Duke visiting professor Stephen Smith, right, was among the
panelists Wednesday discussing illegal payments several African nations
allegedly made to French political leaders. Smith, a former reporter in Africa, said governments there "got
a good deal" in winning the favor of French officials who later eased the
terms of their national debts. Philippe Bernard of Le Monde, center, currently
a media fellow at the Sanford School of Public Policy, provided a broader
political context for understanding the scandal, which Achille Mbembe, left,
described as a "relationship of mutual corruption."
Mbembe, a visiting professor at Duke, said even though the
response in both Africa and France has been an "apotheosis of cynicism,"
the incident reflects France's declining influence in its former colonies. "The
mental map of Francophone Africa has shifted for good," he said. "Africans
are looking somewhere else. Their cultural geography is
no longer centered around Paris."
Allegations that African leaders
sent briefcases full of cash to former President Jacques Chirac and other
French officials became public last month as Americans were commemorating the
10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. The charges have received
limited attention within the United States but continue to be discussed in both
France and Africa, the panelists said.
Duke's Center for French & Francophone Studies sponsored
the lunchtime conversation at the Franklin Humanities Institute in the Smith
Warehouse.