Françafrique : 50 ans sous le sceau du secret - Documentaire Histoire - CLPB

In June 2009, Gabon buried its president Omar Bongo. Former French President Nicolas, including. The idyllic image of the President of the Republic, the old and the new united for a common and fraternal tribute to the deceased African. But the image is misleading. Beyond the hatred and betrayals generated by political rivalry, the law of silence must reign. Because here, on African soil, for almost half a century there have been too many shared plots, too many brutal coups organized, authoritarian regimes supported or in public. Nothing should filter around President Sarkozy. The French delegation reflects a mixture, a

complicity which transcends eras, political camps and mixes public figures and men in the shadows, left and right politicians, free mason, unofficial advisor who served the old and new president. Plethora of Cooperation Ministers, childhood friends of the president, omnipresent in Africa and with unknown functions. They all hold a part of the state secret. Ladies and gentlemen , heads of delegation and men, gentlemen former leaders, there are some. Who will succeed Omar Bongo, this African friend who, for 40 years, was the essential guarantor of a Franco-African policy which has always been hidden from us? Ali Bongo, the

son of the late president, is declared the winner of the next elections. He holds the army, but his opponents are numerous, all claiming to be a mute people who have never benefited from the country's riches. And tell the Gabonese people now that it is up to them to choose and them alone. I will tell you in the clearest and simplest way. France has no candidate. It's hard to believe. How could France lose interest in such a succession? On August 30, 2009, Ali Bongo will win the elections. But under what conditions ? The name of. The

former head of the French secret services in Gabon is indignant. The real numbers. Well, we're not the only ones. Even Agence France Presse, no one says that disgusts me. President Chirac's former Mr. Africa is even more precise and gives Ali Bongo's main opponent as the real winner. Hence lots of information. Like Obama was 42 and Ali Bongo 37 and it was almost reversed. As for the former French ambassador to Gabon, he has had no illusions for a long time. Rigged elections, of course, like everywhere. But OK. So goes Françafrique, 50 years of a secret history

written under the tutelage of the man who took charge of the destiny of France at the end of the 1950s, General de Gaulle. All the underdeveloped countries which yesterday depended on us and which today are our favorite friends of our help and our support. But why would we give this help and this assistance if it is not worth it? To understand these 50 years of occult history, we have to go back to 1945, at the end of the Second World War. At the Liberation, a wind of revolt blew across the entire French colonial empire. General

de Gaulle is convinced that France will not escape the independence movement which is sweeping the planet. As part of the 1958 referendum which created the Fifth Republic. He therefore proposed to the fourteen African colonies a new status which, two years later, in 1960, would lead to independence. But in the General's mind. Independence does not mean freedom. Losing control of the former colonies is out of the question. Because de Gaulle is certain: France cannot be recognized as a great world power. only if it is energy independent. To achieve this, he installed a trusted man, Pierre Guillaumat,

in the fuel department. Polytechnique, who will be the founder of Elf, the large French public oil company? Pierre Guillaumat is General de Gaulle's industrial strategist. It must be said that we absolutely must find ourselves with energy independence. And this is how we're going to do it. But very quickly, Pierre Guillaumat will have to face a major problem: France gets most of its oil from Algeria. However, in 1962, after a fratricidal war, Algeria became independent and France lost its Saharan oil. Elf was made by Saharan wealth. And then all of a sudden, it's the map. It

was therefore necessary to rebuild a new strategy to conquer world oil and if possible, to go where there was some. On the world map of black gold, today we must add a new task: Gabon, south of Port-Gentil, the ultra-modern arsenal of oil research has been put to use. Undeniably, the Gabonese deposit appears to be interesting. And Gabon will become the major political axis of oil policy. It is therefore Gabon which will replace Algeria. But the problem is that Gabon has no longer been a French colony since 1960. It became an independent state. And it is

this brand new independence which now worries General de Gaulle and the oil companies. From the moment there is oil, there must be stability, that is to say we cannot imagine having coups d'état every three months with changing conditions since between the moment oil and by the time we get it out, it's seven years. So if conditions change every three months or every year, we don't know where we're going. We don't know how to invest, we don't know how to do it. And I would say that in the same way, General de Gaulle will try to

find a certain stability within this country to satisfy the country's need for energy autonomy. It’s clear to find some stability. Everything is said to ensure this stability and in fact, the control of these new States. General de Gaulle will set up a system which relies on two men whose dedication he was able to appreciate in the secret services of the Resistance. Firstly Pierre Guillaumat, the boss of Elf, who accepts that the oil company becomes the armed arm of France in Africa and that part of these colossal profits are used to finance secret operations in the

former colonies. And Jacques Foccart, who was one of the most active architects of General de Gaulle's return to power in 1958 with the official title of secretary general of the Élysée, in charge of African and Malagasy affairs. He became the great secret organizer of France's African policy. The general decided to keep a political unit close to him to take care of his relations with African states. I had the honor of being its holder. This political cell that Jacques Foccart speaks of will be called the African cell of the Elysée. For sixteen years, under the presidencies

of De Gaulle then Pompidou, at the head of around a hundred collaborators, Jacques Foccart organized personal relations between French heads of state and African presidents. Because Franco-African policy now involves close and secret links at the highest level of states, outside of any parliamentary or governmental control. I recognize that the relationships I have created with European traders, with industrialists in Africa, with Africans of all categories and subsequently African heads of state, constitute a network. But I don't call it a network. He will be the only one. Historians will remember the expression the Foccart networks, Jacques Foccart.

The only person who, apart from Madame de Gaulle of course, has the privilege of seeing the general every evening. He surrounds himself with men who trust him absolutely. I said out loud devoted to Mr. Foccart and who asked him. He told me well advised, also well supported and a lot of liberation. The lawyer Maurice Delaunay graduated from the colonial National School of Overseas France. He is the prototype of these servants of the State who managed the African Empire without qualms. His very long career in French-speaking Africa as a privileged witness to the 50 years leading

to independence from 1960 to today. Mr. Foccart has never accepted a penny from the French government, and a general has never asked him several times to be appointed State Councilor. He refused to be appointed Secretary of State. He refused when we spoke to him, to give him the federation, refused. Jacques Foccart empties a small import-export structure which trades with the West Indies. This financial independence makes it a free electron within the state apparatus. Official gift? She had no official position. The boat out taught him everything at Webb. Small stool. He is therefore an unofficial man

who will in fact be the right arm of General de Gaulle for sixteen years. A month after this interview, Maurice Delauney died. Memoirs of Jacques Foccart. I not only take care of Africa, but also relations with the Gaullists and also relations with the Sdec. The Sdec SDS and the French counter-espionage services, over which Jacques Foccart will unofficially always have the upper hand. Jacques Foccart's relay within the Sdec is called Maurice Robert. After a brilliant career, as the soldiers say in the commandos in Indochina, Maurice Robert was recruited by the French secret services where he took

charge of the Africa sector. I was accused of being Foccart SDS's man. I never denied that I worked very closely with him. But it was the interest of the service, like the interest of France for very particular reasons, which are that intelligence needs an orientation star if you like, and that I collect there the direct guidance from the President of the Republic through Jacques Foccart for the search for information on Africa. So, our policy was very clear, it was the defense of the regimes in place. Firstly to avoid political instability. Consequently, I had, I even

had full powers, including to recommend the designation of certain people, certain French and African people. And the most specific, I knew how to say, that I happened to say to a head of state you have a guy around you who is not worth Klaus. You have to eliminate it and I advise you to take this one. It’s true that there, we were very directive. Directive, the word is weak. The first dazzling action of Maurice Robert's men will be to destabilize Guinea in an attempt to overthrow its elected president. This president, Ahmed Sékou Touré, had, in

1958, dared to immediately proclaim the independence of his country, two years before the other colonies. There was no dignity without freedom, greater poverty in our freedom and my wealth In work. General de Gaulle, deeply upset, reacted with excessive force and the sanction for this affront was immediate. Naturally, the army leaves immediately, the administration immediately. Sékou Touré also complains about this speed, which is still a bit absurd. He wanted independence, he has it. General de Gaulle himself had said, a few days after the independence of Guinea, to someone who spoke to him about it, saying all

that, it was only going to last a few days, you will see, it will collapse. The general is wrong. Guinea is not collapsing. But, abandoned by France, it is moving closer to the Eastern countries. Too happy to set foot on the black continent, the preserve of European powers. There were a lot of Cubans, for example, for a while, Sékou Touré's personal guard was trained by Cuban soldiers, the political organization of the country which is where. There were administrative and political structures modeled on that of the party, and it was not the idea that we had

in Paris of a pluralist democracy. As in the face of what she considers a challenge, a provocation. France will react, because at the start of the Cold War, faced with Soviet expansionism, it was invested by the United States with the role of policeman on the black continent. It is free to make Western order reign there by all means, in the complicit silence of other nations. All regimes seduced by Moscow's emancipatory speeches will be ruthlessly fought by operations most often carried out by the secret services to destabilize Guinea. Maurice Robert is going to become a counterfeiter.

Unlike the other former colonies which had agreed to have a common currency, the French CFA. Guinea stood alone. Guinea left the franc zone in March 1960 and created the Guinean franc and the French special services printed fake Guinean francs which spilled onto Guinean soil. I don't know through what channel to destabilize the Guinean currency. Memory of Maurice Robert. This operation was a real success and the Guinean economy, already very sick, had difficulty recovering. We had to destabilize Sékou Touré, make him vulnerable, unpopular and facilitate the opposition's takeover. But if the successful operation ruined the Guinean

economy, it was not enough to lead to the overthrow of Sékou Touré. Memory of Maurice Robert. We have armed and trained Guinean opponents so that they can develop a climate of insecurity in Guinea and, if possible, overthrow Sékou Touré. The operation did not work because it was decided in advance by this Touré coup and therefore. It was dismantled. What was the precise aim of the operation? In Foccart's mind, it was to blow up Sékou Touré. It was Villa Africa. Ruined, the economy of a country, arming the opponents of an elected president. France is capable of

doing even more to defend its interests in Cameroon. It was a political assassination in which she was complicit in 1960. This country, which was to become a major oil producer, gained independence. Maurice Delauney was responsible for selecting the future president. When we started wanting to get Africans to vote, they still wanted to find leaders to run. There are people who know how to read and write and who have training and who have been identified as fighters, quite intelligent, open and eager to progress. And so, it is the colonial administration which put forward and from, we

asked them to do everything possible to be elected. They have the formats of agents of the wild. A puppet of France. This is how the PC considers Ahmadou Ahidjo, then him. PC. Union of the Populations of Cameroon banned from legal existence during the time of the French for its Marxist ideology, calls for its overthrow. Its leader, Félix Mounier, becomes the bête noire of the French authorities who support the wavering power of President Ahidjo. Moumié knew a sister-in-law well. No problem with him. He had the choice of hemophiliacs. Then after, it evolved in a different way.

