely on defence and security, paving the way for a meaningful European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP). They also committed to cooperate more systematically on Africa policy, opening the door for greater security cooperation.8

These changes in French military policy were motivated not only by the pressures of a rapidly changing international context, but also by an urgent need to overhaul policy in order to reduce both the costs and risks of its military posture and interventions, and to ensure that policy better served French interests in Africa. In the argument for the changes, explicit reference was made to the need to promote peace, democracy and prosperity in Africa. The new policy was presented as France's contribution to supporting security and development on the continent. At the same time, it was made clear that France now intended to engage with Africa beyond its traditional pré carré; all sub-Saharan African countries were for the first time included in France's Zone de Solidarité Prioritaire and eligible for inclusion in French cooperation partnerships.9

By the beginning of the new millennium the notion of a distinctive francophone space for French military interventions had been considerably watered down. Developments in the 1990s had ended the French monopoly over military interventions in its former pré carré, and the special relationship between France and its former colonies in Africa had lost much of its lustre. France increasingly sought to intervene on the continent in concert with other external powers rather than unilaterally, and many Africans increasingly challenged French influence and presence on the continent. These trends continued during the first decade of the twenty-first century, but the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in 2001 renewed attention to security issues in Africa (where it was thought that al-Qaida and other African terrorist groups operated) and the perceived need for multilateral cooperation. French and US concerns about al-Qaida in the Maghreb, although shared, did not in practice lead to the two countries working in concert with each other, mainly due to ongoing concerns that cooperation with the US would lead to a diminution of France's relative power.10 France deployed significant troop numbers to Côte d'Ivoire to support the UN forces that were mandated to monitor and support the ceasefire there (UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire [UNOCI]) and played a lead role in the four ESDP military missions that have to date been launched in Africa: Operation Artemis, DRC, June–September 2003; EUFOR (EU Force) DRC, July–November 2006; EUFOR Chad/CAR, January 2008 to March 2009; and EU NAVFOR (Naval Force) Operation Atalanta, ongoing since December 2008. Finally, the French RECAMP programme was transformed into an EU programme, EURORECAMP, following the December 2007 Africa–EU summit in Lisbon. Based in Paris, as France is the ‘framework nation’ designated by the EU, EURORECAMP has a French general as director and a British officer as deputy. Like RECAMP, it aims to strengthen African peacekeeping capacity through education and training. Unlike its predecessor, however, it is guided by the principle of African ownership, and its focus is explicitly on the African Union (AU) and Africa's regional organizations, to enable them to contribute more effectively to regional security. A good example of this new focus was the 2008 launch of the first training cycle, Amani (‘Peace’) Africa, which aimed to assist the AU in its decision-making for crisis management at continental level and in operationalizing the Africa Standby Force, a key element of the new African Peace and Security Architecture. The UK was the largest financial contributor to Amani Africa, while France took the lead role in agenda-setting and implementation as the framework nation for the EURORECAMP programme.11

President Nicolas Sarkozy came to power in 2007 promising to overhaul Franco-African relations, including military relations. A key part of the promised overhaul of military relations was the renegotiation of France's exclusive defence accords with African governments, which Sarkozy promised in a speech at Cape Town in 2008. Yet, for all the claims of a rupture in French African policy, there has arguably been at least as much continuity as change in the Sarkozy period. For example, promises of less unilateral intervention have been belied by essentially unilateral interventions in Côte d'Ivoire and Chad, notwithstanding the ‘multilateral cover’ provided by the UN Security Council.12 Moreover, the emphasis on training African soldiers and supporting African military interventions, instead of putting French troops on the ground, was already present in French policy statements under Sarkozy's predecessor as president, Jacques Chirac. In addition, training African peacekeepers is a common theme within UK and US initiatives. French analysis of the African security context has remained largely constant since 2001, revolving around the notion of ungoverned spaces and diffuse threats stretching across the African Sahel.13 In this respect, French security thinking about the continent is largely in line with the current thinking of the US and the UK.14

