Bamako doesn’t feel like the capital of a country at war. True, people are stressed, and the pace of life might have slowed. The city’s building frenzy has subsided. Ça va pas, but things are calm, even if late in March, far from cool. In the distant North, a fifth French soldier died over the […]
Whew, Mali. French air raids against Islamist positions in Mali began Thursday night, and the dust hasn’t settled yet. The news is changing fast, but, three things emerge from the haze. First, fierce fighting in the North and the East, with French forces in the lead, will open up a whole new set of dangers. […]
Ah, the warm bath of public affection in the post-colony. French President François Hollande’s visit to Algeria this week was a little odd, on more than one count. Algeria is about the last place you’d think a French head of state would engage in what in American politics is called working the crowd and in […]
Why should it be a big deal if a French president gives a speech in Dakar? Lots of reasons. Rarely does anyone walk softly and carry a big stick in quite the same way that François Hollande did earlier this month. Hollande was walking softly—even talking softly—while in Dakar. Some five years after Nicolas Sarkozy’s […]
What is there to say about that other African election, the one in France? Sunday was the first of two rounds in this presidential contest, which is a lot more about Europe—specifically Brussels, but also Berlin—than it is about Africa. Still, it will have real effects on both shores of the Mediterranean and of the […]
My friends and the musicians we listen to–we’re mostly the children of immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean–prefer Francois Hollande and the Socialists over Sarkozy, but know Hollande won’t win.
