Published in 1993, France Against Africa is a political and historical essay by the renowned Cameroonian writer Mongo Beti, whose real name is Alexandre Biyidi Awala. A major figure in committed African literature, Mongo Beti expresses his anger, frustration, and bitterness at the state of postcolonial Africa, particularly regarding France’s persistent influence in the political, economic, and cultural affairs of its former African colonies. This book is a direct denunciation of neocolonialism, an indictment of Françafrique, and a powerful call for resistance and the continent’s emancipation.
From the very first pages, Mongo Beti adopts a blunt tone. Far from academic or diplomatic language, he delivers a vivid testimony, drawn from his own experience as an exiled writer, outraged intellectual, and direct witness to the abuses of post-independence African power. He sets the scene of Africa, supposedly free after the 1960s’ independence wave, remains in fact under an invisible but omnipresent domination that of the former colonial power, France.
The author revisits the case of Cameroon, his home country, which he views as emblematic of this betrayal of independence. Mongo Beti denounces France’s role in installing and supporting authoritarian and obedient regimes, often led by heads of state placed or backed by Paris in exchange for absolute loyalty. He particularly references Ahmadou Ahidjo, Cameroon’s first president, whom he describes as a pawn of France, responsible for the bloody repression of nationalist movements, especially the Union of the Populations of Cameroon (UPC).
Mongo Beti highlights the complicit silence of the French media, the military, financial, and diplomatic support offered by France to these repressive regimes, and the general indifference to human rights violations on the continent. To him, Françafrique is a secret alliance between French and African political elites, is a mafia-like system, where France continues to exploit African resources (oil, uranium, timber, cocoa, etc.) under the guise of aid and cooperation.
Through concrete examples, Mongo Beti dissects the mechanisms of neocolonialism: the presence of French military bases, the monopoly of French companies in public markets, the control of African currencies through the CFA franc, influence over elections, manipulation of oppositions, surveillance of critical intellectuals, and more. He shows how, under modern forms, colonial domination continues: the chains are less visible but just as strong.
The author does not spare African elites either. According to him, many were educated in French institutions and internalized Western thought patterns. These leaders, disconnected from their people, often prefer honors, trips to Paris, and Swiss bank accounts to the fight for real progress. Mongo Beti calls them “servants of the system”, active accomplices in the plunder and oppression of their own people.
But what strikes most in Mongo Beti’s narrative is his blend of despair and hope. He expresses his pain at seeing an Africa mired in poverty, political violence, and illiteracy, despite its wealth and talents. He laments the lack of collective awareness, the people’s apathy, the fear, and the exile of many African intellectuals, silenced or forced to live far from home.
Through his words, Mongo Beti seeks to awaken consciences, to give Africa its own voice, to let a free discourse emerge, far from official rhetoric or technocratic reports. He rejects the notion that Africa is inherently incapable of self-governance or of inventing its own development model. For him, this is merely a justification for racism and continued foreign domination.
He also emphasizes the necessity of intellectual commitment. For Mongo Beti, the intellectual cannot remain neutral. They must take a stand, denounce, write, be outraged, even at the risk of exile, prison, or censorship. He himself, long banned in Cameroon, opened a bookstore in Yaoundé in the 1990s, “La Librairie des Peuples Noirs” (The Black Peoples’ Bookstore) as an act of cultural and political resistance.
In the final pages, Mongo Beti becomes even more incisive. He denounces the democratic reforms orchestrated by France in the 1990s as illusions: rigged elections, fake multiparty systems, and ineffective national dialogues. To him, all this serves only to give a democratic façade to regimes that remain authoritarian in practice.
Yet, despite the scale of the disaster he describes, Mongo Beti does not fall into fatalism. He believes in an Africa capable of rising, provided it breaks its mental, economic, and political chains. He calls for a new generation of leaders, honest, close to the people, able to question imported models and rethink development based on African realities. He also calls on the diaspora, the African intellectuals abroad, to participate in this rebirth.
France Against Africa is much more than a political essay: it is a statement of faith in Africa’s future, but also a blistering indictment of the duplicity in Franco-African relations. Mongo Beti, with a pen both rigorous, passionate, and indignant, asks the right questions and forces the reader to confront the unspoken truths of postcolonial history. This book is an alert, a manifestation, and an intellectual weapon. In a direct and uncompromising style, the author expresses the urgency of a break from the past so that Africa can finally reclaim its destiny.