Making Sense of a Francophone Perspective on Peace Operations: The Case of Belgium as a Minofrancophone State

Abstract

Using a probabilistic method to shed light on the effective use of the French language in the so-called Francophone states, the article argues that Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF) membership is not a reliable marker of French-language proficiency for countries contributing to peace operations. It further dismisses the assumption that sending peacekeeping personnel from Francophone countries automatically improves the efficiency of peace missions deployed in Francophone areas. The Belgian participation in the UN peace operation in Lebanon is used as a case study to test the empirical validity of the former arguments.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author expresses his deep gratitude to the anonymous reviewers who helped improve the original version. Professor Françoise Massart-Piérard of the Catholic University of Louvain (UCL) deserves a special mention for having shared her deep knowledge of the nitty-gritty of the institutional and political evolution of Francophonie. This research also benefited from the support of Damien Deltenre, a research trainee in UCL, who gathered, updated and sorted the quantitative data used for this study. The syntactic approximations of the first draft were pitilessly chased by Dr Charles Devellennes (University of Kent). The author is of course responsible for the final outcome.

Notes

The francophone writings gradually adopt the use of francophonie (lower case) to name the aggregate of French-speaking people and Francophonie (capitalized) to designate the institutional forms (today the Organisation internationale de la Francophonie). Françoise Massart-Piérard, ‘La construction sinueuse d'une identité complexe’ [The Sinuous Build-up of a Complex Identity], Cahiers de l'Institut de linguistique de Louvain, Vol.32, No.4, 2006, p.81. We adopt this spelling convention – together with the corresponding adjectives ‘francophone/Francophone – throughout the article.

Only two articles addressing Francophone peacekeeping as the main topic were located: David Morin and Lori-Anne Théroux-Bénoni, ‘Maintien de la paix et espace francophone’ [Peacekeeping and the Francophone space], Bulletin du maintien de la paix, No.96, 2009, pp.1–4; Justin Massie and David Morin, ‘Francophonie et opérations de paix: vers une appropriation géoculturelle’ [Francophonie and peace operations: towards a geocultural ownership], Etudes internationales, Vol.42, No.3, 2011, pp.313–36.

DPKO (at: www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/resources/statistics/factsheet.html).

Alain Le Roy, ‘A Decisive Year: Revitalizing the Peacekeeping Partnership’, statement by the Under Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations to the UN Security Council, 23 Jan. 2009.

See among others, Richard Gowan, ‘The New Horizon Initiative – United Nations Peacekeeping for the 21st Century’, Signal (New York: Center for International Cooperation), Winter 2011, p.5.

See, among others, ‘Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly – 61/7. Cooperation between the UN and the International Organisation of la Francophonie’, 61st session, Agenda item 108 (j), UN doc., A/RES/61/7, 27 Nov. 2006; ‘Resolution Adopted by the General Assembly 63/236 – Cooperation between the United Nations and the International Organisation of la Francophonie’, 63rd session, Agenda item 114 (k), UN doc., A/RES/63/236, 17 Mar. 2009.

Béatrice Pouligny, Peace Operations Seen from Below: UN Missions and Local People, London: Hurst, 2006.

UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO), UN Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO), UN Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI), UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), UNIFIL.

Kofi Annan, ‘Security Council, Fifty-Ninth Year, 4970th Meeting’, 17 May 2004, UN doc., S/PV.4970, p.5.

Alain Le Roy, ‘Remarques de clôture du Secrétaire-Général adjoint des Nations Unies pour les Opérations de maintien de la paix’ [Closing remarks of the UN Under-Secretary General for Peace-Keeping Operations], Séminaire régional de Bamako, La participation francophone aux Opérations de maintien de la paix: Pratiques et paramètres [Regional Seminar of Bamako, Francophone Participation in Peace Operations: Practice and Parameters], 17 June 2009.

Sarjoh Bah and Bruce D. Jones, ‘Peace Operations Partnerships: Lessons and Issues from Coordination to Hybrid Arrangements’, Center on International Cooperation, New York University, May 2008.

Economic Community of West African States Cease-Fire Monitoring Group (ECOMOG).

African Mission in Burundi (AMIB, 2003–04), AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS, 2004–07), African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM, from 2007).

Thierry Tardy, ‘L'Union européenne, nouvel acteur, du maintien de la paix: le cas d'Artemis en République démocratique du Congo’ [The European Union, new actor for peacekeeping: the case of Artemis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo], in Jocelyn Coulon (ed.), Guide du maintien de la paix 2005, Outremont: Athéna, 2004, pp.35–56; Raphaël Pouyé, ‘EUFOR Tchad/RCA: Une opération européenne de protection des civils à l’épreuve du politique' [EUFOR Chad/RCA: an EU operation for the protection of civilians tested against politics], in Jocelyn Coulon (ed.), Guide du maintien de la paix 2010, Outremont: Athéna, 2009, pp.25–37; Catherine Gegout, ‘The West, Realism and Intervention in the Democratic Republic of Congo (1996–2006)’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.16, No.2, 2009, pp.231–44.