Traveling to Geneva to buy weapons. Félix Mounier has a meeting in a café with a certain William Bechtel, whom he believes to be a journalist. He is in fact a member of the French secret services. After the meeting, Félix Mounier collapses, overcome by a mysterious illness from which he will not recover. The Swiss police investigation will prove that he died from a dose of thallium that William Bechtel poured into his cup of coffee. William Bechtel. Maurice Delaunay does not pronounce his name but recognizes France's complicity. Which had been paid by President Ahidjo, but with other

agreements. We ourselves were very hostile to ABO, even though we were French. You say with our agreement, does this mean that France can be complicit in a homicide? What do you think of France's past? What do you think ? And there are times when you see what you want, where politics passes. Having morals is in my opinion. A memory of Maurice Robert. The general never or very rarely expressed his formal approval for operations of this type. If he didn't say no, it was because he let it happen. This was called the orange light which meant

Go ahead, do as you please. But we don't know about it. Of course, in the event of a problem, we won't cover you. By force or by more or less democratic elections. The system of control of our former colonies is put in place with the coming to power of presidents devoted to the interests of France, presidents called African governors, to signify that nothing has changed since the time of colonial governors, French administrators. on orders from Paris. Gabon, which is now the main supplier of oil to the metropolis, has a president like France likes. Every Gabonese

has two homelands: Gabon and France. Monsieur is President of the Republic. When you come to Libreville, you will feel at home. Like me, I feel at home here. In Gabon. It is wood and in particular okoumé with which plywood is made that made the wealth of French settlers before oil transformed this country of barely 900,000 inhabitants into an oil emirate in the immense equatorial forest which covers almost 90% of the territory. We find all kinds of French people, foresters who have come to exploit the riches of the wood, gangsters in trouble with the justice system

of the metropolis, but also good servants of the State who are required to be forgotten for a while. From time to time. There is. As they say, blunders, we make a blunder and we put you on the green to get a little out of the world of media. During the Algerian War, Bob Maloubier was responsible for the physical liquidation of FLN financiers. To fulfill his mission, he calls on thugs. Dismissed from the secret services after the failure of a mission revealed to the general public, he is discreetly sent to Gabon where he will adapt very

well. I found myself. Forester in Gabon. Gabon, it's a fraternity, lived almost exclusively from wood. Oil had started in the 50s of 57. It was the very beginning, so where there was wood, small businesses, etc. people thought that Libreville was a very small town, Port-Gentil a very small town. Everyone sticks to the city of old colonials who have been there for 30 or 40 years, who know everyone, who lives, who hits each other, all the friends, all origins. It was, it was a one, but not a friendly Franco-African village colony. The French are indeed omnipresent

there because France is peppering the entourages of the new presidents with cooperators at all levels, in all ministries and large companies. In Gabon, Jacques Bigot is responsible for supervising the new president, Léon MBA. And I arrived immediately after independence and I immediately started with President Léon MBA who told me everything that is administrative now, you are the one who takes care of it. I'm not going to hear about it and it even goes very far because even the ministers who wanted to see him had to practically pass through my office to give me the reason

for their request for an audience. And it was me who appreciated if the problem could be resolved at a simpler level. Or if it had to be. President who decides. And it was going very well. These French people placed by the former colonial power will all be, in their different sectors, honorable correspondents of Jacques Foccart. That is to say, volunteer informants from the secret services. Mr. Jacques Foccart came regularly. I was in regular contact with him and the president and then, even President Bongo sometimes asked me. To be the mail carrier. To go and negotiate

with him. After a year, President Léon MBA, to whom I pay tribute, really considered me as a member of his family, I was going to say almost an adopted son. He told me Your family, if there isn't one, it's you. You and I are the same family, sent. In Gabon by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for a one-year contract with Léon MBA. Jacques Bigot still has his office at the presidential palace. 50 years later, the attachment is visceral and total. The inability to resist African presidents who only dream of establishing indissoluble family ties to better

attach themselves to these French people whom the metropolis has placed at their side. But for the Gabonese population, decolonization is a myth and the president is a poster child serving the former metropolis. On February 19, 1964, a hundred soldiers seized the head of state, Léon MBA, and dragged him on television so that he himself announced his dismissal. Having invaded and then sacked the presidential palace during the night from Monday to Tuesday, elements of the Gabonese army seized the person of President Léon MBA, who was forced to resign Tuesday morning. A small group of mutinous Gabonese

officers that we see in these images then formed a revolutionary committee, while a provisional government was formed under the presidency of a political leader of the opposition. Mr. Obama. Coups? Africa will experience dozens of them during these 50 post-colonial years. France will fight them, provoke them or tolerate them depending on the personality of the leaders in question and their degree of docility to French interests. In Gabon, Paris decides to intervene immediately. Jacques Foccart told me there is a plane waiting for you in Villacoublay and you are leaving assignment. You put Mr. Léon MBA back in

his chair. If he's still alive. The memory of Jacques Foccart. It's around 7 a.m. I reported to the general who gave his agreement for the intervention. Memory of Maurice Robert. It is obvious that, by preserving the stability of countries like Gabon, France was at the same time protecting its economic interests. To protect its economic interests. This is the aim of the military defense agreements that France has signed with most of its former colonies. Officially, it is a question of coming to the aid of the president against external aggression. But secret clauses provide that France will

also intervene if the president is challenged within his own country. In return for this anti-subversion insurance, the same secret clauses oblige the signatory country to give priority to France for the supply of so-called strategic raw materials oil, uranium, manganese, etc. We could not be clearer. Léon MBA, found in a village in the forest by French soldiers, is brought back to Libreville, the capital. I was waiting for death. I saw this reaper of people up close. I was at death's door and I don't know by what miracle I found myself among you. This president is definitely

very fragile. It will have to be framed. And from there, it became a matter of ensuring his safety. This is how we decided to create a presidential guard. And besides, we entrusted this care to one. Former of. SDS who was also a friend of mine, Bob Maloubier. It was he who created the president's presidential guard entirely in Yoruba. Foccart called me, but you have to take care of it. You return to the palace, abandon what you are doing there and then you return to service. It was going to management. I went to see the police

prefect in Paris to say a word to him. You have to tell me that there are still instructors, a few strong police officers who don't go there. I am going to send two or three great shooting instructors, the CRS etc. and with my combat swimmers and the people from the 11th shock, I have provided strong supervision. It's not easy to take people who come from their camp. My role is to explain to them how to organize and protect a president on an official trip. You stand guard, but you don't see each other, you don't eat,

you don't drink , you don't go for a drink, you don't go for anything else. When you're on duty, etc. And you realize on site, it's taking people who come out of the bush at zero and then doing it. Of the. Similiar paramilitary if you will. So it’s happening slowly. But protecting the president from a possible new coup is not enough. Jacques Foccart decides to check him as closely as possible by one of his trusted men, Mr. Convoque in his office and tells me yes. You are going to Gabon as ambassador. Mr. Foccart therefore had

the power to name the embassies, the. Power to designate people who were to be appointed ambassador. Between the new ambassador and his occult boss, Jacques Foccart. The direct line. The Africa cell of the Elysée is a state within a state which bypasses traditional state authorities. Many times, I rediscover certain things. I asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs because I was in Foreign Affairs. I came across a guy who wouldn't understand anything. But from this time on, the psychological fragility and illness of President Léon MBA worried and Jacques Foccart decided to put into orbit a promising

young man, Albert Bernard Bongo, who was already the president's chief of staff. When we saw with Mr. Foccart that the health of presidents is good and I had a good idea, he said Houlà, we are going to ask the president to reform the Constitution and to elect a vice president of the Republic who will automatically succeeds the President of the Republic. We staged a scene at the Gabonese embassy in Paris and brought this kind of Gabonese to approve the change in the constitution. Will you raise your right hand and say I swear? And afterwards, there

was a vice president of the Republic who was Bongo. Given what my friend is doing and what has already done with Bongo, I present him with the animals there, to the presidency of the Republic. He is vice president of the Republic. And when the other side Bongo became President of the Republic without an election, which made it possible to avoid a succession which would have been difficult and which would have been perilous. At the time, it seemed completely normal to me that France was preparing quite closely. Successions sort of choose the candidates in a certain

way. That's how it was back then. You know that Brown found this completely normal and that it could help maintain security and preserve peace. During these 50 years of decolonization. France puts in place or actively supports presidents, most of whom are dictators, who never hesitate to resort to the most brutal methods to stay in power. Long live President Ahmed Sékou Touré! Accomplices without qualms in the pillaging of their country by foreign companies, as was President Bongo in Gabon. We helped him, supported him so that he could succeed quickly. But he is an intelligent, distinctly worn,

dull, hard-working man. He mainly needed moral support, having a bad salesman and a kid who needed help. First, this rise in power came, if you like, from the importance of the discoveries made by Elf in business. Elf got a lot of the research grants. So, we can estimate that very quickly, Elf provided, with oil royalties, if you like, that it paid 70% of the Gabonese budget. I visited this town a little and I see that up to the town of Elf workers first, there is not a boulevard. So here's what I'm asking you to do.

It's a boulevard that you have to make. This road and the eternal ones, we can name it President Boulevard. Ever more cars in developed countries , ever more oil consumed. Finding new deposits is imperative by all means. In Biafra this policy will cause disaster. In 1968, for the first time, French television broadcast scenes showing children dying of starvation. How did we get here ? A year earlier, Biafra, Nigeria's most oil-rich province, a former English colony, seceded. The general has decided that you must be very supportive of this Biafran insurgency. What was France's real interest in

this Biafran operation? All interest, meaning oil, oil, Nigeria. In Nigeria, the Elf company has operating contracts with the country's legal authorities. Which will not prevent it from paying royalties from oil extracted on its territory to secessionist Biafra , knowing full well that this money will be used to buy weapons. And in Libreville? The French ambassador to Gabon, Maurice Delauney, becomes a merchant of weapons. With officials in Libreville. This is all the supply of Biafra. There were boats arriving in Libreville which were loaded with weapons of all origins. There were the Chinese, there were the French,

there were African weapons. The goal of all Libreville was the closest point to Biafra, because everything was stored in Libreville every evening, changed at the plane that left for Biafra. From takeoff from Libreville to the coast. No problem, it's a normal night flight, except that we have to climb more than usual. Because when. We arrive at the coast. There, there are the batteries of Déchira. Jacques Thiébault has been a pilot for years in the only Gabonese airline. He does not agree, out of a taste for risk and money, to transport weapons from Gabon to Biafra,

which is subject to a total blockade. So here we are, on the Biafran reduction? We did an approach in the water, then completely out in the water. More. And when we got to 500 feet at 150 meters on final, where we asked for runway lighting, we landed. It was reaching the rain. At home, we drove with half of one. Exit headlight. There we arrived, we. Unloaded the plane. And we tried to do it as quickly as possible to avoid taking as long as possible. I was happy with the pilots. I'm happy to be in Africa.

