WHY FRANCE COURTS MUGABE
David Blair on the background to the
meeting in Paris this week between Jacques Chirac and the President of Zimbabwe
Harare THEY did not exchange Gallic kisses on both cheeks, yet the two men came close to a bear-hug. For the slight, balding figure of M Didier Ferrand, France's unctuous ambassador in Zimbabwe, it was a narrow escape. A bear-hug from the gangling, greying, permanently dribbling vice-president Joseph Msika would have been a deeply unpleasant experience. A kiss might have been fatal.
But the message was unmistakable. While Robert Mugabe hobnobs with Jacques Chirac in Paris, France's man in Harare is beavering away to help one of the most odious and reviled regimes in Africa. The presidential meeting and the red carpet in the Elysee are the latest in a long line of favours that France has done for Mr Mugabe in his hour of maximum isolation.
Alone among the Western envoys, M. Ferrand still pays regular courtesy calls on the President and his minions. After his latest meeting with Mr Mugabe's chief sidekick, the ambassador smoothly reassured state television that France had no interest in the 'internal affairs' of a sovereign state. So no awkward questions about human rights then. M. Ferrand described Zimbabwe as a 'partner in solidarity' and even contrived to sound supportive of Mr Mugabe's violent, chaotic and illegal land-grab.
The regime loved it. It was their best propaganda since, well, since M. Ferrand's last visit to Zimbabwe House. State television usually resorts to Cuba, North Korea and bankrupt African rat-holes in its search for governments with helpful words for Mr Mugabe. Now Paris is claimed as an ally.
In grateful reward, the main evening news offered a paean of praise to France that night. 'France is a big country with many rich companies,' said the breathless announcer, accompanied by pictures of, er, red double-decker buses on Oxford Street. 'France is very beautiful with many mountains,' the voice continued, backed by shots of Urquhart Castle on the shores of Loch Ness. 'The historic buildings of Paris are the most beautiful in the world' — pictures of the King Charles bridge in Prague. M. Ferrand must have wondered whether it was better to be praised or damned by Zimbabwean television. Admittedly, a few shots of the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame made brief appearances, but only after the beautyspots of every other European capital had been visited.
Yet M. Ferrand is a hard man to offend. He was instrumental in ensuring that Mr Mugabe received a personal invitation from M. Chirac to attend a summit of Francophone African countries in Cameroon in January. This despots' drinking club used to have a pretty clear membership policy. You had to be imbued with Gallic culture and awed by la gloire de la France. If you also strung up political opponents and butchered your people, that was a bonus.
Mr Mugabe may meet the last requirement, but he is light-years away from the first. With his Savile Row suits, love of cricket and impeccable 19th-century English, no other African leader is as anglicised as this hammer of British colonialism. He recently revealed that breakfast in the Mugabe household consists of a bowl of porridge and a boiled egg. But there he was in Cameroon, the only visiting despot to bring a translator.
When he met M. Chirac on that occasion, Mr Mugabe might have expressed gratitude for France's handling of its sixmonth stint at the helm of the European Union. During the French presidency, between June and December last year, no EU criticism was directed at Zimbabwe. Mr Mugabe's Zanu-PF party stole victory in last June's parliamentary election by waging a murderous terror campaign against the opposition, which claimed at least 37 lives. An EU observer team issued a damning report that condemned the contest as neither free nor fair. What was the reaction? Nothing. The report disappeared and has been forgotten. That was another French favour for Mr Mugabe.
Why is France doing this? Normally you cosy up to an odious regime in order to make pots of cash. The thinking behind the numerous overtures towards Saddam Hussein is obvious. But Zimbabwe is a chaotic, impoverished, bankrupt wreck. There is no oil here. Even the arms dealers don't get paid. Mr Mugabe has the unique distinction of presiding over the fastest-shrinking economy on his continent — and when your economic management is the most disastrous in Africa, of all places, then you know you really are in trouble. Foreign investment in Zimbabwe fell by 89 per cent last year, as every major company scrambled out of a country where finding the petrol to fill up your car requires the patience and planning of a military operation.
The French don't hope to make any money. Instead their strategy is more subtle. M. Ferrand is following a perennial tenet of French policy in Africa, by seizing an opportunity to tweak Britain's tail. Ever since Queen Victoria emerged victorious from the Scramble for Africa by grabbing more territory than anybody else, Paris has been thirsting for revenge. The humiliation inflicted by the Fashoda incident in 1898, when Kitchener thwarted a French attempt to capture a few mud huts on the Nile and ended up claiming the whole of Sudan for Britain, has never faded.
While the British were happy to grant independence to their African colonies and then cheerfully forget about them, France was desperate to hold on to its empire. Nominal independence was given, but Paris reserved the right to select and topple leaders at will. Above all, her African 'children' had to accept the primacy of the French language and the glories of her culture. From this secure beachhead, France is now moving to capture Anglophone Africa.
Zimbabwe is the most obvious target and a plum prize. Alone among the Commonwealth African leaders, Mr Mugabe's relations with Britain have collapsed irretrievably. He calls Mr Blair's government 'a gangster regime of little men' and accuses London of sending 'hit squads' to assassinate his cabinet, and of deploying the Royal Navy to intercept his oil supplies. This disgruntled, alienated figure is an ideal candidate for the blandishments of Paris, aimed at taking Zimbabwe out of the Anglo-Saxon camp and into the embrace of France. Once again, the wicked imperialists are trying to seize Mr Mugabe's country. This time, he may let them have it.
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