Out of 56 AU member states, 26 are OIF members. Algeria chose not to join OIF but despite its policy of arabisation the French language remains prevalent.

Morin and Théroux-Bénoni (see n.2 above), p.2; Massie and Morin (see n.2 above), pp.319–20.

Françoise Massart-Piérard, ‘La Francophonie internationale’ [The international Francophonie], Courrier hebdomadaire du Centre de recherche et d'information socio-politiques, No.1655, 1999, p.10.

Although the vocable Sommet de la Francophonie is now commonly used, the official denomination of these meetings is ‘Conférence des chefs d’État et de gouvernement des pays ayant le français en partage [Conference of the Head of States and Governments Having the French Language in Common] .

Massart-Piérard ‘La Francophonie internationale’ (see n.17 above), p.15.

Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, Délégation a la paix, à la démocratie et aux droits de l'homme, ‘Tableau des missions d'information et d'observation des élections dépêchées par l'organisation internationale de la francophonie (1992–2010)’ [Factsheet on Information and Elections Monitoring Missions Sent by the OIF] (at: http://democratie.francophonie.org/IMG/pdf/tableau_de_missions.pdf).

Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, Xe Conférence des chefs d'Etat et de gouvernement des pays ayant le français en partage, Ouagadougou, 26–7 Nov. 2004, ‘Déclaration de Ouagadougou’ [Ouagadougou Statement], 27 Nov. 2004, p.6.

Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, ‘Prévention des conflits et Sécurité humaine: Déclaration de Saint-Boniface adoptée le 14 mai 2006’ [Conflicts prevention and human security: Saint-Boniface Statement adopted on 14 May 2006] (at: www.operationspaix.net/IMG/pdf/Declaration_Saint-Boniface_2006.pdf).

Organisation internationale de la Francophonie, XIIe Conférence des chefs d'État et de gouvernement des pays ayant le français en partage, Québec, 17–19 Oct. 2008, ‘Déclaration de Québec’ [Québec Statement], p.2 (my translation).

The term was coined by Léopold Sédar Senghor to name the values of language and culture connected with the French civilization. See also Massart-Piérard, ‘La Francophonie internationale’ [The International Francophonie] (see n.17 above), p.6; Joseph Boly, ‘Visages de la francité’ [Faces of francité], Brussels: Fondation Charles Plisinier, 1999, p.12.

Derived from anglosphère, this means a francophone institutionalization instrumentalized for the benefit of its most powerful members, namely France and Canada. Massie and Morin (see n.2 above), p.316; David G. Haglund and Justin Massie, ‘L'abandon de l'abandon: the emergence of a transatlantic “francosphère” in Québec and Canada's strategic culture’, Québec Studies, Mar. 2010, pp.59–85; Aymeric Chauprade, L'espace économique francophone: pour une francophonie intégrale [The Francophone Economic Space: For an Integral Francophonie], Paris: Ellipses, 1996.

Françoise Massart-Piérard, ‘La construction sinueuse d'une identité complexe’ [The Sinuous Build-up of a Complex Identity], Cahiers de l'Institut de linguistique de Louvain, Vol.32, No.4, 2006, p.87.

See n.17 above.

See, among others, Xavier Deniau, ‘La Francophonie’ [Francophonie], Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1998; Michel Guillou, La Francophonie: nouvel enjeu mondial [The Francophonie: New Global Endgame], Paris: Hatier, 1993; Françoise Massart-Piérard, ‘La Francophonie, un nouvel intervenant sur la scène internationale’ [The Francophonie, a new stakeholder on the international stage], Revue internationale de politique comparée, Vol.14, No.1, 2007, pp.69–93.

Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (see n.23 above), p.2.

Annan (see n.9 above) and Le Roy (see n.10 above).

Morin and Théroux-Bénoni (see n.2 above), p.2; Massie and Morin (see n.2 above), pp.321–2.

Unless mentioned otherwise, all quantitative data are from ‘Area and Population’ and ‘Language’, in Encyclopedia Britannica, Book of the Year 2011, Chicago, IL: Encyclopedia Britannica, 2011, p.756. ‘The estimates represent, so far as national data collection systems permit, the distribution of mother tongues (a mother tongue being the language spoken first, and usually, most fluently by an individual). Many countries do not collect any official data whatever on language use, and published estimates not based on census or survey data usually span a substantial range of uncertainty. The editors have adopted best-founded distribution in the published literature (indicating uncertainty by the degree of rounding shown) but have also adjusted or interpolated using data not part of the base estimate(s) (…)’.

Among the OIF member states, only two have a majority that speaks French as a first language; the remainder should therefore be considered minority francophone states, hereafter ‘minofrancophone’. Canada and Belgium, the second- and third-largest financial contributors and most influential countries after France, are minofrancophone, 21 per cent and 40 per cent of their respective populations being French-speaking.

