Jacques Foccart | |
|---|---|
 Jacques Foccart (left),Hubert Maga (center), and Guy Chavanne (right) visiting a school inTorcy, Seine-et-Marne in 1961. | |
| Secretary-General for African and Malagasy Affairs | |
| In office 1960–1974 | |
| President | Charles de Gaulle Georges Pompidou |
| Succeeded by | René Journiac (as head of the African Department) |
| Secretary-General of Rally of the French People | |
| In office 1954–1954 | |
| Preceded by | Louis Terrenoire |
| Succeeded by | Michel Anfrol |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Jacques Koch-Foccart (1913-08-31)31 August 1913 |
| Died | 19 March 1997(1997-03-19) (aged 83) |
| Nationality | French |
| Political party | Rally of the French People |
| Spouse | |
| Parents |
|
| Signature | .png) |
| Nickname | Monsieur Afrique (Mr. Africa) |
Jacques Foccart (French pronunciation:[ʒakfɔkaʁ]; 31 August 1913 – 19 March 1997) was a French businessman and politician, best known as a chief adviser toFrench presidents on African affairs.[1][2][3][4][5] He also co-founded in 1959 withCharles Pasqua theGaullistService d'Action Civique (SAC), which specialized incovert operations in Africa. His influence over French policy in Africa was so direct thatCharles de Gaulle christened him with the nicknameMonsieur Afrique ("Mister Africa").
From 1960 to 1974, Foccart was Secretary-General for African andMalagasy affairs under Presidents Charles de Gaulle andGeorges Pompidou,[1][6] and was pivotal in maintaining France's sphere of influence in sub-Saharan Africa (orFrançafrique) by putting in place a series of cooperation accords with individual African countries and building a dense web of personal networks that underpinned the informal and family-like relationships between French and African leaders.[2][5][7] After de Gaulle, Foccart was seen as the most influential man of theFifth Republic.[8] But through SAC, he was considered to be involved in variouscoups d'état in Africa during the 1960s. Nevertheless, Foccart retained his functions duringGeorges Pompidou's presidency (1969–74).
In 1974,Valéry Giscard d'Estaing replaced Foccart with the young deputy whom he had himself trained. He was then rehabilitated in 1986 by the new Prime ministerJacques Chirac as an adviser on African affairs for the two years of "cohabitation" withsocialist presidentFrançois Mitterrand. When Chirac finally gained thepresidency in 1995, the 81-year-old Foccart was brought back to theElysée palace as an advisor. He died in 1997. According to theinternational affairs magazineThe National Interest, "Foccart was said to have been telephoning African personalities on the subject ofZaire right up to the week before his death."
Jacques Foccart was born on August 31, 1913, inAmbrières-les-Vallées,Mayenne, in west-central France,[3][1] to a family of white planters from theCaribbean island ofGuadeloupe. He married his wife, Isabelle Fenoglio, in 1939 and worked as a trader beforeWorld War II where he ran an import and export business.[1][4] He was a sergeant in the French army during the war and later joined theFrench Resistance afterFrance fell in 1940. He became close to Charles de Gaulle during the war and helped facilitate the latter'sreturn to power in 1958.[4] Foccart became secretary-general ofRally of the French People (RPF), aGaullist party, in 1954 during theFrench Fourth Republic.[1]
Foccart played a central role in what became known asFrançafrique, France's sphere of influence over its former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa.[5] He was instrumental in putting in place the dense web of personal networks (orréseaux), a central feature ofFrançafrique, that underpinned the informal and family-like relationships between French and African leaders, which would go on to survive until the 1990s.[9][7]
According to the US conservative magazineThe National Interest, Jacques Foccart played "an essential role" in the negotiation of the Cooperation accords with the newly independent African states, former members of theFrench Community created in 1958. These accords involved the sectors of finance and economy, culture and education, and the military. There were initially eleven countries involved:Mauritania,Senegal,Côte d'Ivoire,Dahomey (nowBenin),Upper Volta (nowBurkina Faso),Niger,Chad,Gabon,Central African Republic,Congo-Brazzaville, andMadagascar.Togo andCameroon, former UN Trust Territories, as well as, later on,Mali and the former Belgian territories (Ruanda-Urundi, nowRwanda andBurundi, andCongo-Kinshasa), together with some of theex-Portuguese territories, andComoros andDjibouti, which had also been under French rule for many years but became independent in the 1970s, were also later included.