In sum, the notion of a francophone African space as an exclusive area of French intervention has been transformed since the 1990s, under the presidencies of Chirac and Sarkozy and in the context of rapid African political developments. The end of the French monopoly of interventions means France now seeks to intervene within multilateral frameworks or alongside other international organizations such as the EU, the UN and the AU, with which it can share the costs and risks of intervention. This increase in UN, EU and AU involvement in the francophone space has occurred against the background of a fundamental change in the network of power relations that facilitated unilateralism. These changes in the material realities underpinning the Franco-African special relationship have in turn impacted on the normative frameworks and mindsets within which French and Francophone African policy-makers operate. Interventions are no longer justified by reference to the need to maintain or restore stability in Francophone Africa. Instead, the justification for intervention relates to the need to establish security and the rule of law as prerequisites for development, and the effective integration of a peaceful and prosperous Africa into the global economy. France has joined with other Western powers in promoting a neoliberal agenda for Africa, in the process further diluting the notion of a distinctive ‘francophone space’ in Africa.

In parallel with these developments the Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) has itself redefined the notions of francophonie and a ‘francophone space’. The organization has, in recent years, become less focused on the defence and promotion of the French language. As more countries have joined, a declining proportion of the populations of OIF member states have French as their mother tongue. In keeping with this change, France now increasingly sees Francophonie ‘not just as an auxiliary arm of its own cultural and language policy of rayonnement, but … as a means of exerting political influence in the world at large’.15 In other words, Francophonie has evolved from being an official ideology that sought to promote the rayonnement of French language and culture, into an organization that is more pragmatic and more political in nature, focusing on political governance and sustainable development. The OIF has further changed the meaning of ‘francophone space’, and the organization's involvement in peacekeeping, conflict prevention and resolution, and security sector reform is one part of this evolution.

Peace Operations in Evolving Francophone Contexts

Michael Pugh once regretted the small number of critical analytical perspectives on peacekeeping and peace missions in general. Against the dominance of policy-driven and problem-solving approaches, he argued that ‘the received view of peacekeeping in global governance is not neutral but serves the purpose of an existing order within which problem solving adjustments can occur’.16 He could hardly make the same argument in 2012 about the marginalized status of critical perspectives as they have emerged to challenge dominant perspectives and conceptualizations of peace operations. From various theoretical approaches critics have emphasized how international peace practices and interventions are often founded upon and reproduce lingering hierarchies of race, class and gender.17 The most virulent critiques have perhaps been informed by poststructuralist and postcolonial perspectives that theorize the ways in which colonial conditions of the past, and North–South inequalities, linger on into present international peace intervention practices and interact with contemporary processes of global circulation, migration, statebuilding and identity politics.18

With a few exceptions, problem-solving-oriented academics have not engaged much with the critiques of the liberal peace.19 Roland Paris is perhaps exceptional in confronting them directly. In 2010, he perceived the need to save liberal peacebuilding from the ‘exaggerated backlash’ of ‘hyper-critical writings’.20 While he once acknowledged that there were ‘echoes’ of mission civilisatrice in international peacebuilding,21 he now rejects the notion that the imperial past matters to contemporary peace missions, as colonialism, he argues, ended with decolonization.22 From such a perspective, the past does not matter as much as the critics claim it does, except perhaps in the ways in which the past can produce ‘lessons to be learned’ for elaborating better practices.23

These debates have rarely found expression in the experiences of the francophone space of international intervention, with the possible exception of Haiti. Moreover, when comparisons are made and drawn from past colonial conditions, the British Empire is the common point of reference in the peace operations literature. We do not claim that our collaborative analysis of peace operations in francophone spaces will or can settle for good any of the debates surrounding peace operations. This would be to essentialize francophone experiences. However, as our brief discussion above of the evolution of French neo-colonialism suggests, francophone spaces offer fertile ground for exploring further such questions, and for providing comparative experiences and perspectives. As most of our contributors suggest, the postcolonial past inevitably influences the francophone spaces where international peace interventions occur, because where France is involved (notably in Africa) the postcolonial is an omnipresent and overt aspect of local/international interactions, and because the development of the OIF is historically tied to the remnants of the French and Belgian empires.

The postcolonial past, no matter how defined, is an inevitable influence in that it is the inescapable a priori context of international interventions in the francophone space, even if this context is rapidly evolving and challenged by a variety of actors, and is in constant interaction with non-francophone dynamics and processes. This is not a deterministic argument or one that seeks to assign causal power to postcoloniality. To take into account the postcolonial context in the francophone space of intervention is to acknowledge the conditions of possibility at play prior to international intervention, how these conditions change according to local/international dynamics, strategies and tactics, and how the limits to peace are set or challenged within this particular context.

