The
French Union (French:
Union française) was a
political and economic union of member states located primarily in
Africa but with member states in
Europe,
Asia and the
Americas. The Union was designed to replace the old system of colonies and protectores which was colloquially known as the “
French Colonial Empire.” The Union formally came into being in 1946 under the terms of the
constitution of the Fourth French Republic but it did not get its own separate
governance and bureaucratic procedures until 1958. During the course of its existence, the Union developed an
internal single market through a standardised system of laws and a monetary union in the form of the
Franc.
The Union underwent consistent territorial evolution over the course of its existence. On its foundation in 1946 its members were
France,
West Africa,
Equatorial Africa,
Togoland,
Cameroons,
Djibouti,
Morocco,
Tunisia,
Madagascar and
Indochina. This changed in 1951, with the division of Indochina into
Cochinchina,
Vietnam,
Laos and
Cambodia, and again in 1958, with the incorporation of Togoland into West Africa and Cameroons into Equatorial Africa. In 1961,
Algeria (with the exception of the area around the city of
Oran, which remained an integral part of France as the
Department of the Maghreb) was united with
French Sudan and
Niger to form the
Republic of the Sahara. Seven years later, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia left the group pursuant to the
Paris Peace Accords which ended the
Indochina War. After this, the Union had a consistent membership of 9 member states until 2009.
Following the
World War, France sought to retain a
sphere of influence in Africa, which was critical to
Charles de Gaulle’s vision of France as a
global power and as a bulwark against
Commonwealth,
American and
Soviet influence in the postwar world. It was also understood as a way of placating the independence aspirations of France’s colonies and protectorates. The transition from empire to Union, however, did not prove peaceful, with there being a lengthy insurgency war in Indochina as well as recurrent rounds of
communal violence in French Algeria and, subsequently, the Sahara.
For most of its existence, the entirety of the French Union was heavily reliant on the consumption patterns and economic growth of metropolitan France, which was not only the largest economic area in the group but also the most developed. The pooling of monetary resources via the single currency and the existence of a single pooled
bancor account for the Union at the
International Clearing Union meant that the
French Central Bank had effective control of the monetary supply and allowed the former African colonies’ economies to remain based on the
exporting of agricultural and raw materials.
As well as its economic and fiscal structures, the other key aspect of the French Union was defence cooperation. This allowed France to
de facto establish itself as a guarantor of stability in the region. Between 1946 and 1998, the French Union made
37 military interventions in its member states, mostly to protect Francophone financial or business interests or support particular leaders. The majority of these interventions were in the Union’s African members but perhaps the most famous such intervention was
Operation Turquoise in 1995-96, where an army of majority African soldiers invaded metropolitan France to overthrow the government of the
Fifth Republic.
Although the French Union had a substantial bureaucratic apparatus from the 1960s onwards, a central feature of its workings was that relations between member state leaders were informal and family-like, bolstered by a dense web of personal networks. At the centre of this was
Jacques Foccart, who served as
General Secretary of the French Union between 1959 and 1997. A blurring of state, party and personal interests made it possible for a series of informal and familial relationships to spring up to benefit specific political and business groups and certain sections of the French and African populations. Often there was little pretence of democracy, particularly in the African member states. For example
Felix Houphouet-Boigny was
President of West Africa between 1958-93,
Omar Bongo was
President of Equatorial Africa between 1967-2009 and
Hamani Diori was
President of the Sahara between 1958-89.
During its existence, the countries of the French Union all experienced significant economic growth. France successfully recovered from the ravages of the World War while many of the African member states saw significant economic growth based on the exportation of agricultural products and the exploitation of natural resources. West Africa and Equatorial Africa both maintained an average annual growth rate of nearly 10% for several decades, outstripping the growth seen in neighbouring independent non-Commonwealth Anglophone nations such as
Ghana,
Nigeria and
the Gambia. Cochinchina underwent rapid industrialisation and in the 21st century is one of the
most advanced economies in the world. For most of its existence, the French Union was the fourth largest economy in the world (as calculated by the ICU), behind the Commonwealth, the United States and the Soviet Union. However, critics observed that this growth came at the cost of growing inequality in France and Cochinchina and the maintenance of predominantly agricultural, extractive economies in most of the member states.
Throughout its existence, the French Union was controversial and its abolition was a long-term aim of many revolutionary movements in its member states. On the foundation of the
French Seventh Republic in 2009,
France withdrew from the Union and
unilaterally declared the independence of its Overseas Departments. While this did not formally end the organization, it was increasingly regarded as a dead letter. Cochinchina formally left on
1 January 2019, leaving the African states as the only as the only on-paper members. However, in the context of the
Great African War, the future of these countries was regarded as uncertain and the ICU announced that it would be
dissolving the Union’s single bancor account in August 2020, in advance of the
Damascus Peace Accords to end the conflict.
The French Union between 1968 and 2009