I was happy to chase the buffaloes, to go for a run. And then I had a life that I played. I was a little ignorant about all these things. I didn't have one. Moral problems for doing this. Because a country that is at war must have something to defend itself, right? Makes a soldier. I was asked to train Biafran officers in Libreville, so I attended a small school for Biafran officers near Libreville. These people there, on their backs, these are classic military methods and then they left Biafra. Towards the end. May, deliver a few tons

of weapons in perilous conditions, train a few officers in a hurry. These efforts are derisory. They only prolong the agony of the Biafrans, totally surrounded in a territory which is shrinking day by day. From the moment we didn't know it was necessary, it was really an operation lost in advance, lost in advance by courageous people or by people like me who somewhat believed they were obeying the orders given to us. , but which were not enough for us to be truly convinced. They're exhausted. Because General de Gaulle still does not want to acknowledge his support

for Biafra in his public interventions. The light remains orange. Go for it ! But if you fail, I don't know. The head of the Nigerian army, nicknamed the black scorpion, is brutally putting things back in place. In fact, if you, the Europeans and especially the French, interfere in what concerns you, the Biafran problem would be resolved very quickly. Wood and his air force, do you think you're stronger and smarter than the others? You don't understand anything about Africa. Do you want to achieve your ambitions at the expense of other countries in Europe? A very fine

ambition for Samsung's screen and image. In what we now call the very fresh reduction. The deaths of children can no longer be counted. Maurice Robert, who, like Jacques Foccart, has been pushing for war since the start of the conflict, thinks he has found the miracle solution. French public opinion must be mobilized to get General de Gaulle to truly commit. And to do this, play on words. The Biafran war will now be called a **** perpetrated by Nigerians against the fresh people. In memory of Maurice Robert. We wanted a shocking word to raise awareness. We could

have retained that of tragedy or crushing, but a **** seemed more meaningful to us. We communicated to the press precise information on the Biafran losses and ensured that they quickly adopted the expression ***. The, the world was first. The others followed. But it's too late. Games are made. Crushed by the enemy's firepower, the Biafrans delivered a. Combat that seems. Now desperate. So we have the conflict which left 1 million victims, many of whom died of starvation in 1974. We are four years after this criminal fiasco. France will experience a historic political change. The Gaullist party

which, with General de Gaulle and then Georges Pompidou, has governed France since 1958, loses power. Valéry Giscard d'Estaing wins the presidential election to the great dismay of traditional Gaullists who take a dim view of the arrival of this aristocrat, a right-wing man no doubt, but who claims to modernize French society. This industry there. Some are hoping that he will also reform Franco-African relations and break with Gaullist networks. The suspense will be short-lived. Of course, Jacques Foccart is thanked, but. I must say that to the surprise of many of Mr. Giscard d'Estaing's colleagues, he named Journiac.

Journiac was one of Mr. Foccart's men. Absolutely. He was the deputy of Mr. Foccart of whom you spoke at the time. So what happened? We have. All African heads of state appreciated the action of Jacques Foccart and therefore it is certain that they spoke about it to President Giscard d'Estaing. They pleaded for continuity. They pleaded the need for special relationships. So, to summarize, the new president, who is beginning to measure the weight of the networks, appoints René Journiac, the deputy of the man he has just dismissed, as head of the African cell of the Elysée

. And for those who have not understood that continuity is essential, President Omar Bongo will demand even more. Former President Bongo was. Learned that I had to go to Lebanon. We had to see the president here because that is not possible. Mr. Delaunay cannot go to Lebanon. He must come back to Gabon. And when I expressed some reservations to President Giscard about giving back to Gabon, I, who didn't like it so much, would have said that. You do not have the choice. Gabon has changed in size and has become an important country for France and

produces more than 20 million tonnes of oil. It is considerable and you must return to Gabon. Than your dogma. Journiac at the Elysée, Delaunay in Gabon. The system is once again locked by the Foccart networks. African presidents are reassured. Nothing has changed. The seven years of President Giscard d'Estaing will be punctuated in Africa by somewhat surreal episodes. In Benin. To begin with, the French president will not hesitate to endorse the sending of mercenaries to try to bring down a communist regime. In Benin, there was a cargo president who at the time was a communist and

then he left. As the God said for so long, completely normal after having. Still, the French government had seen its favors like Bordeaux, then organized itself to change government in Benin. The mercenary Bob Denard will be in charge of the operation under the authority of Maurice Delauney. Bob Denard. He had already shot a lot of stuff in Africa and when he arrived with me, there were people with quite a special experience. Remember that a mercenary is a man paid to kill the adversaries of the person who pays him. Visceral anti-communist. Bob Denard had fought on

behalf of France in the early 1960s in the former Belgian Congo. The challenge was to keep the mining resources of the Katanga province, particularly copper, under Western control. But this time in Benin, it is no longer about raw materials but about the fight against communism. Bob Denard had put together a small team of around a hundred men which had been trained in Gabon in a remote corner. And the day when these people would have been ready, he decided to report punch on the. It's a fiasco. Lamentable. Bob Denard and his men are expected at the

airport by the regular army and have to take off in a hurry. For the mercenary, it is time to be forgotten. Bob Denard came to ask me for hospitality. I didn't refuse him. Who sent him to a former Catholic mission 30 kilometers from Libreville and said You stay where you crash with two of your men. So there. And what does more come to do? What to do ? Vegetables, if you want? So he took it in stride and knows how to make vegetables well for three woods. And after three months, he found another solution to

go elsewhere and his career continued. In 1995, Bob Denard, who defined himself as a privateer of the Republic, was released by the French authorities. He will be judged for his failed campaign in Benin. I think that Robert Denard is a very honest man. He is a great patriot. He is a man who has rendered many services to France and I am a little indignant that he can now appear before a criminal court. Bob Denard never carried out any mission without the more or less official or so-called approval of the French government. There is President Giscard

d'Estaing who gave up in this affair. He was wrong. But all the other presidents had recognized that Bob Denard had known and rendered eminent services at the time. On certain services that Bob Denard was able to render to France. Maurice Delauney prefers to remain silent. Bob Denard, sometimes I called him on for somewhat special things and I was sure that I could absolutely count on him and his discretion. Special things including. I don't want to tell you. While President Giscard d'Estaing tries, with the success we have seen, to stem communism in Benin, Albin Chalandon, the

CEO of Elf, does not hesitate to flirt with a proven Marxist regime. Still in the name of oil, of course, it is Congo Brazzaville, a former French colony which became a People's Republic, of communist inspiration since 1969. In 1979, one Marxist dictator chased out the other. Denis Sassou Nguesso takes power. In the meantime, significant oil reserves have been discovered in the country. Sassou overthrew, took control of the Congo at that time and I naturally presented my business card and made contact with him which was extremely fruitful. I got along very well with him. You have

become a friend. Well, as a good Marxist, he was a realist and subordinated himself to Russia on one foot and it is better to have a stable communist regime than the regimes that we had after republicans, modeled on our Republic and our our bad political methods which were and which were constantly overthrown. That's it, it's worse than anything for industrialists. Finally, with the Congo, things really went very well since it got better and better than that. A friend of France and no longer on the plan. On the ground, we found very large ones in Congo.

Quite rewarded for our perseverance through difficult times. Meanwhile, at the Elysée, a tragedy struck the African cell. Its holder, René Journiac, former deputy of Jacques Foccart, disappeared on February 6, 1980 in a plane accident. President Giscard d'Estaing, panicked, it is said, by this disappearance, turned once again to Jacques Foccart, who recommended Martin Kirsch to him. You were what could be called at the time a Mr. Foccart man. I do not dispute it, and I am even honored by it. I must say that President Giscard d'Estaing made it clear to me that I was under no

obligation to keep all my relationships with Mr. Jacques Foccart for whom I have very high esteem. And so it went very well. Martin Kirsch is the oldest living holder of this mysteriously functioning position among all, which is that of Mr. Africa. The President had made a mystery available to me almost every week. I was going to Africa this weekend. I was received immediately by the Head of State and they reviewed everything that could ask questions and get rid of this formula, because it is immediate. We don't go through the intertwining of ministries of all that.

We could not take the necessary measures, we could not make decisions in principle. Does that mean that Mr. Africa at the Elysée still has great power? Yes yes. That we do not measure until we have practiced it. After an incomparable inventory. In Gabon where Maurice Delaunay leaves his post as ambassador. The appointment of his successor will illustrate the growing role of African heads of state and the sustainability of the Foccart networks. At first, President Omar Bongo was not happy with the ambassador appointed by Paris. President Bongo asked for someone different, so we suggested Robert Robert.