As the contributors point out, international peace interventions in francophonie are found mostly in Africa, Haiti being an interesting exception (see in this issue the article by Carlos Braga, Maíra Gomes and Marta Moreno). In Francophone Africa, the particular role that France has played, and the particular dynamics of Franco-African interactions, should not be underestimated. The majority of Francophone African states share a specific institutional, organizational and procedural model largely inspired by the Constitution of the French Fifth Republic of 1958. Their institutional framework encourages the concentration of power within the executive and, more precisely, within the presidency. The president has the last word on matters of defence and security, marginalizing the role of the prime minister and/or of the legislative body. While this is not unique, as an OIF-sponsored collective research effort recognized, constitutional controls in Francophone Africa to dissuade the use of force and the involvement of the army in national politics have had limited success. Long and multiple histories of military coups d'état (e.g. Chad, Mauritania, Guinée-Conarky, Togo, Madagascar) point to the ambivalent views of African political elites vis-à-vis their armies.24 This militarism must be understood in the context of French African practices of bilateral military cooperation which, though changing, encouraged militarism and have symbolized a permanent state of intervention that influenced the composition of social forces, the role of the state, and the distribution of material and political resources.25 In this context, the promotion of peace and stability through security sector reform (SSR) presents specific difficulties, in both preventive and post-conflict situations. The ‘liberal peace model’ that SSR promotes26 has encountered resistance and obstacles in the institutional and organizational history of French African policy (see the contribution by Sophie Besancenot in this issue) and the politics of French African bilateral military cooperation.

Furthermore, while proponents of peacebuilding can acknowledge the postcolonial context, they are often quick to trivialize its relevance to peace missions.27 Yet, local actors (notably elites) seem clearly aware of the postcolonial specificity of the francophone space of intervention and of the paradoxical situation that France is confronted with as a member of the Security Council and as the old gendarme of Africa. Thus local actors gain political potency from this paradox for avenues of action and strategic or tactical opportunities. For example, in Côte d'Ivoire, Laurent Gbagbo clearly understood the tensions involved in the politics of the international peace mission and how they could be manipulated or exploited to change Ivoirian conditions of possibility. His nationalist anti-colonial stance, and his use of powerful images of ‘second decolonization’, of liberation and of freedom from injustice, proved effective to neutralize international meddling, until conflict reignited during the 2010–11 post-election crisis.28 In Côte d'Ivoire, local agents defining themselves vis-à-vis international actors played a key role in setting the limits and the conditions of possibilities for the peace operation by working with, against or in spite of the limitations imposed by the specific context of peace interventionism.29 As Katariina Simonen shows in her contribution, the French government, aware of its paradoxical role, worked hard to legitimize its presence and military intervention in April 2011.

Nevertheless, francophone spaces and experiences should not be essentialized. As the contributors show, francophone dynamics are rapidly evolving, and are further integrated into and influenced by non-francophone networks and institutions, as can be seen in the developing relationship between the OIF and the UN. More importantly, establishing the existence of francophone space is an instance of exclusion. Indeed, as Michel Liégeois argues in his article, there are significant methodological challenges in defining the limits of ‘francophone’ or Francophonie that have both political and operational consequences. The francophone space is not to be conceived as hermetically sealed from the outside world. It is a particular space and moment of inclusion and exclusion, but one that can sometimes conflate with, interact with or distinguish itself from other global patterns and sites of inclusion and exclusion.

Structure of the Issue

The special issue begins with an article that defines, documents and presents an overview of the increasing ‘francophone fact’ of peace operations. David Morin, Lori-Anne Théroux-Bénoni and Marie-Joëlle Zahar show the empirical basis of what they call the ‘francophonization’ of peacekeeping. Quantitative data illustrate the exponential increase in the number of UN troops deployed in francophone countries since 2001. Qualitative changes are argued to come from the development of more complex peace operations (from peacekeeping to peacebuilding), which have fundamentally changed the relationship between peacekeepers and host populations. The significance of communication in the success of peace missions is amplified in the context of increased contacts between internationals and locals. The authors argue that these developments result from three reinforcing dynamics: (1) the quantitative increase of UN deployment in francophone spaces; (2) the specific needs of peace missions that have become multidimensional and that involve complex interactions to reconstruct states and societies; and (3) initiatives and an appropriation of peace operations by francophone states and the OIF. These dynamics highlight the importance of deploying adapted resources and the need for more efficient collaboration between the UN and regional organizations.

