Each country has a domestic political stance and a foreign political stance. Monitoring a state’s domestic and foreign policy in light of the international situation helps us perceive whether the state is either affiliated to another power in its policy, or independent or a satellite state.
One of the French strategic thinkers says: “More than anything, France wants to be sovereign; yet her sovereignty is insufficient to secure her national interest.” Based on France’s nature and the ideology upon which she is built, and by observing her domestic and foreign political stance, we deduce that she is an independent state but unable to control her destiny.
Since being part of a whole renders a constituent dependent, France linked the colonised countries to her culture; and as it is known, cultural affiliation hampers the deracination of political influence. Therefore, France managed to maintain some presence in West Africa, a pretext to intervene in the continent, and a presence on the international scene, especially as the state should have something to offer to the world if it were to maintain a position on the world stage.
This is what France, America and Britain have and Russia does not, namely the liberal democratic value-based system. It is worth observing in this context that investing in what certain opponents or foes from among independent states believe in, is one of America’s styles, just like her investment in Russia and France’s need to have an international presence motivated by ideology or nationalism to act as guarantees for self-assertion and to avert domestic erosion and collapse.
Likewise, America’s investment in Erdoğan’s need to enhance his popular standing, and her exploiting of such an enterprise in her strategies and plans which often tend to absorb the movements of the others irrespective of their orientation, with the aim of containing and directing them, such as the movements of Turkey and Russia in Syria and Libya.
This could confuse the observers’ perception of the relationships between America and those states and lead to analysing the events in a manner contrary to their reality. Another example of this approach is America’s use of Jihadists on the principle that the “the end justifies the means” to achieve her objectives based on the Dulles Strategy, and her support for the national liberation movements against British and French colonialism last century, as per the testimony of mid-level CIA officer Oliver Iselin on US intelligence agencies’ role in the activities of national liberation movements in Africa.
By exploring the reality of African countries like Mali and Niger, where America established military bases near the uranium-producing mines, from which France obtains 90% of their output for her nuclear power plants, and by observing France’s desperate efforts to thwart the Libyan method in seeking “liberation”, lest it should contaminate west African countries, in addition to tracking US policy in disseminating “terrorism” in that region via Algeria, a narrative corroborated by Jeremy Keenan in his book titled “The Dark Sahara” in which he accused the US and Algeria of conspiring to fabricate evidence and exaggerate the threat of al-Qaeda’s terror in North Africa, described the “worldwide war on terror” as a hoax, and concluded that the attacks executed by such groups served America’s endeavour to spread her political influence over the region to dominate its economic resources, it transpires from all this that France still has several agents in various parts of Africa who have been serving her political and economic interests for decades.
However, the US strategy for the African continent, especially during the tenure of Donald Trump, has constrained those agents; thus, some of them proceeded behind her or behind their interests with China, within the context of an American strategy aimed at generating a rivalry between China and France, and even between France and Turkey, and China and Turkey, who has recently turned up in the African continent, as China’s incursion and generation of economic interests through infrastructure projects and direct lending to African states is no longer a secret.
Moreover, America has sought to constrain the behaviour of some of those rulers and political milieux constituting the legacy of the old colonialism of the African continent through a host of military, security and economic agreements; consequently, they are no longer in a position to project the French or the British viewpoint and achieve their interests in isolation of American supervision. The Anglo-Saxon capitalists’ control of French major companies, especially oil companies, and what this entails in terms of governance systems instituted by investment funds, has paralysed France’s ability to harness her companies for political aims, as was the case with Elf, which used to act as the French foreign ministry to the point where it would supply armies with weapons and appoint and oust presidents.
Hence, French influence nowadays is present through a number of individuals occupying positions of power but they are besieged by American companies and agents, and AFRICOM military bases in the Sahel region and Central Africa. France managed to recapture Côte d’Ivoire from the American agent Alassane Ouattara and to snatch the Congolese president Joseph Kabila from the grip of America; but America killed him because he had turned on her and replaced him with his son, just as she usually changes her shoes in the Gulf.
However, the influence of France and Britain in their former colonies necessitates from the rulers affiliated to them being decision makers in their respective countries, but this does not mean being able to openly act insubordinately towards America, because what makes the agent able to operate is the ability of the major power to which he is affiliated to protect him; France and Britain could not protect their agents if they were to openly work towards thwarting America’s influence. Not only can America influence the affiliated states but also the states sponsoring them, not to mention the nature of the relationship between the major powers which is no longer based on struggle.