Maurice Robert, the secret agent who has followed a strange path for several years. Indeed, a year before the arrival of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, President Pompidou had decided to clean up the secret services by appointing a new director, Alexandre de Marange. Maurice Robert, who headed the Africa department there, was marginalized and ended up resigning. But don't worry about his professional future. I resigned from the army and the services after having nevertheless called President Guillaumat who told me one day If you have had enough of this job, I will take you on and I had a contract

at Elf. The next day, requested by the army and services. So if we summarize a man in the secret services of the Republic, get rid of him. Is immediately hired by the state oil company , which we understand incidentally has its own secret services. And it is therefore to this man that in 1979, President Giscard d'Estaing offered the post of ambassador to Gabon at the request of Omar Bongo. It caused a big stir, a big stir, even in the National Assembly where there were various declarations on questions, on this appointment, because I was considered even

a fool. Africa. The presidents of the French Republic liked it a lot, sometimes perhaps a little too much. Soon the key to the fields for Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Or rather the Key to the savannahs. Because in a few hours, the vacation, the vacation, begins for him. He ends his visit to Gabon, a border to cross. He will be in Zaire, in Zaire, he understands, as the journalists modestly say. Because in fact, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing did not give any real details about his vacation. If there is a Safari, it will take place in the African forests,

far from prying eyes. Giscard was to come to the Elysée and told me This is who should come to Gabon, to Doel. And to go to the area that I know well from the cabarets of Libreville, he came to hunt and fish. He was fifteen days and fifteen days old and lived in the heart of Africa, among Africans. There is still a great opportunity to meet them and talk with them. It is still an important fact. And then there were the dubious and privileged relations with Bokassa. Bokassa. This former captain of the French army took

power in the Central African Republic, a former colony, through a coup d'état on December 31, 1965. For France, the interest of the Central African Republic rests essentially on its military base. Located in the heart of the black continent, it allows rapid intervention throughout the region. And Jean-Bedel Bokassa, whom General de Gaulle called a thug while officially receiving him at the Elysée, will become the dear relative of Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who will frequently go to the Central African Republic for safaris, prolong. His lease with Bokassa, first emperor, retests life. And when, in 1977, President Bokassa, jealous

of Napoleon, decided to become emperor, it was the France of President Giscard d'Estaing which paid the bill for an amount equal to a quarter of the Central African Republic's budget. Riga was widely criticized for having allowed Bogota to happen, for having allowed himself to become emperor, which was terrible since on the day of the coronation, no head of state wanted to come. And we saw only the ambassadors, while France, represented by its Minister of Cooperation. But the charade is starting to do a lot of damage in the French backyard . Several African heads of state

have turned to France saying this cannot last. We can't keep Mr Bokassa as our father and you have to do something. So President Giscard d'Estaing? I think it was only at his level that the decision was made, decided to put someone in Bokassa's place. It must be said that Jean-Bedel Bokassa, for whom France is beginning to be less generous, turned to Muammar Gaddafi. The Libyan dictator was at war with France over Chad at the time. Paris therefore takes the decision to overthrow a president it has supported for years. But who should replace him? At that

time, under more or less close French protection, there were three leaders who called themselves presidential candidates at least, who lived in France, who lived in France. In Paris, there was Mr. David Dacko who had been president immediately after independence. I believe that he was not very keen to be president, Mr. Bozizé having been a minister to Emperor Bokassa. Paris was rather reluctant. Mr. Patassé had made very unpleasant remarks on several occasions against the French and so it was decided that Mr. David Dacko would be the lucky one, the lucky one. With a suitcase of tickets

on his knees and fear in his stomach, he took off from Le Bourget on September 20, 1979, at 8 a.m., accompanied by two Sdec officers. Operation Barracuda was launched, while Emperor Bokassa the First was visiting his new friend Gaddafi. David Dacko's plane lands in Bangui, greeted by around ten men from the French secret services who immediately take him to the presidential palace where the overthrow is announced. As soon as I arrive. Ladies and gentlemen, good evening, there is no longer a Central African empire, there is no longer an emperor, there is no longer Bokassa the

First. The dictator of Bangui was sacked last night. It was in Libya that he learned of his decline and it was there that he temporarily found himself. Refuge. But a month later, Le Canard chainé published a document on its front page which would trigger the diamond affair. This letter signed by Jean-Bedel Bokassa would prove that Valéry Giscard d'Estaing received a gift of a diamond plaque from the president in 1973, when he was Minister of Finance and was already practicing the Central African safari initially. President Giscard d'Estaing refuses to explain. And we end with this question:

your silence, this denial of embarrassment, neither of indifference nor of contempt, it was something which was also due, as you say, to my character and to the idea that I have my function and which is that we must let base things die of their own poison. This dilatory and embarrassed response is seen as an admission of guilt. The president is accused of having launched Operation Barracuda solely to recover documents concerning the famous diamonds from the Bokassa palace. We are two years away from the 1981 presidential elections which will see Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and Jacques Chirac

clash on the right. Could the diamond affair above all be a maneuver to weaken the outgoing president? I consider, and I am not mistaken, that it is a totally twisted story but totally twisted underneath. We know very well, it is a letter which was written by Chirac to set up this affair. That said, I don't think we can dispute it. And destroy the saga. In my opinion, the election did not work because of this. It's time for that to change. On May 10, 1981, it was neither Giscard nor Chirac who won the presidential election, but

François Mitterrand, the left in power. Finally, we believe, that will change. The new tenant of the Elysée appoints to the Ministry of Cooperation a man with strong left-wing convictions, Jean-Pierre Cotte. But strangely, Jean-Pierre Cote knows nothing about Africa. It was a bit of a surprise because I had never been to Africa where, having barely been born, I did not know the subject. He was more of a specialist in European affairs. Regardless, there was a desire on our part which was obviously to change France's African policy and even a certain obsession with Françafrique linked to the

barbouzes. So, from that point of view, we had a concern which was to clean up. Cleaning up means first of all thanking Maurice Robert, the sulphurous ambassador of Gabon from the secret services of the Republic and the Elf company. Maurice Robert who will say in his memoirs I have the honor of having been the first ambassador fired by the left. I consider it an honor to have fired Maurice Robert and to have gotten him fired early. It symbolizes a period that we considered to be outdated. Jean-Pierre Cotte, during his travels on the black continent, never

hesitates to assert his convictions. I think we lacked communication with our partners. We didn't have the courage to tell them when they were doing something stupid. There is a minimum of respect for human rights, which one? We must be completely uncompromising. What we called security in our old revolutionary vocabulary, that is to say the right not to be assassinated, the right not to disappear, the right not to be tortured, the right not to. Not be imprisoned. Arbitrarily for his opinions. This minimum, wherever we go and wherever we discuss, we say it, we defend it, we

advance it. And, if necessary, we will draw consequences. But in parallel with this symbolic minister of left-wing Renewal, François Mitterrand installed in the former office of Jacques Foccart, at two rue de l'Elysée, a faithful man, Guy Penne, a dental surgeon whose membership in Freemasonry represents the unique key to entry into the African continent. Mr. Pen used his Freemason network with all African leaders. Belong to a lodge. Masonic. He loves Africans. For them, symmetrical, secret. You know, it's mysterious Africa. So what ? They used this network and that was their absolute right. And to regain, if

you like, the influence that had not yet been recovered. But Guy Penne does not only frequent Freemason networks. He also has solid contacts with Jacques Foccart. To the point that in 1981, President Giscard d'Estaing, who was leaving, gave a surprising instruction to Martin Kirsch, his Mr. Africa. The president tells his colleagues that they are all together. No contacts with the successors, except for Kirsch to rant that these are African affairs outside the UMP. So this means that President Giscard d'Estaing is making an exception for African affairs? Yes, absolutely, and asks you to pass the baton

to your success to figure. After that ? It's true that Guy called me for information and therefore I received him freely in Rome from the Filipino. On one side, there was Claude, on the other side, there was JP, the Empire because it was openness to the Third World, generous speech, development, the United Nations, human rights. the man. Alright. It gave an image that Mitterrand was very keen on. And then, on the other side, there was the policy, symbolized by Guy Penne, which was a policy of direct relations with African heads of state, of consolidation of

these regimes, whatever the situation, and which was a more classic policy of Françafrique. And François Mitterrand found it very convenient to have these two irons in the fire as I say, and to be able to play on both sides, both tables. But it only took a while because, from a certain moment, it was necessary to choose and Mitterrand chose. Mr. Christian Nucci is appointed Minister Delegate to the Minister of External Relations in charge of Cooperation and Development, replacing Mr. Jean-Pierre Cotte. He received a phone call from Pierre Mauroy who said Jean-Pierre, do you want to

be ambassador to Madrid? I simply told him No, Pierre, I prefer to go back to university. State declarations. Jean-Pierre will not be the only victim of Mitterrandian realism. Appointed head of the French secret services. In 1981, François Mitterrand appointed a man who, upon his arrival, discover the Foccart networks. I discovered that there is a very powerful network of influence and influence in the main French-speaking African countries. The point where I put the maximum package was Gabon. Bongo had seen in his entourage people who were directly manipulated by Elf or by Foccart or by the two

clans through the horn, were not interested. And I get from my conversation with Mitterrand a vague impression that he knows more than me, but who does not want to tell me and that he has contacts with these movements whose nature I do not know exactly. The first step consisted of identifying all elements of the two expellees from the Sdec. There, one could think that they had been manipulated by Fulani networks. The December purge. 81. How many have you expelled? I'm around thirty. Then, Pierre Marion decides to attack the Elf citadel. I asked Mitterand who would

allow me to see Chalandon who was president of. There and so I am. Became face to face with Chalandon. In my case, this was because I was sure the microphones were on my side. So I told him Listen, this can't go on anymore. Yes, there is an official service of the Republic which is an intelligence service. And influence is now called duration. What you want to do on your side is. That we understand. Whether you want to make influence for commercial and economic. But intelligence or political influence is not your job. So everyone agrees, not

the Republic. I am asking you to remove your agents from the country they are currently in and I am going to start a very very difficult discussion. And then I don't agree at all, I completely agree. Completely agree that to actually respect this particular function. But his smile said what do you mean? Always a good guy, he won't make it. I'm not. In any case, both Jean-Pierre Kotte and Pierre Marion. We could have gone very far in their attempt to clean up because in 1986, the left lost the legislative elections. Jacques Chirac becomes François Mitterrand's

Prime Minister of cohabitation. You have ten. He immediately calls Matignon back to business. Jacques Foccart, aged 72. As for François Mitterrand, he appoints his own son, Jean Christophe, to the post of Mr. Africa at the Elysée. In 86 he was elected senator. So the position was free and his father decided to appoint me in his place. I still had it behind me. A long African experience. As a journalist and before as a cooperator. Wasn't it a little tricky that Mr. Africa at the Elysée was the son of the President of the Republic? Why am I

banned from working? Because I have a name. I. I am in a position where I have the skills and the background. Many of my predecessors did not have this background. I still remained as deputy and as boss of this cell. I stayed there for more than ten years and I have everything with it. African presidents, fond of family relationships, welcome the arrival of the president's son to a position where personal relationships play a primordial role. I remember what happened to you discussing business, again at breakfast where it happened. Sometimes, of course, but that was one

of my advantages, that I could talk about it outside of office hours. But, confronted with the powerful networks of Jacques Foccart, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand found it difficult to exist among his African interlocutors. And he abuses his status as the president's son and inherits the unflattering nickname of Papa, this cohabitation told me . Jacques Foccart, Jean-Christophe Mitterrand. Matignon against the Elysée further paralyzes the definition of an African policy, as demonstrated by the Francophonie Summit in Lomé in 1986. Relaxation in music, harmony even at the summit. So much for the stage and for the cameras. But behind the

scenes, different image, different climate. Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, the African affairs advisor at the Elysée, is omnipresent. The president's son is not alone at his side. His predecessor, Guy Penne, who officially left the Elysée but who still made the trip for a specific reason, to mark in some way another man, Jacques Foccart, Chirac's man for Africa after having was that of De Gaulle and Georges Pompidou. Then Jacques Foccart, known as the Sphinx, who did not. The three men are often near each other and of course they sometimes chat with each other in Paris, but never in public.