Frédéric Ramel examines the instruments and institutions of the OIF and their articulation with those of the UN. Unlike other regional organizations, the OIF does not engage in traditional task-sharing and is not a ‘subcontractor’ that will send troops. Rather, the OIF emerged as a third party that facilitates and supports peace operations, notably by promoting democracy and human rights and freedoms as stipulated in the Bamako Declaration of 2000, which gives the OIF the means to act in cases of threat to the legal democratic systems or of human rights violation in its member countries. Ramel argues that the evolution of the OIF has so far been associated with the proactive role of its two first secretaries-general, Boutros Boutros-Ghali and Abdou Diouf. Their leadership has been crucial to overcoming the reticence of member states, and the financial and political limits imposed on the OIF. More importantly, Ramel emphasizes the particular characteristics of the OIF as ‘a partnership model that gets over the pragmatism and even the narratives of authorization that govern several examples of inter-organizational cooperation’, thus emerging as a third party that offers additional diplomatic venues and opportunities, and increased capacity in terms of inter-organizational cooperation.

In his article on Belgium as a ‘minofrancophone state’, Michel Liégeois further analyses quantitative data to chart the evolution of peacekeeping into multidimensional practices, arguing that key explanations for increasing interest in francophone peacekeeping include the growing number of francophone countries welcoming UN troops on their territory, rising cooperation between the UN and regional organizations, and the institutional development of Francophonie. However, he argues that a ‘blurred conceptual landscape’ surrounding ‘francophone’ and francophonie results from the ways in which different authors approach the topic from varied perspectives and adopt ‘the particular conceptual tool that fits that [author's] chosen perspective’. Liégeois deconstructs the ‘francophone perspective’ on peace operations to question the relevance of discussing peacekeeping along cultural lines. Most importantly, his analysis points to the implicit political dimensions involved in discussing a francophone perspective or participation in peace operations. As he argues, ‘Mapping the use of French across the globe means tracing the colonial expansion of France and Belgium’, thus introducing inevitable tensions when and where these countries send troops to past areas of colonial domination. He supports the argument with a case study analysis of Belgium's participation in the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), as a small ‘minofrancophone state’, to emphasize ‘the thin influence of the linguistic factor on its peacekeeping policy’ and to argue ‘the vacuity of the language-matching argument’.

The next article on the difficulties of peace operations in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa analyses the specific characteristics of what could be considered the most common occurrence in francophone peace operations: the involvement of France. Tobias Koepf examines the peace operations in Côte d'Ivoire, Chad and CAR, and the DRC. The French colonial past and policy of military intervention, and presence after decolonization, have proven problematic, as France's role and the legitimacy of its intervention (even if under a UN mandate) have come under severe criticism, notably in countries where France is simultaneously pursuing a bilateral policy of military cooperation and defence agreements. According to Koepf, the practices of this bilateral military cooperation undermine international peacekeeping efforts, as examples from Côte d'Ivoire and Chad/CAR suggest. In many ways, this is a practical concern with concrete effects in the field, Koepf argues, as African actors have seen and instrumentalized the opportunities offered by this problematic French involvement. To Koepf, the case of the DRC suggests that a possible solution is the full multilateralization of French military commitment, meaning the full integration of French troops under UN command, even if there is no guarantee that this will solve the ambiguity behind deploying French troops on African soil.

Sophie Besancenot analyses the emergence of SSR in the French institutional context. The concept of SSR was first formulated in the UK by developmental actors, but in 2008 France adopted an official SSR strategy and promoted the concept at the European level. Besancenot argues that it is more complex than French full institutional support. Instead of the commonly accepted argument that portrays the difficulty of implementation in cultural terms, such as the French resisting a British and/or American hegemonic worldview, she argues that an analysis of the French institutional context exposes its specific weakness in formulating a developmental approach to security, and a preference for flexible approaches to rigid concepts – a preference born from the practices of bilateral cooperation. This is largely explained through the historical development of the system of cooperation that came out of the decolonization process in Africa.

