In the name of France and civilization: The making of (in)security and the re-legitimization of French security policy in sub-Saharan Africa

This thesis examines the ideas that drive France's hegemonic aspirations in sub-Saharan Africa. A critical approach is developed in order to examine fully how the discourse of the French security state is a key component of the policies of the French state, and how these politicies have a profound effect on Franco-Africa. French security policy is reflective of an elite world-view that France has attempted to replicate amongst selected African elites, and in doing so has embedded French dominance in the post-colonial world. The deconstruction of French security policy presented here is not an exercise unto itself, but is executed with the purpose to show intent. Through this critical perspective, French security policy can be considered as a factor of instability and as a reproductive mechanism of systems of dependency, domination, and subordination. Although globalization has imposed constraints on France, it has also offered new opportunities to re-legitimize French military policy. Through an analysis of the "multilateralization" of French military cooperation and through the multinationalization of French interests (as exemplified by Recamp), it is argued that the merging of French security and development practices can only create more insecurity rather than the security, stability, and development it seeks formally to eradicate. The French military has identified the promotion of neo-liberal principles and market-democracy as a legitimate objective and strategy of war and as a means to secure peace. The immediate effect has been to limit policy options to two alternatives: the containment of Africa and the radical transformation of African societies. This thesis examines the "new" military cooperation and the cases of French intervention in Rwanda and Cote d'Ivoire in order to draw attention to the production and reproduction of relations of power, identities, and discourses that have underwritten French hegemony and have proscribed dissent in sub-Saharan Africa. The conclusion is not that French security policy has somehow failed, but that to emphasize its perceived failures and imperfections is to pursue the wrong line of investigation---it is to maintain French hegemony. Through this critical analysis, this thesis demonstrates how French hegemony has been continuously reproduced, re-legitimized, and re-authorized in the name of France and civilization.