The whole ensemble was put under a new Ministry of Cooperation, created in 1961, separate from theMinistry for Overseas Departments and Territories (known as theDOM-TOM) that had previously run them all. TheNational Interest review asserts that this "Cooperation Ministry, focal point of the new evolving French system in Africa, regarded Foccart both as their "guarantor" and their advocate with de Gaulle. If the General had conceived the apparatus (though in fact some of it simply happened by improvisation), Foccart was the machine minder."[2]
Close toZaire dictatorMobutu Sese Seko, he was, in 1967, an important actor in the French support of theBiafran secession, through the use ofmercenaries.
National Interest's review of his biography goes on with Foccart's admission that the French secret services eliminated the Cameroonian Marxist leaderFélix-Roland Moumié in 1960. Furthermore, it quotes "some reports" which "suggested that Foccart andHouphouët spoke on the phone every Wednesday, and there is no doubt that he considered the Ivoirian leader the African centerpiece of his network. They operated together on a number of issues. Interventions such as that in Gabon in 1964 and Chad in 1969 were encouraged by the Foccart-Houphouet tandem. The most significant collaboration between Foccart and Houphouet was the way they tried to persuade de Gaulle to back the Biafran secession from Nigeria in 1967. Despite the pressures they exerted, however, de Gaulle refused to recognize Biafra, and, in retrospect, so guarded and elliptical are some of Foccart's statements that one cannot be sure what he really wanted or expected from de Gaulle at the time."
Jacques Foccart remained in service underGeorges Pompidou's presidency (1969–1974). In 1972,Mongo Beti'sCruel hand on Cameroon, autopsy of a decolonization wascensored upon its publication byFrançois Maspero by the Ministry of the InteriorRaymond Marcellin on the request, brought forward by Jacques Foccart, of the Cameroon government, represented in Paris by the ambassadorFerdinand Oyono.
Foccart was then replaced by PresidentValéry Giscard d'Estaing (1974–81) withRené Journiac, whom he had trained himself. According toNational Interest, he was critical of two special operations carried on under Giscard d'Estaing: the fiasco of the mercenary landing inBenin in January 1977 (with which he denies having had any connection, and would not have supported because it was badly conceived and executed); and "Operation Barracuda", the military intervention that deposed EmperorBokassa in September 1979. Journiac died on 6 February 1980, in a mysterious plane crash in Northern Cameroon.[10]
Foccart was then rehabilitated in 1986 by new PremierChirac as an adviser on African affairs for the two years of the "cohabitation". When Chirac finally made it to thepresidency in 1995, Foccart was brought back to theElysée at the age of eighty-one, in the main because he still had remarkable contacts with African leaders such as PresidentOmar Bongo of Gabon, who he served as his advisor on African affairs for a number of years after 1974.[10] He would criticize the devaluation of theCFA franc in January 1994 underBalladur's government, a month after Houphouët-Boigny's death.
However, his role was not limited to Africa, as he was also charged by De Gaulle with the secret services and with the following of the elections, in particular concerning the choice of the candidates during the 1960s. TheSAC (Service d'Action Civique) helped him for those shady missions. Foccart also admitted inFoccart Parle that relations with theSDECE intelligence agency were his concerns.National Interest observes that "His biographer's claim that General de Gaulle asked Foccart to reorganize the SDECE (in view of the tainting of both the armed forces and the intelligence agencies by the movement forAlgerie Francaise) is indirectly confirmed, but there is not a clear picture of the organization of thebarbouzes."
WithFrançois de Grossouvre, Jacques Foccart also helped to create theDepartment Protection Security (DPS), security organization of the far-rightFront National party led byJean-Marie Le Pen.
In 1995, Jacques Foccart was part of president Jacques Chirac's visit to Morocco, Senegal, Côte d'Ivoire, and Gabon, all countries led by friends ofFrançafrique.
Such had been his influence on French colonial and post colonial policy that when he died on March 19, 1997, "For those involved with what has come to be known nowadays as "Françafrique", denoting the special French sphere of influence in Africa, many, along withAlbert Bourgi ofJeune Afrique, saw Foccart's death as 'the end of an epoch.' "[2]
The publication of his memoirs under the format of interviews at the end of his life, and theJournal de l'Elysée also published, in which, starting from 1965, Jacques Foccart transcribed his daily meetings with De Gaulle, have proved an invaluable resource for the knowledge of French policies in Africa.
Furthermore, at his trial in 2006, mercenaryBob Denard, who was tried for his1995 coup d'état in the Comoros, alleged that Foccart had supported him.[11]
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Other | |
