Analyzing modern Françafrique requires an understanding of the structural mutation of French imperialism. Indeed, French state-monopoly capitalism has since then undergone a tactical shedding of its skin. We are no longer merely in the era of patrimonial management of former colonies, but in a redeployment phase where France attempts to safeguard its class interests against the rise of competing imperialist powers and the insurrection of African popular consciousness.
The metamorphosis of the monetary and financial infrastructure
The transition from the CFA Franc to the Eco within the WAEMU perfectly illustrates the strategy of changing everything so that nothing changes. From a Marxist perspective, currency is not a simple neutral instrument of exchange, but a tool of domination allowing the transfer of surplus value from the peripheries to the center. Although France has officially withdrawn its representatives from decision-making bodies and ended the mandatory deposit of foreign exchange reserves at the Treasury, the link of dependency remains intact through the maintenance of a fixed parity with the euro. This architecture guarantees profit stability for French multinationals that repatriate their dividends without exchange rate risk, while stifling local industrialization through excessively costly credit. Monetary sovereignty remains a legal fiction as long as the levers of exchange rate policy are indexed to the needs of European capital accumulation.
Military withdrawal or the reconfiguration of the repressive apparatus
The year 2025 marked a historic turning point with the total withdrawal of French forces from Chad, signaling the final collapse of the security apparatus in the Sahel following the debacles in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger. This ebb is not a voluntary abdication but the consequence of a class struggle on an international scale. The African masses now identify the French army not as a bulwark against terrorism, but as the praetorian guard of puppet regimes protecting the extraction of raw materials. However, this withdrawal from Chadian soil does not signify the end of interference. French imperialism is fragmenting and specializing in hybrid warfare, technological intelligence, and the training of devoted military cadres, while relying on regional relays such as Ivory Coast or Benin, transformed into hubs of stability for Western capital.
Green extractivism and the new division of the world
The discourse on the energy transition is becoming the new mask for primitive accumulation. The works of François-Xavier Verschave highlighted “black gold” and precious timber; today, Françafrique focuses on strategic metals and carbon credits. The dispossession of land for conservation projects or green hydrogen production constitutes the new frontier of land grabbing. Under the guise of fighting climate change, CAC 40 companies continue to impose one-sided contracts, secured by official development assistance that functions as a disguised subsidy for French exports. Neocolonialism has thus adorned itself with ecological virtue to justify the reproduction of asymmetrical relations of production.
Conclusion: The end of a world and the awakening of popular sovereignism
The Françafrique of 2026 is a wounded beast attempting to reinvent itself through influence diplomacy and cultural soft power, as seen today at the Nairobi summit. Nevertheless, the collapse of its historic bastions in the Sahel shows that the contradiction between the interests of the French oligarchy and the aspirations of African peoples has become insurmountable. The massive rejection of the French model does not only benefit new actors like Russia or China; it primarily fuels a desire for a radical break with the capitalist world-system. The task of progressive forces today consists in transforming this anti-colonial resentment into a political class project, capable of dismantling not only the networks of the Elysée, but the very structures of economic exploitation that still bind the workers of France and Africa in the same chain of alienation.