In her analysis of French official justifications for intervening in Côte d'Ivoire, Katariina Simonen studies France's legitimizing discourse for its military intervention in April 2011 which led to regime change. The French government deployed three types of narratives to support its claims to legitimate intervention: (1) French troops acted under the authority of a UN Security Council mandate; (2) the French government had the duty and responsibility to protect French and other nationals from the violence; and (3) the French intervention was to protect Ivoirian and African democracy. She demonstrates how the French government made every effort to appear neutral in a situation in which its every action was scrutinized and susceptible to accusations of neo-colonialism. According to Simonen, government representatives were at considerable pains to legitimize the French Licorne force and its actions, understanding clearly the paradoxical situation in which the government was inextricably involved. Caught between its international engagements (both in Côte d'Ivoire with UNOCI and as a permanent member of the Security Council) and its postcolonial relationships in Africa, the French government navigated uncertain waters as the violence and the tensions increased after November 2010. In the end, so concerned and careful was the French government in trying to avoid comparisons to French neo-colonial traditions of intervention that, Simonen argues, French military actions were justified by emphasizing their legality.

Finally, Carlos Chagas Vianna Braga, Maíra Siman Gomes and Marta Fernándes Moreno analyse the UN mission in Haiti from a postcolonial perspective. Conceived as a francophone mission operating in a francophone country, their article presents a complex picture that problematizes the possibility of discussing ‘francophone’ and francophonie in peace operations. Composed by a majority of Latin American troops, the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH) was exposed to different symbolic and material pressures that ranged from the UN liberal peace model to France's colonial heritage, to previous US interference and the US's current geographical proximity, to postcolonial worldviews and local demands. The authors argue that MINUSTAH shows how the conventional peace operation model is, at the field level of everyday experience, constantly challenged and renegotiated. The authors emphasize the need to politicize the multiple encounters between a predefined peace operation model and field experiences, by exposing the inevitable postcolonial negotiations and adaptations of the various actors, and by highlighting the hybridity and ambivalence of all identities.

This special issue shows that francophone spaces and experiences are in flux. It appears that France has largely fallen into line with the liberal peace model of intervention. It is in this respect that the French Senate portrayed the French military intervention in Côte d'Ivoire as a ‘laboratory for change’ for France's new military policy in Africa.30 Yet, France's colonial past and history of military interventions since 1960 have rendered the implementation of this new approach highly problematic in practice. Resistance to change is observable within France and in the various spaces of peace operations. This special issue problematizes these changes where global liberal governance meets postcolonialism, because the lines are not as clear cut as they appear between different francophone spaces and between francophone and non-francophone spaces. At a moment when it seems increasingly difficult to identify what is distinctive about peace operations in francophone contexts, this special issue charts the difficulties France, the OIF and the UN face as they seek to modify and adapt their practices to new and evolving conditions, and explores the range of possibilities that emerge from an interrogation of peace operations in francophone spaces.

Notes

Bruno Charbonneau, ‘Possibilities of Multilateralism: Canada, la Francophonie, and Global Order’, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal, Vol.16, No.2, 2010, pp.79–98.

Bruno Charbonneau, ‘Les effets du prisme de l'Atlantique sur les relations Nord–Sud: le cas de l'Afrique francophone’ [The effects of the Atlantic paradigm on North–South relations: the case of Francophone Africa], in Dorval Brunelle (ed.), Repenser l'Atlantique: commerce, immigration, sécurité [Rethinking the Atlantic: Commerce, Immigration, Security], Brussels: Bruylant, 2012, pp.395–418.

Gordon Cumming, Aid to Africa, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2001, p.410.

Rachel Utley, ‘Franco-African Military Relations: Meeting the Challenges of Globalisation?’, Modern and Contemporary France, Vol.13, No.1, 2005, pp.25–40.

Tony Chafer, ‘Franco-African Relations: No Longer So Exceptional?’, African Affairs, Vol.101, No.404, 2002, p.349.

Tony Chafer, ‘Chirac and “la Françafrique”: No Longer a Family Affair’, Modern and Contemporary France, Vol.13, No.1, 2005, pp.16–17.

