Episode 7 of the World Beyond The West podcast takes us to Bamako, the capital city of Mali in sub-Saharan Africa, to explore the fascinating, complicated and uncomfortable relationship between France and its former African colonies.
In the 19th and early 20th centuries, France ruled over 20 African states, until growing discontent and changing societal norms after the First World War led French leaders to grant almost all the countries under their rule independence by 1960.
But France has never stopped profiting from its colonial past on the continent, leveraging its influence, financial authority and advantageous independence agreements to prop up its economy at the expense of Francophone Africa.
To learn more about this unbalanced post-colonial relationship and explore the ways in which it could be rehabilitated, David spoke with Moussa Kondo.
Moussa is a former special adviser to the Malian presidency, the current director of the Sahel Institute for Democracy and Governance, and the founder of the Malian newspaper L’Express de Bamako.
He is also an inaugural fellow of the Obama Foundation for his work with the Malian chapter of Accountability Lab
Links to Moussa’s social media profiles, along with the webpages for the Sahel Institute of Democracy and Governance and Accountability Lab are below:
Moussa Kondo
Twitter (@Kondoba)
Sahel Institute
(Twitter @sahelinstitute)
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WBTW #7: Françafrique with Moussa Kondo, former presidential adviser in Mali