The Blood of the Impure
The French national anthem is a pretty nasty song. It dreams, in one of its more memorable verses, that the “blood of the impure” will “irrigate our fields.”
France
Who killed Thomas Sankara?
A French Communist MP announced he would press the French National Assembly to create an inquiry commission to investigate the 1987 assassination of Thomas Sankara.
It is as if a library burned down
Salafist fighters burn hundreds of rare manuscripts, some unique and centuries old, before leaving Timbuktu to French paratroopers.
France in Mali: The End of the Fairytale
This is not a neo-colonial offensive. The argument that it is might be comfortable and familiar, but it is bogus and ill-informed.
François Hollande went to Algeria
Hollande’s visit coincided with a vote in the UN Security Council authorizing ECOWAS intervention in Mali; something Algeria, Mali's northern neighbor, objected to.
What was Strauss-Kahn wearing?
Euro-American media just can't do right by Nafissatou Diallo, the Guinean hotel worker who accused a prominent French politician Dominique Strauss-Kahn of sexual assault in a New York City hotel. Even though she effectively won the case.
Yannick Nyanga’s Tears
How a black French rugby player's crying during the playing of the country's national anthem was appropriated for all sorts of rightwing and reactionary politics.
French-Algerian sculptor Rachid Khimoune exhibits in New York City
Rachid Khimoune grew up in a small mining town in Northern France where his Algerian parents
Kehinde Wiley Goes To Paris
The American artist says he wants to tackle Françafrique; to turn it on its head. But in the process, he can't help repeat stereotypes and artificial divisions.
Is Mads Brügger a journalist?
The Danish filmmaker believes his work contains qualities missing from most conventional journalism. Especially journalism dealing with Africa
My favorite photographs N°9: Halida Boughriet
On show at the Islamic Cultures Institute in Paris until January, 50 Years of Reflection, is
President of France, King of Africa?
Francois Hollande want French-African relations to be transparent. Is this a new African policy or the old FrançAfrique?
The United States of Africa
Yannick Létourneau talks about the genesis of his film about the Senegelese rapper, Awadi. Also, why so many political musicians come from West Africa.
The future of Françafrique
Is it France's interests to reform its unequal, exploitative relationship with Africans?
The Other African Election: Sarkozy K.O.’d
What does all that mean for French-African politics? It’s hard to tell what will next emerge from that fetid swamp.
Parisian Africa
Younger generations of artists, many immigrants of African origin, are reconfiguring the arts in France on their own terms.
The 19th New York African Film Festival: “Relentless”
“Relentless” is fundamentally a film about Lagos. About how director Andy Okoarafor sees it. In Okoarafor’s
The Racial Politics of Tuareg Nationalism
Historian Greg Mann is not a big fan of Tuareg group, Tinariwen. The music is alright, he agrees, but the politics is rancid.
We are the remains
This is Number 11 in my occasional series of posts highlighting the music of my hometown, Paris, also a center of Europe's African diaspora.
If Africa really is a country …
One of our readers took our title literally.