The need for a ‘minimal proficiency threshold’ was underlined by Alexander Wolff in ‘Dossier réalisé par mfi médias France intercontinents, l'agence multimédia de radio france internationale en partenariat avec l'Organisation internationale de la Francophonie à l'occasion de la Journée internationale de la Francophonie’ [File realized by ‘mfi France intercontinents’, the multimedia agency of Radio-France internationale in partnership with OIF for the International Day of Francophonie], 20 Mar. 2009, p.35 (at: www.francophonie.org/IMG/pdf/Fcs_enjeu_21esiecle.pdf).

DPKO, ‘UN Mission's Contributions by Country’, 31 Aug. 2011 (at: www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/contributors/2011/aug11_5.pdf); ‘Area and Population’ and ‘Language’, (n.32 above), pp.750–5, 766–70. OIF statistics were avoided because the organization has obvious political interest in overstating the pervasiveness of French.

The theoretical average proportion of French-speaking peacekeepers among the OIF contingents deployed in the four operations is considered to be 21.5 per cent.

Ulrike Hanemann, ‘Literacy in Conflict Situations’, UNESCO Institute for Education, Hamburg, Mar. 2005, p.7.

Hylke Dijkstra, ‘The Military Operation of the EU in Chad and the Central African Republic: Good Policy, Bad Politics’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.17, No.3, 2010, pp.395–407; Bruno Charbonneau, ‘France’, in David Black and Paul Williams (eds), The International Politics of Mass Atrocities: The Case of Darfur, London: Routledge, 2010, pp.213–31.

On 23 October 1983, 58 French soldiers were killed in the bombing of their headquarters in Beirut. On 6 April 1994, ten Belgian blue helmets were assassinated in Kigali by elements of the Rwandese Army Force. On 6 November 2004 a government-ordered air strike killed nine French soldiers part of Operation Licorne deployed in support of UNOCI. See Bruno Charbonneau, ‘War and Peace in Côte d'Ivoire’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.19, No.3, 2012, (this issue). See also Simonen's article in this issue.

See among many others Roy May and Gerry Cleaver, ‘African Peacekeeping: Still Dependent?’, International Peacekeeping, Vol.4, No.2, 1997, pp.1–21; Michel Liégeois, ‘Opérations de paix: la question de la régionalisation’ [Peace operations: the question of regionalization], in Jocelyn Coulon (ed.), Guide du maintien de la paix 2005, Outremont: Athéna, 2004, pp.17–33.

Olaf Bachmann, ‘The African Standby Force: External Support to an “African Solution to African Problems”?’, IDS Research Report 67, Institute for Development Studies, April 2011.

For example, the Republic of Congo did not provide any personnel to the UN operation in the DRC because of cross-border ethnicity issues.

For internal political reasons, official statistics dealing directly with language use have not been collected in Belgium since 1961. However, various techniques of extrapolation give a 41 per cent share as a fairly accurate evaluation. See, for example, Jacques Leclerc, ‘L’État belge: Données démolinguistiques' [The Belgian state: demo-linguistic data] (at: www.tlfq.ulaval.ca/axl/europe/belgiqueetat_demo.htm).

This is the contribution of the Federal Government of Canada. Québec contributes a separate 3 per cent share.

Massie and Morin (see n.2 above), p.317.

Michel Liégeois and Galia Glume, ‘A Small Power under the Blue Helmet: The Evolution of Belgian Peacekeeping Policy’, Studia Diplomatica, Vol.61, No.3, 2008, p.111.

With five mandates to date, Belgium is the small country most frequently elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council. Michel Liégeois, ‘The Role of Small Powers in the UN Security Council: The Case of Belgium’, in Jan Wouters, Edith Drieskens and Sven Biscop (eds), Belgium in the UN Security Council: Reflections on the 2007–2008 Membership, Oxford: Intersentia, 2009, pp.51–61.

The Belgian defence budget for 2010 was US$5.4 billion or 1.2 per cent of GDP, down from 2.5 per cent in 1989.

The Ministry of Defence reports that since the end of the Cold War Belgium has carried out more than 120 military operations of all types, sending a cumulative total of about 30,000 soldiers abroad.

‘Note de politique générale du Gouvernement sur la participation belge aux opérations de maintien de la paix’ [General policy note of the government on Belgian participation in peace operations], Sénat et Chambre de Belgique, Session de 1997–98, 1394/1-97/98; Sénat de Belgique, Session de 1997–98, Commission d'enquête parlementaire concernant les événements du Rwanda, ‘Rapport fait au nom de la commission d'enquête par MM.Mahoux et Verhofstadt’ [Report on behalf of the investigation committee], 6 Dec. 1997.

‘Note de politique générale’ (see n.50 above), pp.6–7 (author's translation).

Massie and Morin (n.2 above), p.12.

For a detailed account of the Belgian decision-making process regarding UNIFIL, see Liégeois and Glume (see n.46 above), pp.121–30.

Ibid., pp.128–9.

Thirty-eight per cent according to OIF estimation, 22 per cent according to Encyclopedia Britannica (see n.32 above).

Liégeois and Glume (see n.46 above), p.132.