Well, it’s done, I admit. It was better before. Better with her. One could reproach him for having spent too much on his hot water or his grand piano and for having only a tenuous relationship with the management of an international organization, the fact remains that the then Secretary General of La Francophonie knew how to understand the French fact. She embodied Haiti, Quebec and Canada, youth and energy, not to mention ambition.
We who had observed her as a journalist could have been annoyed by the airs of a queen that she gave herself (but hadn’t Ottawa named her a royal representative? That leaves its mark). But she was, queen of French, in all the southern countries she visited and where young people welcomed her like a rock star. With her, the Francophonie was cool. Woman, immigrant, eloquent, radiant, she embodied success in French in Africa and elsewhere.
I also miss Abdou Diouf, his great predecessor. He, who had rooted democracy in Senegal and who treated all heads of state as equals, brought to his office a gravitas unmatched. He participated in making his organization more demanding in terms of respect for the rights of individuals and voters. It was under his leadership that the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF) scored the only important diplomatic goal in its history. Spurred on by the improbable Louise Beaudoin-Sheila Copps-Jacques Chirac trio, the OIF mobilized its members to have UNESCO adopt the Convention on Cultural Diversity in 2005, which allows nations not to assimilate culture to commodities. His greatest feat.
What exactly does Rwandan Louise Mushikiwabo embody, the one who today carries the banner of the OIF and who has just been unanimously reappointed for a second term? It is first of all the pure product of the instrumentalization of the OIF by the Élysée. The organization was born from the desire of French-speaking Africans, including Léopold Senghor, to act as a counterweight to France in its former colonial empire. The presence of Quebec, Canada, Wallonia and Switzerland at this Franco-African banquet was to increase the movement.
But the imposition by France in 2018 of Mushikiwabo, restoring its ascendancy over the group, only responded to one imperative: Emmanuel Macron’s desire to establish good relations with President Paul Kagame, one of the current strongmen from the continent. Never mind that Kagame took Rwanda away from Voltaire’s language by replacing French with English in its school system, adopting English as its national language and joining the language club that matters, the Commonwealth. It does not matter that France offers the cheese that constitutes the direction of the OIF to the former minister of a country turning its back on democracy and the defense of rights. Rwanda is indeed so undemocratic that it only obtains a score of 22 out of 100 on the Freedom House list. (To compare, Tunisia is at 64, Senegal at 68, Canada at 98).
Don’t ask yourself either why the name of the
Qatar has appeared on the list of associate members of the OIF since 2012, a country where only 4% of French speakers are found. It’s because France wanted it and Qatar had enough money to buy votes. Point.
The shamelessness with which France thus misled the OIF and drove out our trinational Michaëlle is brilliantly narrated by the former journalist and deputy of Mme Jean, Bertin Leblanc, in the comic Language elements. We learn that our ex-governor general may not have played her cards well, but we see above all how much Justin Trudeau and François Legault competed in aplaventrism in front of Macron’s game. In his defense, Legault had just been elected and understood nothing about it. Trudeau was ready to sacrifice his candidate (his friend, he claimed) because he was fishing for African votes to obtain a Canadian seat on the UN Security Council. He will thus have lost the prey (a Canadian at the head of the OIF) and the shadow (he did not have the seat).
Michaëlle Jean left the stage with a courageous speech, asking the assembled French-speaking Heads of State and Government if they were “ready to accept that democracy, rights and freedoms be reduced to mere words, that we empty of their meaning in the name of realpolitik, small arrangements between States or special interests”. The answer, unfortunately, was yes. And the rest.
Should we now throw the baby away and keep only the bathwater? By water, I mean programs for teaching French and training teachers, strengthening French-speaking universities, supporting democracy, the Observatory of the French language, some other useful programs. But we really don’t see very well what purpose the OIF (the baby) serves politically, if we extract from it the imperatives of France’s foreign policy and the fluctuations in the relations of African states among themselves. Hollow speeches on an economic Francophonie are just that (I was already writing some a quarter of a century ago for my prime ministers at the time, that is to say).
The recent summit gargled a lot of digital Francophonie. An action plan steeped in good intentions has been adopted. However, we know the problem: the infinitesimal presence of French-speaking productions at the giants Netflix, Prime et cie. We know the issue: the more consumers, including young people, are offered French products, the more they consume. We know the remedy: add to the UNESCO Convention on Cultural Diversity the right of States to regulate digital platforms, to oblige them to offer local content and to invest in its production. Here is a political fight which would justify, again, the existence of the baby.
Admittedly, Jacques Chirac is no longer in this world to lead this fight, but Louise Beaudoin and Sheila Copps are still dashing. Not to mention Michaëlle Jean, who, she does not hide it, burns to throw herself back into the French-speaking fray.