As if they wanted to delimit their. As if there were two French delegations in Lomé. A center on the one hand to the Empire. But in 1988, François Mitterrand, re-elected for a second seven-year term, took control again. France still has a vital need for the resources of the Black Continent. But two events will profoundly change the situation, firstly the fall of the Berlin Wall, which marks the fact that the West no longer needs its French policeman in Africa in the face of a vanished communist danger. The Elf affair, then. It will reveal the extent to

which French society has been corrupted by oil money. Françafrique is entering a period of great turbulence. On June 7, 2009, Gabon buried its president, Omar Bongo, around the coffin. Françafrique is reunited. Françafrique. A 50 year old story. In 1960, the twelve colonies that France owned in black Africa gained independence. Two years later, in 1962, after years of fratricidal war, Algeria became independent. Between these two major post-war events, a common point is oil and the oil of the Algerian Sahara, France definitively lost the recently discovered oil of the former French colonies. It is there, in black

Africa, that France will now obtain its supplies. But General de Gaulle did not take any risks. The oil obsession will be constant throughout the career of General de Gaulle. The newly acquired Independence of our former colonies must not be an obstacle to the security of our energy supplies. This is why, under the high authority of General de Gaulle, two men from the secret services of the Resistance will set up an effective system of control of these new States which will, over the years, take the name of Françafrique. Jacques Foccart and his networks of influence. Appointed.

Control, protect the new African presidents devoted to the interests of France. I am aware that Mr. Foccart can ask. Pierre Guillaumat, another loyalist of General de Gaulle, created the Elf company, the armed wing of the Republic whose colossal revenues finance the secret services and their clandestine action in Africa. Action organized by Jacques Foccart. Our policy was very clear, it was the defense of the regimes in place. We were directly involved in the evolution of Africa. This system continued under the presidencies of Georges and Valéry Giscard d'Estaing. The arrival of the left in power in 1981

suggests that everything will change. It won't happen. François Mitterrand maintains the occult networks created by Jacques Foccart at the end of the 80s. France still needs oil and uranium from the Black Continent. But the rules of the game will radically change. 10000000 years ago, 100 million years of work that was done by the earth to transform algae into oil. These years are free years, so we will find oil in extraordinarily cheap conditions and we will sell it at a high price since it is in competition with other energy sources. So this differential is huge. We

are roughly at oil. Today I'm averaging three or $4 and we sell it for 80. All that money in between is money that goes to a certain number of people. This oil money was used, as we have seen, for clandestine operations carried out by France in Africa. But, and this from the very beginning. This money is also used to finance French political life . The important thing for General de Gaulle was not to be splashed by it. But he knew what was happening. So there is no secret about what is kept secret from the public,

but from the government, the President of the Republic and the Minister of the Budget, no, people go see the president of Elf to get information. envelopes corresponding to their election here or there and many French politicians today have benefited from this system which has allowed them a brilliant career. We know very well. In 1965, for example, on the eve of the presidential elections, a collaborator of François Mitterrand was sent to the general secretary of the Elf company. He gave me his tie and since I knew him well, we talked a little. I was, I didn't

know the system at all and he even showed me, you see. That's for the other two candidates. A second round is coming. We still did it 32%. So here I come. And there, it's a suitcase. I remember, I was, I arrived by metro. Okay, so, the second time, I told myself I can't go by metro. I looked desperately for a taxi. At the time, it was like today, we couldn't find any. Finally, I was in the street with my suitcase on my heart. I remember, it was anxiety. I had to go back once or twice

for legislative elections. And there, there were nominative envelopes for this or that deputy who said nominative envelopes. I returned there for the '74 campaign where I experienced pretty much the same. On the amounts paid and the beneficiaries. Opinions differ. There was no regular annual funding and we came to the elections for the legislative 78 and the presidential four 20. If we add all that up, it makes 7 million francs shared, also equally in the name of the principle of 'impartiality. If the public enterprise between the left and the right, my predecessor did it, I did

it too. So that meant going to TV shows for every president I've ever known or accepting money. All French presidents. All rotten. Bobino? No Giscard, not much, but Chirac and Mitterand a lot. When the left came to power, it was decided not to touch the right's financing networks. So we superimposed the need of the left on that of the right. So this made Elf a little more of a cash cow than before. In 1989, François Mitterrand, re-elected for a second presidential term, appointed Loïk Le Floch-Prigent as head of Elf. The new CEO discovers the extent

of the hidden financing system. He opens up about it to the one he considers his boss. François Mitterrand told him Well, there is a way that it works that is a bit special. We finance people in Africa who finance people in France and this system is a system that I put an end to or not. The, the Republic tells me you continue as we did in the past, but you do not forget us. And we are the Socialist Party. He says, he says We must not be forgotten. I repeat his words to you, it is

up to you to interpret them. I interpreted them in my own way. Let's interpret it in our own way. It was during François Mitterrand's second seven-year term and after the appointment of Loïk Le Floch-Prigent as head of Elf that the system got out of control. It's the era of king money, easy money. Opinion leaders are successful businessmen. Bernard Tapie fascinates politicians, on the left in particular. François Mitterrand will bring him into government in 1992 m2. The colossal profits that oil exploitation generates more than any other industrial activity turn even the strongest heads. We are now

very far from the simple financing of political parties as it existed in the past. There is a lot of money and there are a lot of candidates to receive the money. So afterward, he only thinks about that. The oil company spends considerable sums on operations that have nothing to do with oil. Justice ended up getting involved and in 1994 the Elf affair broke out which revealed a formidable system of embezzlement of corporate assets, corruption and personal enrichment. But before talking about this state scandal and its considerable repercussions on French society, we must return to another

global event, the fall of the Berlin Wall. It's 9:30 a.m. after the river in Berg, one of the most protesting neighborhoods. This is where the authorities chose to break down the wall. It is a historic moment, one of the biggest dates since the end of the Second World War. The destruction of this symbol of the Cold War will create a real earthquake on the black continent. It puts an end to the mission that the West had entrusted to France to be the policeman of Africa against the communist threat. But at the same time, France loses

the counterpart of this mission its monopoly on the energy markets in its former colonies. The United States, Europe and especially China want their piece of the pie. But the fall of the Berlin Wall is also a tremendous hope of freedom for African populations who find themselves dreaming of a second one. But true independence. Seeing President Mitterrand destabilized by an event that he did not see coming, he tried to adapt to this new course of history. Another day there. In 1990, at the Franco-African summit in La Baule, he used words. The former French leader had never

dared to speak out about the multi-party black continent. Freedom of the press, independence of the judiciary, no censorship. The path is the direction we must take. The writer Erik Orsenna, who was one of the editors of this speech subsequently admitted, that he had somewhat forced the president's hand in his Ode to African Democracy. However, this demagogic discourse will encourage a phenomenon which is developing like wildfire in the former colonies and which are called national conferences. These conferences are veritable revolutionary states general which, in each country and in an atmosphere of eighties, violently question the dictator

presidents supported by France and the one-party system. Machine to remove, imprison and kill opponents. Come walk with us so that together we fight, so that together we thank the despot, the dictator for it. Since the loss of Algeria, Gabon has been Elf's stronghold in black Africa. Omar Bongo, in power for almost 30 years, is violently contested by his opposition. The death of one of the president's adversaries ignites the powder. One of the opposition leaders will have a leg in a hotel and the Gabonese say these Bongos he killed. I have at my house, they take

machetes, they run, go crazy and set fire to the hotel. But, and this is no coincidence, it is on Elf that popular anger will be focused in Port-Gentil, the nerve center of Elf Gabon. It's a riot. I cry at. Name of the victory largely of this in La Baule than La Rochelle mother. Four or five of my employees are naked. We put up a sign, we put up a sign saying these are terrible people and we parade them around town all day long taking pictures and putting on television. I find it a bit unpleasant. They

are my employees, I am responsible for them. Therefore, I say to President Bongo if you are not capable of reacting, I will react. The CEO of Elf decides to close the oil facilities. Bongo, that's the only time I saw him take the blame. He felt that authority was slipping away from him because Port-Gentil was burning. The wells were closed. Libreville was under curfew. He did not have the capacity to take over his authoritarian system with his army. And he was a little and he was a little distraught. Distraught but above all furious. Because Paris plans

to let go of him to support one of its opponents. It is not because there are street demonstrations that this must bring the end of dreams. I won't let it happen. We are determined to bring order, whatever the cost. That's all. Omar Bongo counterattacks , using his networks of influence in Paris and in particular Roland Dumas, Minister of Foreign Affairs under François Mitterrand. He ends up threatening France to call on the Americans if Elf does not find the wells. Paris capitulates. Then the Legion arrived. They cleared Port-Gentil. The battalion of French paratroopers in Libreville has

succeeded in securing the neighborhoods where the Europeans are. All that is more or less back to normal and President Bongo is back on track. France, militarily, helped Bongo and aided his power. Omar Bongo remains in power. Elf reopens his then the money flows again. The Gabonese president has won his standoff with Paris. This victory is not trivial. It foreshadows, between France and its former colonies, a reversal in the balance of power which will manifest itself more and more clearly in nearby Congo Brazzaville. It is again oil which will decide events in this oil emirate under

the control of Elf. Dictator President Sassou-Nguesso is losing power. Indeed, the conference of this country enthusiastically adopted a new Constitution which not only removes the Marxist references from the regime, but above all establishes a multi-party system. As a result. President Sassou-Nguesso, who belongs to a minority ethnic group in northern Congo, no longer has any chance of being re-elected in the country's first truly democratic elections. And since mandate. But Denis Sassou Nguesso was for years the Elf man for the company's directors. There is no question of him losing power. We must find a solution. It will

be Pascal Lissouba, a former Prime Minister. The leaders of Elf asked him to run for president. He is an elderly man, long removed from business. He thinks he can control it with Pascal. Lissouba comes from the majority ethnic group in the south of the country, allied to Sassou-Nguesso, from the minority ethnic group in the North. He is sure to win the elections. In return, once elected, he will take into his government men from Sassou Nguesso, who will therefore continue to rule the country. The Elf group finances its candidate's campaign. They helped me under the instructions

of Mr. Bongo. I bought around thirty Land Rovers for my campaign and I could never have done it myself. And then there were a few trips that I took and that was it. We continue. Pascal Lissouba, 506,395 francs, or 61.32%, does not go up much. It is indeed Lissouba who is elected and at that moment, Lissouba breaks the agreement with. With M. A question. Indeed, Pascal Lissouba decides to govern alone and intends to consolidate his power by winning the legislative elections scheduled a few months later, as planned. But he needs a lot of money to

campaign and also to pay civil servants and soldiers who have not received anything for months. However, only Elf is capable of advancing money in exchange for future oil. Concretely, Lissouba is asking you for money for his legislative campaign and you absolutely refuse because he is not respecting this agreement made with Sassou. Absolutely. Mr. Lissouba, as I told you, wants power alone and I am not helping him to have power alone. I understood that what I wanted was for me to fall and probably for Mr. Sassou to return to power. My good. Pascal Lissouba will then,

in the eyes of Elf, commit the irreparable and is not content with threatening to call on the Americans to put pressure on Elf as Omar Bongo did. He takes action and secretly signs an agreement with an American company, Oxy. Too happy to gain a foothold in Congo, she lent him 150 million dollars guaranteed by ten years of oil production. With American money. Pascal Lissouba wins the legislative elections. Immediately, armed incidents broke out between supporters of Denis Sassou Nguesso, supported by Elf, and those of Pascal Lissouba. From 1993 to 1997, the country experienced three periods of

deadly civil war between the militias of the two rivals. We are, this is not making it up, avenue de la Paix. It was here that the fighting was the most violent. Not an hour goes by without hearing one or more shells. The entire city center is given over to armed gangs of desperadoes, most of them inspired by B-movies released by American studios. They are called Cobra, Ninja or Zulu. There, we are with the Cobras, the militiamen of Denis Sassou Nguesso, former general, president and dictator. Here, no ideology, no program. Only one enemy, President Pascal Lissouba.

