The Bogey of African-French Solidarity

Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe writing in Africa Resource:

Africa has been the quintessential target of French military interventionism during this period because immanent in the worldview of the French political establishment, irrespective of ideological/political colouration, none of the former French-conquered and occupied African states is really independent or sovereign by any breadth or shade of either of these definitions. Instead, according to this conception, these are francophonie backwoods, which, at best, have some measure of local administrative autonomy (hence, “francophone Africa”!), with ultimate sovereign power lodged at the metropolitan centre in Paris