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For decades, France has exerted a neocolonial grip on its former African empire, known as the Françafrique. Yet a series of electoral breakthroughs and military coups by opponents of this order have put its future into question.
Covering a broad sweep of history from the eighteenth century to the present day, two leading authorities on French neocolonialism, Ndongo Samba Sylla and Fanny Pigeaud, offer a series of sharp political reflections on the French effort to subdue and subvert democracy in its former colonies.
With incisive analysis of recent events in Burkina Faso, Niger, Mali and Senegal, the book offers an eye-opening counter-history of democracy and elections, and how the vote was limited in the first French colonies; the organisation of unequal rights within the new colonies; the spread of one-party regimes; significant historical coups d'etat; and the role of contemporary electoral interference.
List of contents
1. A brief counter-history of democracy and elections
2. Limiting the vote in the First French colonies (1789-1920)
3. Keeping Subversion at Bay in the New Colonies (1870-1960)
4. Single-Party Rule, Against Popular Suffrage
5. Single-Party Rule, Coups d'état and French 'Imperial Suffrage', 1960-1989
6. Multipartism, the Highest Stage of Single Party Rule (1990-present)
7. Electoral Interference Today
8. Behind the 'showcase democracy' in Senegal
9. Françafrique in Crisis (2020-Present)
About the author
Fanny Pigeaud is a French journalist who works with Mediapart and Le Monde diplomatique, amongst other outlets. She is co-author of Africa's Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story and author of A Decade of Cameroon.
Ndongo Samba Sylla is a Senegalese development economist. He has previously worked as a technical advisor at the Presidency of the Republic of Senegal, and is the Africa Director of the International Development Economics Associates (IDEAs). He is the co-author of Africa’s Last Colonial Currency: The CFA Franc Story and author of The Fair Trade Scandal.
David Broder is a historian of the Italian far-right. He is a regular contributor to the New Statesman and Internazionale, writing about Italian politics, as well as an editor for Jacobin. His writing has also appeared in New York Times, Guardian, and Independent. He is the author of Mussolini's Grandchildren: Fascism in Contemporary Italy.