But for these militiamen, the shot is an end in itself and the Kalashnikov a means of subsistence. After four months, ban on going any further. The sergeant warned us that at 200 meters, they shoot at anything that moves. Here's the proof. This teenager was shot. He was obviously coming home from school with his legs. Still to win this merciless war. Denis Sassou Nguesso will rely on a strong ally, the Angola of President Dos Santos, which, fortunately, has become a key piece in the game of Elf around the Gulf of Guinea. The Gulf of Guinea where

the Elf Aquitaine oil reservoir in this region of Africa, the French oil group extracts 60% of its production. A source that is not ready to dry up this time, Elf's geologists and engineers have come across an enormous deposit, perhaps the largest in Africa, discovered 200 kilometers off the Angolan coast. We named her Dalia. Dalia has a potential of 3 billion drums of oil, a real Eldorado at 1300 meters depth. But Angola is also an unstable country, threatened for years by rebellion and instability. A country. We have known since General de Gaulle that this is not

good for oil exploitation. Elf advances President Dos Santos the billions needed for his army. There, it's clear yes, there are two presidents of 112 remaining in power. Yes of course. The rebellion is definitively put down and Dos Santos can, with the blessing of the oil company which financed his army, come to the aid of Sassou-Nguesso, whom he reinstates as president in his capital, Brazzaville, ravaged by the fighting. . Omar Bongo and Denis Sassou Nguesso have returned to their presidential palace. The period of democratic agitation is closing. President Mitterrand's La Baule speech is nothing more than

a distant episode for the history books. Calm has returned to Gabon and Congo. Oil production has resumed. But something has just changed in the relationship between France and these two oil-producing countries. This is what Denis Sassou Nguesso will make clear to Philippe Jaffré, the new boss of Elf, who comes at the end of 1997 to greet the president, restored to his functions. Brazzaville was devastated and I booked it. A warm welcome, but it was still necessary for us to take stock of the situation. There was no agreement. Each side tries to defend its point of

view. Each party defends its point of view. Unimaginable word. Ten years ago, Elf regained a foothold in Congo. But the president she helped return to power will no longer accept the dictates of the oil company. Like Omar Bongo in Gabon. This weakening of the oil company will be all the more spectacular since in the meantime, in 1994, the Elf Elf affair broke out . At the start of this scandal. First, there is only a routine investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. She questions the financing of a major textile company listed on the stock exchange,

the Bidermann company. The file ends up on the desk of investigating judge Eva Joly. When I discovered in Bidermann's accounts a significant participation of Elf. I didn't understand why the National Oil Company was investing such large amounts in a textile company in difficulty. In 1992. Elf invested the enormous sum of 800 million francs, or around 120 million euros, in this large textile company and in particular in one of its factories in Corrèze, the Jacques Chirac stronghold. We are a few months before the legislative elections of 1993. We are able to give you the estimate made

by BVA and Bulle for France Deux, you will see the figures appear for the winner of this election 93. And this winner is called RPR 261 seats, the UDF 215 seats. This therefore makes 482 seats out of 577. Catastrophic results for the left which loses. Socialist power which had, i. Reminds you, Jacques Chirac reserves himself for the 1995 presidential election and leaves his old friend of 30 years, Edouard Balladur, to occupy the post of Prime Minister for this new cohabitation with President Mitterrand. But after two years spent at Matignon, Edouard Balladur, encouraged by very good

polls, gave in to temptation. I have decided to present my candidacy for the presidency of the Republic. And to, it is said, finance his future electoral campaign. He's going to get his hands on Elf. He asked François Mitterrand to replace Loïk Le Floch-Prigent with Philippe Jaffré, one of his close friends. François Mitterrand accepts. Monsieur Balladur comes to see him saying, Monsieur Le Floch-Prigent has to go. I want to replace him with Mr. Jaffré. He calls me saying this is what's going to happen. There is no. He speaks to me saying that what I asked for

you to have something, we will offer you. Gaz de France, you have to, you accept it. In other words. But the investigation into the Bidermann affair is starting to take its toll. And to protect himself from possible fallout, Philippe Jaffré, the new CEO who had barely been appointed, filed a complaint in July 1993 against his predecessor, Loïk Le Floch-Prigent. He still doesn't know, but he has just started a legal process that no one will be able to stop. I was absolutely 1000 miles from imagining what I was going to find. For me, it was inconceivable

that the engineers who had been entrusted with the management of the largest national company, I think we knew well who used the credit card a little easily and perhaps some advantages like that. But who knew how to set up such an efficient and systematic system and supply so many people with an audience? That was a little outside of what I imagined possible. The rivalry between Balladur and Chirac will thus transform a banal affair of embezzlement into a state scandal which will break the law of silence which the right and the left alike respected. The investigating

judge Eva Joly will follow a multitude of leads from which the horses have still not unraveled. When the trial opened in 2000. Permanently protected by bodyguards as the threats were so precise, Eva Joly and her colleagues Laurence Vichnievsky and Renaud Van Ruymbeke will engage in an exhausting legal guerrilla war against the political leaders who are sheltering defense secrecy . What is striking about the Elf affair is perhaps the enormity of the misappropriations. We're talking about an era that starts from tanks 89 to 92, so it's an era, three years. The management team had managed to

embezzle approximately six months of profits. It was around 3.5 billion francs at the time, so 450 million euros. So that is and it is also the modus operandi, that is to say all the operations. At the time, Elf used pumps and diversions to supply secret funds. The derivative pumps to divert money from oil are numerous and extremely sophisticated. First there are the commissions paid for any new and especially retro commissions, that is to say the percentage of these commissions that are secretly paid to the person who paid. The Commission. There is also money paid directly

to African heads of state. In the barrels that are produced there is a part of these barrels which goes directly to the head of state. He is free to use it. It's free to him and. At Elf's. We were able to establish hundreds of millions of francs which arrived in cash by carriers and we established other financial flows which passed through the leaders of African countries. Then, the leaders of the Africans who wanted it, what they wanted with this money and like them, they are the privilege of being head of state in office. It is,

in the current state of international law, impossible or extraordinarily difficult to investigate what constitutes the assets. And once they went into Bongo's pocket or the others. The three French investigating magistrates continue to make progress in their investigations. Politicians are panicking. Elf must be liquidated to limit the disclosure of the names of all those who benefited from secret funds in France and Africa in 2000, by shaking the hand of the CEO of Total in front of the press. Philippe Jaffré publicly signs the death of Elf, the behemoth Operation Too Secret will be privatized and absorbed by

its small private competitor Total. The small company is eating the big one and 85% of Elf executives are leaving for all the companies that exist around the world. So the result is clear Elf has disappeared. For the record, the biggest scandal in the Republic only resulted in a few small prison sentences, most often suspended, and fines, most of which will never be paid. Loïk Le Floch-Prigent, with his six months spent in prison, acts as a scapegoat. Still subject to legal proceedings. He speaks, dismantles the system but does not reveal any names. In Africa, President Omar

Bongo does not seem worried about these changes. So nothing has changed in the way of dealing with the French oil company, which has always had transparency and still does. I saw the president start. We realize, very beautiful even in Libreville, and make your courtesy visit. Everything went very well, just like Mr. Le Floch-Prigent, Mr. Jaffré, and Guillaumat, Chalandon, Picker did in their time. But President Bongo knows that something has changed. He now has the upper hand. Most of the hidden funding came from Gabon. All those in France who benefited from this largesse thanks to oil

money are now his debtors. I haven't come because I already know, he has all the great powers of merit and the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor for a long time. Yes, that’s where I give you my consideration. We don't change. The fall of the Berlin Wall. The Elf affair scandal shifted decision-making power from France to Africa. In this shift, a man will play an important role. His name is Robert Bourgi. He has someone to look after. His father, a Lebanese trader in Senegal, was an honorable correspondent of Jacques Foccart. My father and he

had known each other since 1946. And as far back as I can remember, I see Mr. Foccart who considers me a member of his family and for whom I had a more than filial affection. Jacques Foccart, General de Gaulle's favorite advisor, the man who set up the Françafrique networks. In May 1995, when, to everyone's surprise, Jacques Chirac won the presidential elections, he called Jacques Foccart back to business. Pathetic attempt to revive the past. What is your feeling which must be very strong today, as you come to Africa with Jacques Chirac, president? I have the impression

that it may be a bit of the same pessimism. But soon, one of the last times I come to Africa , considering my age and my state of health, it had something. And you hope that Jacques Chirac will follow the path you traced with General de Gaulle? I'm sure. It's certain. Mr. Foccart was getting older. I had become the legs and arms of Mr. Foccart. I want to surpass myself in his place in Africa. In 1900.97 , Jacques Foccart died. Robert Bourgi claims the title of spiritual son. But Bourgi is not Foccart. Jacques Foccart was

above all a servant of the State, with questionable methods of course, but in the service of France. Robert Bourgi is a business lawyer, an advisor to the president who prefers to keep quiet about the amount of his fees. Presidents Joseph-Désiré Mobutu in Zaire, Omar Bongo in Gabon, Denis Sassou-Nguesso in Congo, Laurent Gbagbo in Ivory Coast are among others his clients. Robert Bourgi, unlike Jacques Foccart, does not dictate France's policy to heads of state. He is rather with the French presidency or the messenger of his African clients. And that changes everything. Because it was Omar Bongo,

