French Repatriates from Cte d'Ivoire and the Resilience of Franafrique

摘要

In November 2004, France carried out one of the biggest evacuation operations of its expatriates since the Algerian War of 1954-1962. Within a couple of days, more than 8000 French citizens were forced to leave Cte d'Ivoire because of violent anti-French protests by the supporters of the Ivorian regime. This article examines the dispute between French repatriates from Cte d'Ivoire and the French government by analysing the arguments put forward by both sides in legal texts and semi-structured interviews conducted in France and Cte d'Ivoire. It is argued that the dispute cannot be explained satisfactorily as a mere instrumentalisation of the current debates in France about Franafrique. On the contrary, the article shows that Franafrique should be understood primarily as an ideological discourse that organises Franco-African relations and makes them resilient to change.