FRANCE-AFRICA: FROM SLAVERY TO SUMMITS

The leaders of France and 53 African countries open the latest biennial France-Africa summit in the west African state of Mali on Saturday.
Herewith a four-century chronology of France's role in Africa, which began with the slave trade in the 17th century and evolved through the rush for colonies in the 19th, followed by decolonisation in the second half of the 20th.

1642: King Louis XIII formally authorises French participation in the seizure of Africans for transportation into slavery in the Caribbean, a practice started by Portuguese traders two centuries earlier and widely practiced by all the main European powers.

1651-1715: Under King Louis XIV, France engages in heightened competition for international trade with the British, Dutch and Portuguese. The lucrative Caribbean sugar trade is underpinned by the transport of slaves from West Africa. French port cities such as Bordeaux, La Rochelle and Nantes become major slave trading centres;
- French traders settle along the West African coast, following on from the Dutch and the Portuguese. Saint-Louis in Senegal becomes a major French settlement;

1794: The Convention government born of the French Revolution abolishes slavery in the colonies, which at that time are all in the Americas. Eight years later First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte makes slavery legal again;

1830: In France's first military foray into Africa, troops invade Algeria, which is conquered and settled over several decades. Settlement increases enormously after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870;

1848: The slave trade is formally abolished by France, over four decades after its abolition by Britain;

Undated: At some point during the 19th century, the watchword for French colonisation in Africa becomes the "mission civilisatrice" (civilising mission), a slogan comparable to Britain's conceit of what Rudyard Kipling called "the white man's burden";

1869: The Suez Canal, built by France, opens up trade routes to east Africa. In the same year the discovery of diamonds in southern Africa sharpens the appetites that will herald the European "scramble for Africa" at the century's end;

1884: At the instigation of the Prussian leader Otto von Bismarck the main European powers hold a conference in Berlin effectively to carve up Africa between them. From then on until World War II, the powers rush to grab territory in Africa, with the French mostly operating from their bases in the west, and also taking Madagascar in the Indian Ocean;

1895: France establishes two vast colonial administrations in West Africa (the AOF) and Equatorial Africa (AEF) north of the Congo River;

1898: A military clash between British and French forces at Fashoda in the Sudan ends France's ambition of linking up its colonies in west Africa to the Red Sea, where Djibouti is a strategic French outpost. The two great powers agree to delimit their zones on the continent;

1914-1918: All the major European belligerents in World War I draft in Africans from their colonies to fight. France notably uses its "tirailleurs senegalais" (infantry "sharpshooters"from Senegal) who will also play a role in World War II.
At the end of the war Germany loses its colonies, but France, like Britain and Belgium, conserves and consolidates its empire; each takes some former German-run lands;

1929-30: The Great Depression in the industrialised countries creates more favourable conditions for local economic progress in Africa, although independence movements remain embryonic;

1940-45: World War II leaves the European colonial powers severely weakened, increasing pressure for independence. Parts of the empire in Africa come out on the side of General Charles de Gaulle in his fight against the Vichy regime in Nazi-occupied France. At the end of the war French troops commit massacres in both Algeria and Senegal, in the latter case against Senegalese colonial troops who are demanding their pay;

1958: Returning as president of France during the Algerian independence war, Charles de Gaulle organises a referendum on independence in sub-Saharan African colonies. Only Guinea votes in favour -- the other territories are given self-government;

1960: De Gaulle grants full independence to all other French colonies in sub-Saharan Africa, which nevertheless retain close links to Paris. Several of them continue to host French military bases to this day;

1962: France grants independence to Algeria after a murderous eight-year war;

1973: France organises the first biennial summit with African countries, with the events initially only for French-speaking states, but later bringing in others. The summits take place on alternate years in France and in Africa;

Despite independence, French troops have continued to intervene in Africa, notably in 1977 and 78 in the Shaba region of what is now the Democratic Republic of Congo. France currently has 7,000 troops in five bases from Dakar in Senegal to Djibouti, but they increasingly seek to operate in the framework of multinational forces.