one of his clients, who took power over Franco politics. And this man is formidable. President Bongo was the conductor of Françafrique and he knew all the parameters better than our leaders of the African cells. And Bongo drank the whey of their ignorance by giving them lessons. Pompidou, Giscard, Mitterrand and Chirac. So it is a doctrine that the Mahatma. He was completely immersed in French politics. And he gave advice to all the politicians by saying We're not there, if you ever do, you turn in there. And then being able to get elected, that’s how you should

do it. So he was, he was completely inside French politics and he was there and he supported everyone and he had fun. It was, it was his. It was his playground. Favorite intellectual. And he had known electoral France since 1945. Perfectly, because he came to Paris, whether to the Meurice hotel, but especially to the Crillon hotel. French politicians were lining up on the appointment book to meet President Bongo. When I went to see President Bongo at Meurice, I was in the private apartments. But out of curiosity, I went to the official waiting room. So there,

the show was mind-blowing, Surreal. You had people from the PS, you had people from the UMP, you had people from the UDF. Michèle Alliot-Marie, Alain Juppé, Dominique de Villepin, Philippe Douste-Blazy, Thierry Breton, Brice Hortefeux, Jean-François Copé, Renaud Dutreil, Hervé Gaymard, Pasqua, Xavier Darcos, François Fillon, François Bayrou, Roselyne Bachelot, Philippe Seguin , Roland Dumas, Michel Rocard, Catherine Tasca, Bernard Kouchner, Jacques Attali, Michel Barnier, Pierre Bédier, Michel Bonnecorse, Nicolas Sarkozy, Jacques Chirac, et cetera. Et cetera And they liked to follow the young hopefuls and for example, when they heard that there was a future, that Copé had

a future and he said Hey, I would like to meet them. So the ambassador had them come to the Meurice hotel to meet him. And then some were invited to go on an official trip to Gabon. But it was more. They tried to know the future greats of politics before anyone else. The encouragement that Omar Bongo can give to the future French elites barely out of the ENA, very often takes on a financial aspect in an open secret that no one wants to recognize publicly. But there is worse. In 2002, the day after Mr. Chirac's

victory , before the government was formed, President Chirac told me it would be good, Robert, for you to present to President Bongo the men who are emerging, who are going to emerge, the men of the future. We found ourselves in President Bongo's apartment. There was François Fillon, Jean-François Copé, Pierre Bédier, Bongo interviewed at the end of the interview. They left, he took his stationery, she owed Omar Bongo and he wrote down the names of the elected officials. And he folded. Say, you take this to Jacques. There were seven names and among the seven names, five

became ministers in the government of Monsieur. And that doesn't shock you, this power of an African president? No, that amuses me. Frankly, it amuses me, it amuses me. Not. A Minister of Cooperation apart from Jean-Pierre Code, not a CEO of large public companies doing business in Africa would be appointed without the approval of the President of Gabon. Arriving at the conclusion at the heart of a situation of a situation of reversed domination while it was France which was colonized by Gabon and not the other way around, Bongo threw everything, participated at all costs in the

electoral campaigns , go to the support of some, some, some candidates. It was truly counter-influence. Omar Bongo's absolute weapon is the money which continues to flow from his coffers in a continuous flow. You had his sum. What is an aide-de-camp called? You were waiting in the living room like that and cheap with two sports bags, They were arriving, They were arriving from the Bank of Zaire. They are not where. And are you wearing? You had twelve people waiting up North, in the waiting room, with two cameras watching. And he had all these screens and said

to my, You bring this one. One day, Bongo told me he had been brewing his money, behind his curtain. When I had to see it, do something and I wait for it. And then he was behind, he had his chests and springs. He had that in mind. There were 400,000 French francs at the time. He told me like a colonel and Mr. President, I can't take them. Well packed the bag and took it out, but I put it back in. I said no, Mr. President, I came out furious, I was furious. The gabon ? Well

yes, in Gabon, with the Gabonese, yes. For three years, I worked on a great project to create a health insurance system in a country where half of the citizens are destitute and had no access to care. Thus moral, she is indignant. Is this dishonorable? I did this work for three years, completely transparently, completely legally. I paid my taxes in France. Do you know the numbers? They are published. I am at your disposal, as well as my declaration of assets if you wish. When Bernard Kouchner makes a report on the Social Security system in Gabon and

invoices it, it is proof that France-Africa relations continue. The study on Gabonese social security could and should have been done by the French Development Agency, which would have done it for free. Kouchner now, he can say whatever he wants in Gabon, Ali thing, the guy, he received his company 2 million euros for 142,000 € per page for something to say that the health system does not work not in Gabon. I saw other things, I don't know. I saw Mr. Dumas's chiefs of staff come looking for him. Yes, but hey, it wasn't in the context of

elections. Why were they doing that? In my opinion, it was personal enrichment. There was. In Paris, Omar Bongo has the best cards and controls the game. But one step was still missing to definitively sign the death of a certain Françafrique. It will be played in Ivory Coast, a former French colony. In October 2000, Laurent Gbagbo took power. He is not the man that France would have liked to see succeed the illustrious Houphouët-Boigny, president of Côte d'Ivoire for 33 years, from independence in 1960 to his death in 1993, or of Boigny, this great friend of France

had been long before independence. A familiar figure in the palaces of the French Republic, participating in several governments of General de Gaulle at the end of the 1950s. Rich in its cocoa plantations, of which it was the world's leading producer of coffee plantations and banana plantations, the Côte d' Ivoire was a real village where the four 20,000 French expatriates lived luxuriously. As you can see, these swimsuits are all covered by a long coat which allows you to go to lunch after coming out of the water and in a suitable outfit. It was what we called

the Ivorian miracle. It’s true that it was a country, a flagship country for us. It is the beacon of our relations with Avic, with Africa. In addition, the personality of the strong president meant that we could rely on him to the extent that he was also a respected leader throughout the African continent. And besides, the word France-Africa, we owe it to President de Boigny. In this Franco-African Eldorado. President Houphouet Boigny was not the last to get rich. He had a basilica built in Yamoussoukro larger than Saint Peter's in Rome. A fine example of a white

elephant, as we called these sumptuary and useless projects that France agreed to finance in Africa to please the docile heads of state. It is of course a French company which will ensure its construction. But when he died on December 7, 1993, France failed to impose its candidate for succession. In his time he was unable to designate a dolphin who would have been truly knighted. And it was the lifelong opponent Laurent who won in 2000. After years of unrest. But the new president is incapable of curbing the violent opposition which divides Ivorian society. Faced with a

rebellion in the north of the country, he appealed to France, which refused his support. On November 4, 2004, during an offensive against the northern rebels, a plane, the Ivorian army deliberately bombed the French high school in Bouaké where the French army was stationed. Nine French soldiers died in the bombing. It was a Saturday after 12 p.m. and around 1 p.m., we met at the president's house around 2 p.m. and he immediately realized that it was voluntary and that he was going to respond. The French air fighter destroyed the few planes and helicopters of the Ivorian

fleet on the ground. It’s conflagration. Laurent Gbagbo encourages Ivorian youth to take to the streets of Abidjan to insult France. November 9. 2004, after a tense 40-8 hour standoff in front of the Ivory Hotel where the Europeans were gathered, the French soldiers opened fire on the crowd, leaving 67 dead and 1,256 injured. throughout the night. French army helicopters try to prevent the crowd of young supporters of Laurent Gbagbo from crossing the bridge which connects the city center to the airport and the French military base, under a deluge of fire mixed with live bullets. and tracer

bullets. Hundreds of young Ivorians defy the former colonial power with cries of Down with France, long live independent Ivory Coast! The symbol is devastating. We're shooting at you. So that you have the menu. But we are standing. We pushed. Putin leaves us our dignity. We will push Putin. We their independence. We will be able to bring about the liberation of the whole of Africa. Not from Ivory Coast. That is the truth. For the new African generations who have experienced neither the establishment nor the period of the Cold War. Laurent Gbagbo becomes the hero who resisted

France. I think that the events in Côte d'Ivoire marked the appearance of a new type of African leaders who were much less flexible towards France than the others could be or much less concerned with maintaining good relations with them, with France and quite adept at using the weaknesses of both the international system and the weaknesses of French policy. Since these events, Laurent Gbagbo has remained in power while awaiting hypothetical elections that are still delayed. The enthusiasm of the young Ivorians who had mobilized against France fell back into the presidential palaces, sheltered from any popular control.

The great game of power sharing has resumed. But like Denis Sassou Nguesso in Congo, like Omar in Gabon, it is now Laurent Gbagbo who is leading this game. It is no longer France. For French expatriates who had made their lives in Ivory Coast and whose number has already decreased significantly over the years. It's the end for the big industrial groups, it's something else. Laurent Gbagbo said no to France, but not to major French companies. The third Abidjan bridge, first promised to the Chinese, will ultimately go to the Bouygues company, which already manages water and electricity

in this country. They are called BNB, Bouygues and Bolloré. Mr. Vincent Bolloré, April 3, 2008. Vincent Bolloré is decorated with the National Order of Merit by President Gbagbo. The French industrialist has just obtained the concession for the port of Abidjan. Nine nine. From Bolloré in Ivory Coast. But Bolloré is everywhere. The industrialist has built a veritable empire in Africa where he holds power over most of the transport infrastructure, raw materials and goods. In particular, it manages most of the port terminals in the Gulf of Guinea countries. I am proud to be able to show, through

works like the one you see this afternoon, to other international investors how easy it is to succeed in this country and that they too must come and join us to make great achievements. Of course you're a businessman at the end of his career, win win. When you invest, it's because you win. But I am happy because I also win because Ivory Coast also wins. From now on, the captains of industry are in direct contact with African heads of state who have become resistant to orders from Paris. But for all that, Bouygues, Bolloré, Total, Areva, EDF

continue to need the support of French political power to conduct their business in Africa. This is the role that a personal friend of Vincent Bolloré and Martin Bouygues will play. Nicolas Sarkozy, who, in 2007, will delight the old Gaullist guard. The presidency of the French Republic. In this transition to the Sarkozy era, a man about whom we have already talked a lot played an important role. Robert Bourgi. For years, he had been the faithful factotum in Africa of Jacques Chirac and Dominique de Villepin, convinced that the latter had no chance of winning the 2007 presidential