Despite America’s numerous attempts to infiltrate France’s political system and its deep state, she however could not achieve the same success she had with Britain, where she managed to dwarf the British political milieu through a host of direct actions. She succeeded in luring Britain’s leaders, such as Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair, and dominating the British political parties, trade unions and student unions, in addition to influencing the British economy. America also managed to link Britain’s interests to her policies and lure her into partaking in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, and in the war on “terror”, and in persuading her to exert pressure on France in respect of NATO and to exit the European Union.
As for America’s incursions into the French system and her attempts to destabilise it and dismantle the mechanisms of French independence, these are numerous and they include the Franco-American squabble that cropped up by the end of the Second World War, as America pursued the policy of liquidating the old colonies and draining the classical colonial powers’ sources of influence and chasing them away from their colonies. Britain and France were subjected to an onslaught by proxy via Abdul Nasser and Gaddafi in the Sahel and North Africa, in addition to the trade unions and students’ movements which toppled the government of France’s military icon, Charles De Gaulle, who had objected to Britain’s EEC membership as he knew that it would lead to Americanising the European project.
America then set about curtailing the French investment enterprises in her former colonial sphere in west Africa through a host of protocols such as the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) of 2000, and a number of initiatives such as the African American Strategic Partnership, in addition to sponsoring the African Union, the World Bank and the American NGO’s involved in executing the common objective pertinent to “developing and integrating the Dark Continent”, which include economic, commercial, investment and security development, and which is usually undertaken through high-level US sponsorship, a narrative corroborated by the text of the “US-Africa Strategy ”.
Observers are aware that America owns 12.4% of UK investment holdings, and that she sought, through her oil companies, to acquire the French Total Group, which includes the major French oil companies such as Total and Elf Aquitaine, by buying 34.5% of its shares; and America sought to become the majority shareholder in the French tyres company Michelin, which America subsequently exploited to exert pressure on the French government by dismissing a large number of its workforce in the nineties, causing the French government a major industrial crisis.
America has also infiltrated the French media with an army of 50 Jewish financiers, most of whom are linked to the US, such as Bernard Henri Lévy, who virtually work as agents within the French system, in addition to French news channels BFMTV and CNEWS, which have US-sponsored far-right tendencies.
As for the status quo in France, it indicates the presence of advanced American actions aimed at dismantling the deep state, such as the onslaught on the structure of the education system and the attempt to monopolise the main governmental jobs through the graduates of one single college, namely “Ecole Nationale D’Administration” founded by De Gaulle after the Second World War and from which Chirac, Hollande and Macron graduated.
As for Macron’s attempts to establish some influence in the Mediterranean region in Libya, Cyprus or Lebanon, they are not in isolation from American supervision, and some Lebanese leaders, such as former minister Wiam Wahab, expressed this reality by stating that “America has sent Macron with her agenda with which we are familiar”.
Meanwhile, recent events in Libya revealed that America’s decision to give France the green light to back her agent Khalifah Haftar was a political trap aimed at projecting France’s impotence. As for Macron’s desperate attempts to persuade EU member states to establish a European military force, his attempts to restore France’s relations with Russia or his intervention to settle the issue of intermediate-range and short-range missiles, they all ended in failure. America is working directly or through her agents to sow despair in France, downsize her and confine her to her national borders.
It is possible to construe this reality from Macron’s reactions and his attempts to cover up his failure and compensate for it through his attack on Islam and his precautionary measures by raising fears in French nationals for their identity and constitution.
France is a nuclear power and different from Britain. She had maintained the independence of the French nuclear deterrent and her military industries. She never integrated herself fully into NATO despite being a member state; she withdrew from NATO’s operational aspect since the days of De Gaulle and she does not take part in military cooperation projects and joint manufacturing like Britain. This French attitude infuriated America and led her to call for an increase in NATO’s military spending with France’s attempts to evade it. It is worth recalling in this context France’s position vis-à-vis the 9/11 attacks and her assiduous endeavours to ratify the agreements aimed at deepening European integration, and her deep resentment towards the Anglo-Saxon financial system in the wake of the financial markets’ collapse in 2008.
France’s main concern is resisting anything that impinges on her doctrine, her perception of her national interests or threatening her economic resources in Africa. Her main problem is that her national interests cannot be achieved in isolation from the US, and this compels her to condition herself with this reality. She is therefore torn between succumbing to the US and conditioning herself with her size and reality; and although she responds swiftly and emotionally in times of crisis, she however quickly returns back to square one and retracts from every step that angers America.
America for her part is well aware of France’s psychology and exploit her to her advantage; she tends to help her in order to deepen her sense of weakness, impotence and need for America. This is why their relationship is tinged with mistrust, especially from France’s part, as she has suffered a great deal from being exploited by others in achieving their interests, a narrative corroborated by the famous British slogan: “We shall fight until the last French soldier.”
Copyright © LCIR 2020
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