Utley (see n.4 above), pp. 29–30.

Tony Chafer and Gordon Cumming, ‘Beyond Fashoda: Anglo-French Security Cooperation in Africa since Saint-Malo’, International Affairs, Vol.86, No.5, 2010, pp.1129–47.

Cumming (see n.3 above), p.409.

Niagalé Bagayoko, ‘Franco-American Ties: Old foes, New friends?’, in Tony Chafer and Gordon Cumming (eds), From Rivalry to Partnership? New Approaches to the Challenges of Africa, Farnham: Ashgate, 2011, p.134.

Tony Chafer, ‘The AU: A New Arena for Anglo-French Cooperation in Africa?’, Journal of Modern African Studies, Vol.49, No.1, 2010, pp.64–5.

On Côte d'Ivoire, see Bruno Charbonneau, ‘War and Peace in Côte d'Ivoire’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.19, No.4 (forthcoming, 2012). On Chad, see Charbonneau, ‘France’, in David R. Black and Paul D. Williams (eds), The International Politics of Mass Atrocities: The Case of Darfur, London: Routledge, 2010, pp.213–31.

See France, Défense et Sécurité nationale – Le Livre blanc, Paris: Odile Jacob/La Documentation Française, 2008.

Charbonneau, France and the New Imperialism: Security Policy in Sub-Saharan Africa, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2008, pp.73–92.

Margaret A. Majumdar, ‘“Une Francophonie à l'offensive”? Recent Developments in Francophonie’, Modern and Contemporary France, Vol.20, No.1, 2012, p.18.

Michael Pugh, ‘Peacekeeping and Critical Theory’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.11, No.1, 2004, p.41.

For instance, Sherene Razack, Dark Threats and White Knights: The Somalia Affairs, Peacekeeping, and the New Imperialism, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004; Sandra Whitworth, Men, Militarism, and UN Peacekeeping: A Gendered Analysis, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004.

Many could be listed here. Among others, see Adekeye Adebajo (ed.), From Global Apartheid to Global Village: Africa and the United Nations, Scottsville: University of KwaZulu-Natal Press, 2009; Michael Pugh, Neil Cooper and Mandy Turner (eds), Whose Peace? Critical Perspectives on the Political Economy of Peacebuilding, New York: Palgrave, 2008; Oliver Richmond, A Post-liberal Peace, London: Routledge, 2011.

This is not to say it precludes collaboration. Edward Newman, Roland Paris and Oliver P. Richmond (eds), New Perspectives on Liberal Peacebuilding, New York: UN University Press, 2009.

Roland Paris, ‘Saving Liberal Peacebuilding’, Review of International Studies, Vol.36, No.2, 2010, p.339.

Roland Paris, ‘International Peacebuilding and the “Mission Civilisatrice”’, Review of International Studies, Vol.28, No.4, 2002, pp.637–56.

Paris (see n.20 above).

For instance, see Kimberly Zisk Marten, Enforcing the Peace: Learning from the Imperial Past, New York: Columbia University Press, 2004.

Kossi Agokla, Niagalé Bagayoko and Boubacar N'Diaye (eds), La réforme des systèmes de sécurité et de justice en Afrique francophone [Security and Justice Sector Reform in Francophone Africa], Paris: OIF, Délégation à la paix, à la démocratie et aux droits de l'Homme, 2010, pp.21–35.

Robin Luckham, ‘Le militarisme français en Afrique’, Politique Africaine, June 1982, pp.45–71.

Richmond argues that the ‘liberal peace has become a model through which Western led agency, epistemology, and institutions, have attempted to unite the world under a hegemonic system that replicates liberal institutions, norms, and political, social, and economic systems’. Richmond (see n.18 above), p.1.

Marina Ottaway and Bethany Lacina, ‘International Interventions and Imperialism: Lessons from the 1990s’, SAIS Review, Vol.23, No.2, 2003, pp.71–92.

Mike McGovern, Making War in Côte d'Ivoire, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011; Giulia Piccolino, ‘David against Goliath in Côte d'Ivoire? Laurent Gbagbo's War against Global Governance’, African Affairs, Vol.111, No.442, 2012, pp.1–23.

Charbonneau, ‘War and Peace’ (see n. 12 above).

Charbonneau (see n.14 above), p.149.