election. He will fall with weapons and luggage and address book into the camp by Nicolas Sarkozy. Robert Bourgi gives a very personal version of this betrayal . A melodrama that plays out deep in the grounds of the Matignon hotel. Dominique de Villepin, whom I saw regularly, asked me to come. And there, instead of being taken by his security officer to the office he occupied in Matignon, you are taken to the music pavilion. We are then in the middle of a battle at the UMP for the presidential nomination. Nicolas Sarkozy faces Dominique de Villepin, who was

at the time Prime Minister of Jacques Chirac. Dominique de Villepin, Robert told me, we will have to see each other more. Then but why? And he told me until the next presidential election, we shouldn't see each other anymore. Because you understand, I don't want to. Involved in business and bogus business, do you have President Bongo, President Sassou? It smells of sulfur. When I came out of the music pavilion, I reported to President Bongo. I returned it to President Sassou. And you know, the drumbeat moves very quickly within the union of African heads of state. It

works very quickly. They keep up to date with what is happening in France. The main ones. Triumphant ministers. Surprise. A week or two weeks later, I met Mr. Sarkozy, who was Minister of State for the Interior, said What's happening, Robert? I tell him this is what just happened between Dominique and me. He had this phrase which sums up the atmosphere of the time well, told me that he had happened, what happened to me was ruined. a kick to the butt. And but don't worry, we'll get them. From now on. Robert Bourgi is working for the

victory of candidate Sarkozy. So I wanted to dress like the president and me without a tie. So there is no. In fact, I absolutely wanted to see you. You passed a defense. It is true that I then ensured that Mr. Nicolas Sarkozy, candidate for president, was better seen and more appreciated by African heads of state. And they all starred Nicolas Sarkozy. It is said that in this shift of Africa towards Mr. Sarkozy, there is also, through you, the financial aid that certain African heads of state could have provided to Mr. Sarkozy's electoral campaign. I will

answer you very frankly there has never been a single cent, I mean a single cent from Africa or elsewhere for the presidential campaign of presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. Of which act. But on January 14, 2007, at the UMP inauguration congress of candidate Sarkozy, there was at the forefront among the campaign contributors, Pascaline, the daughter of President Omar Bongo, who manages all his holdings in commercial companies and his accounts. in banking abroad, and Paul Tangi, the Minister of Finance of Gabon, on September 27, 2008. President Nicolas Sarkozy will thank Robert Bourgi for his good and loyal

service by personally presenting him with the Legion of Honor at the Elysée, in front of, among others, representatives of Gabon, Ivory Coast and Congo-Brazzaville. I know how much, in the past, Jacques Foccart appointed to the service of General de Gaulle was able to count on the patriot and the friend that his own father was. And I know that in the field of efficiency, of discretion, you are the best of teachers and that you are not a man to forget the advice that he once gave you, stay in the shade so as not to get sunburned.

But it is not only Robert Bourgi who is thanked for services rendered. Barely elected, the new president telephoned Omar Bongo and. A few days later, he received him on an official visit to the Elysée. On this occasion, he will, according to Robert Bourgi, repair an injustice committed by Jacques Chirac. We were sitting, President Bongo and I, on the fifth floor of the seaside palace. He said to me, I have known Jacques since 1963. Well, you see, son. He didn't live up to our friendship. I'm a dad as I called him. Why are you telling me

this? I, you, bitter centrist. Debt forgiveness? Every time I see him, he tells me Omar, don't worry, I'll call Michel Camdessus at the IMF. I want to call the friends of the World Bank. You will have debt forgiveness. Nothing, son. Nothing. Jacques did nothing. President Sarkozy becomes President of the Republic and during the first interview, President Bongo told him Nicolas, what are you going to do to me? Before July 14, Omar? Your debt will be reduced. How much do you offer? 12:30 Poussin That would be a good number. Revise Omar, revise downwards a little. I

offer you 20%. He says then it's okay, we'll go for 20%. Is it reasonable to reduce the debt of an oil-rich country like Gabon? And it is a gift of joyful advent that I know. the Elysée regretted its history after all. Under Chirac. Omar Bongo gave his list of future French ministers with Sarkozy. He will request and obtain their dismissal. The victim's name is Jean-Marie Bockel, a supporter from the PS whom Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Minister of Cooperation on the fourth. On January 15, 2008, for his New Year's greetings, he launched into a violent diatribe in

front of stunned journalists. . When the social indicators of these countries stagnate or regress, while a minority leads a luxurious lifestyle. Governance is in question. What happens to oil revenues? Why doesn't the population benefit more? The defense of a few situational benefits inherited from a bygone past continues. Françafrique, although obsolete and moribund, still slows down the refoundation desired by the President of the Republic. President Omar Bongo, already greatly annoyed by the French justice system which is too closely interested in the luxury mansions and bank accounts he owns in France, explodes. It is Robert Bourgi who

is responsible for conveying anger to Nicolas Sarkozy. President. He tells me this can't continue. You have to tell Nicolas that I and the others no longer want this minister. I went to see the President of the Republic at the Elysée in the presence of Mr. Guéant and I gave him the firm and unveiled message veiled in threats from President Bongo. And he told me Listen, says Omar, as he calls him, And to the deputy heads of state that Mr. Bockel will leave. He will be replaced by one of my friends and a friend of Mr.

Guéant. He gave me the name and asked me to keep it to myself. He also told me, this new minister is important, will you take on our task. Don't be surprised and somewhere, you will initiate Africa. Good morning. The new minister will therefore go to learn from Omar Bongo, responsible for introducing him, as Robert Bourgi says, to Franco-African secrets. It will be Alain Joyandet, a Freemason who knows nothing about Africa but who will unashamedly carry the new discourse of Franco-African politics. In April 2008, the secretary general of the Elysée, Claude Guéant, accompanied by Robert Bourgi,

led the new Alain Joyandet to Omar Bongo, who would knight him. During the time of General de Gaulle, it was Jacques Foccart who co-opted African presidents. Today, it is from one of its presidents that a minister of France seeks legitimacy. 50 years after the independence of the French colonies, beyond the hypocritical speeches on cooperation and the Francophonie, Africa has regressed economically, health and educationally. But, paradoxically, the black continent finds itself at the heart of the challenges of globalization. The need for materials continues to grow. The subsoil of Africa remains the first planetary reserve. During the

years following decolonization, we were in a country monopoly situation and all you had to do was pick up the phone with the president, you had the market. This is no longer the case at all. Now, competition with the United States and emerging countries like China, India and Brazil is fierce. And France, as in the time of General de Gaulle, still needs Africa to ensure its energy supply. Nicolas Sarkozy, back to. Wall. Must face this new balance of power and run everywhere in political reinforcement of large international groups like Bolloré, Bouygues, Total or Areva, who are

on the front line. This is a visit where everything must happen very quickly. In a few minutes, Nicolas Sarkozy will enter the presidential palace in Luanda. 17 hours round trip plane for 5 hours on site for reasons of state and strategic interests. Distance doesn't matter. In Angola, Christophe de Margerie, CEO of Total, wants to become the leading oil exporter in this country which has the largest reserves in Africa. In Niger, it is uranium that must be defended. The former colony has always been France's main source of supply for its nuclear power plants. But in 2007,

the President of Niger wanted to take advantage of the global restart of the nuclear industry to demand an increase in the sales prices for uranium ore and a renegotiation of the Imouraren mine concession, intended to become the most important in the world. To deal with this difficult situation. Dominique Pin, the former first advisor at the French embassy in Abidjan, is appointed director of Areva in Niger. During tense negotiations. The Nigerien president threatens. You don't want to give in to my demands? I'm not giving you Imouraren, I'm giving it to the Chinese. I put a young

person behaving like that. 70 years ago, because there was always this privileged relationship with France. Negotiations are stalling. Dominique Pain is expelled from the country. Fifteen days later, Nicolas Sarkozy comes to sign the agreement. But for a sale price of uranium twice as high as in the past. Deep down, Mamadou knows it well. What can I do for France? I want France to regain its place in Africa on new bases. They have raw materials, we go to the countries at the right price and it will be very good for us. Clearly, times have changed. Especially

since Nicolas Sarkozy now intends to defend national companies. Not only in the former French territory, but also in English-speaking African countries such as Nigeria or South Africa and Gabon, France's former privileged ally. Alain Juppé, February 24, 2010. Nicolas Sarkozy goes there on an official trip. Salute, salute in majesty. It is now Ali Bongo, the son of the late president Omar Bongo, who is in power after highly contested elections. December 6. On the walls of the room, 50 years of African history. Their Excellencies, Heads of State. But the presidents' speeches clearly show that a page has

been turned. Mr. President, you and I are unaware of the real content of what is commonly and confusingly called Françafrique. But we courageously embrace this rich historical heritage, both positive and negative. This means that the time has come to bring about a real win-win partnership commensurate with the aspirations of our two peoples. I don't belong to the colonization generation. I don't like networks, but I don't have complexes about them either. It is therefore a new contract that I have come to offer you. A new one based on an uninhibited relationship. Françafrique is therefore moribund. But

for all that, are there no more networks at work in the relationship between France and its former colonies? Not that easy. On October 31, 2009, François Stefani went to the by private plane. He is the grand master of the GLNF, the French National Grand Lodge, one of the two most important French Masonic obediences with the Grand Orient. And the Grand Lodge of Gabon has just elected a new grand master to replace the late Elhadj Omar Bongo Ondimba. And they organized a grand lodge outfit on the occasion of which the investiture is carried out, that is

to say the installation followed by a ritual ceremony. And it is the French National Grand Lodge, as mayor lodge of the Grand Lodge of Gabon, which has the privilege of installing this new grand master. That's why I'm going there with my installation officers. The grand master who will be enthroned is Ali Bongo, new president of Gabon, who also takes over from his father in most of the former French colonies of black Africa. The heads of state are Freemasons and most often, they are the grand masters of their nationality. Togo in place, with its esotericism, its

obsolete rites and its mania for secrecy. Freemasonry facilitates discreet and direct links between African and French brothers, all recruited in the spheres of political and economic power. Niger and Niger. Today, they are all here. All African presidents, their representatives at the highest level. Niger is preparing. A few days after this ceremony. It is a world gathering of Freemasonry which was to be held in Gabon with a strong presence of Americans. There is no Chinese Freemason yet, it won't be long. French, Françafrique, this system of complex relations between France and Africa, created by General de Gaulle,

has collapsed. Certainly, networks of secret collusion continue, discreet friends of Nicolas Sarkozy like Robert Bourgi or Patrick Balkany continue to assiduously frequent African palaces outside of any public control. But the heads of state of the dark continent, still as little concerned with the well-being of their population, are now navigating in a competitive world, to the best of their personal interests. As for the President of the French Republic, in charge of a country which still needs the energy resources of black Africa, he is nothing more than the attentive sales representative of the large industrial groups at.