Essay , | 01/30/2026 : France’s Colonial Legacy

In France, the National Assembly has an approval rating of 35 percent. There are many reasons for the rise of the radical right. One is years of rampant fear of supposed subordination to the overwhelming power of Muslim migrants from North and West Africa and the Middle East. Intellectuals from the New Right talk incessantly about the danger of national decline via population replacement due to mass immigration that is ostensibly being orchestrated by elites.

Meanwhile, fear of “the Black man” has had a significant impact on the arc of French history. When French people and West Africans debated a common future beyond colonialism in the 1950s, there was fear that entering into a political community with the Africans would mean being dominated by them. The result: the French elite preferred to end the Communauté française after only two years and, in 1960, released the colony of French West Africa to its independence.

Community or Independence?

In the 1950s, it was not initially a matter of sloughing off the colonial rulers. In West Africa, only the Left and a large portion of the youth categorically rejected any political community with France.

The colony’s political elites disagreed as to whether they wanted a political future with France or not. Ultimately, they were well integrated into the political process via representation in the French National Assembly and the government, and they had made progress over time. Even the politicians who opted for state independence from the start retained close relations for a long time because they were aware that further development of the economically dependent colony required French financial support. The unions, too, were torn on that question. Ultimately, they had made measurable progress in their struggles for equal wages and equal work. Some of them even had a sceptical view of Black politicians, whose authoritarianism they feared.

For a long time, the people of West Africa showed no clear preference with respect to their political future. Colonial rule there was less brutal than in neighbouring Algeria, where settlers and the military systematically terrorized people. That was primarily due to the smaller number of white settlers. Colonial subjects in West Africa also offered more resistance even after conquest, which gave them a certain degree of autonomy. Nonetheless, colonial rule was hated. For the general population, it came down to the political elite’s position on state independence. If the elite decided in favour of it, as happened in Guinea in 1958, then the people followed suit. When the politicians wanted to remain with France, the vast majority accepted that decision as well.

Thus far, remembrance of colonialism in France is largely symbolic in nature.

The future was unclear from the French side as well. For a long time, the desire to hold onto the colony of French West Africa went unquestioned. France had been accustomed to having overseas possessions since the time of the monarchy; they underlined the country’s elevated position in the world. Moreover, subordinating a portion of the globe also meant wealth: trading posts and colonies were economically advantageous, and losing them was understood as shameful and a serious defeat.

The French populace never had a great deal of enthusiasm for the colonies — not even during the interwar period, after thousands of colonial soldiers had saved the fatherland and the republic celebrated its own colonial empire with a major exposition in 1931. Colonial rule remained an elite project. The wars of independence in Indochina and Algeria also raised questions about the future of colonial rule. Eventually there came a risk of losing expensive investments in colonial infrastructure in the face of successful independence movements.

As France began a rapid economic upturn and national self-awareness intensified — at the same time as the cost of French West Africa was rising due to the unions’ successful struggles for better working conditions — a portion of the political class lost interest in colonialism. There was a growing call in France for the end of colonialism and for more money to go to economically under-developed regions within France instead.

The main reason why French West Africa suddenly gained independence after many years of negotiations was that the effort to construct a political community failed due to French politicians’ fears of demographic trends in the colonies. The republican ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity, which turned colonial subjects in the Four Communes of Senegal into “Black citizens” who generally had equal rights, only applied as long as Black people remained a small minority within the French Republic.

Fear of Living Together

The coexistence of Black and white people is once again a topic of discussion today. France’s future as a destination for immigrants has been the subject of a raging dispute for years. Initially inflamed over Muslim headscarves, the focus later turned to poverty, crime, and violence in the suburbs as well as Islamism and terrorism. The New Right promises to go back to a time before France became a country of immigrants — as though the outcomes of capitalism, colonialism, and neoliberal globalization could be eliminated just like that.

The first sizeable Black population in France was made up of enslaved people who worked in the ports. Later there were also soldiers from the colonies who defended the metropole during World War I. Some of the veterans stayed after the war was over, and it was not uncommon for them to enter into relationships with French women. More and more Black people came to France during the three-decade economic boom following World War II. After that, more people came from Africa, courageously taking their own future and that of their families into their own hands for a wide variety of reasons in the hope of finding a better life in France.

Today, between 3 and 5 million Black people live in France. For most of them, it is now their home country, although those in power are afraid to acknowledge “Black France”. The politics of hostility toward migrants (as Achille Mbembe describes it) among the New Right and other right-wing radicals is having an effect. While French president Emmanuel Macron speaks of a shared French-African history and a mixing of France and Africa, he is not thinking of a new, shared future, but only of Black people’s contribution to French society and culture.

Meanwhile, “Black France” is changing the country, as the 2024 electoral results showed. It was many Black voters’ support for left-wing and centrist parties that kept the far right from power. Black people’s protests against racially motivated police violence have roused the country as well. That also applies to various activists’ commitment to historiography that supports a clear acknowledgement of slavery, colonialism, and racism in French history.

Thus far, remembrance of colonialism in France is largely symbolic in nature. Inducting Black artist and resistance member Josephine Baker into the French Pantheon cannot substitute for a national museum of the history of colonialism or school lessons on France’s colonial crimes. Only when the history of Black people in France is recognized will “Black France” fully become part of the republic.

New Cooperation With Africa?

On the one hand, since France has been kicked out of many former colonies in recent years and in light of the discourse around sovereignty among a new generation of politicians who look at France with hostility or indifference, the old discussion about a shared political future seems more remote than ever. On the other hand, after more than 60 years of independence, it is clear that the small and independent economies of West Africa will not be able to find their way out of long-term crisis without an effective regional coalition and strong international partners.

Perhaps the pressure now placed upon France (and the European Union), which has itself been turned into a plaything by the power politics of US president Donald Trump and the brutal imperial logic of Vladimir Putin, will force the country to consider a new partnership with people in the former colonies.

Since the democratization movement of the 1990s, there have been hardly any signs of democracy and the rule of law finally putting down roots in West Africa. On the contrary, authoritarianism is firmly in control in this part of the world as well. Thus far, West Africa’s social and economic development remain unresolved. As under colonialism, West Africans are still subject to the interests of the powerful and their politics of plunder. It is no comfort to know that, following the wave of neoliberal privatization, the politics of plunder now has its own face in the form of African oligarchs.

Nor, at first glance, is there much to indicate an effort to shore up a common political future in France, which has increasingly withdrawn under pressure from problems elsewhere in the world. Fear of migrants has activated a politics of isolation, undermining a partnership with Africa. In light of the loss of confidence in a humane European foreign policy, it is no surprise that many people in West Africa are reacting to Putin’s war in Europe with a shrug. But perhaps the pressure now placed upon France (and the European Union), which has itself been turned into a plaything by the power politics of US president Donald Trump and the brutal imperial logic of Vladimir Putin, will force the country to consider a new partnership with people in the former colonies.

This article first appeared in nd in collaboration with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Translated by Joseph Keady and Anna Dinwoodie for Gegensatz Translation Collective.