[pavlov]

That sounds simplified. Mali, Chad and Niger are inland desert countries whose enormous total land area consists mostly of Sahara. They would still be desperately poor even if their official language were English, Dutch or Danish instead of French.

Conversely we could look at African countries that haven't had to suffer meddling from a colonial parent, and they don't seem to be much better off. Liberia has been independent for a long time. The Democratic Republic of Congo doesn't suffer from Belgian military interventions. Neither is a paradise.

[vinceguidry]

Ethiopia fought off Italy, had some really bad times, but is doing well now. They actually had something like a state with which to fight off European aggression.

The French really were terrible at colonial administration. They had a way of letting emotions guide their decision-making and no compunctions whatsoever about asserting how morally superior they were to the locals. This led to truly horrific massacres on both sides, that continued until very recently, where most of the rest of the post-colonial world had largely moved on.

You see the remnants of that colonial legacy in the French attitude towards African and Islamic immigrants. As bad as classism gets in the US, it only rarely provokes violence. French civil unrest is often terrifying, as the Charlie Hebdo massacre has shown. That was actually tame compared to a lot of what happened in Algeria.

There are deep, raw, and gaping wounds that will probably never be healed. The old generation will just die off and the younger generation are, due to French apathy, falling under the spell of Islamism.

[jacques_foccart]

It is amusing to note that Ethiopia's victory against the Italians was in (some say, large) part due to a Brit. Cf the Gideon Force.

[jacques_foccart]

Takes some balls to put forward the DRC as an example of an untouched country. Let's see: Tshombe's plane was hijacked and he was jailed in Algeria just as the French-backed "mercenaries" (including, allegedly, Bob Denard) were about to take the place over from the American-backed Mobutu. Che Guevara and a few hundred Cubans on one side, people like "Mad Mike" Hoare on the other (not American, but...). Talking of Belgian military intervention, ever head of Jean Schramme?

[pavlov]

Point taken, that was very poor phrasing on my part. I meant that Belgium doesn't engage in France-style interventions in Africa anymore.

[saikaisi]

and curiously only Francophone Africa is more impacted by colonial meddling ...