Mme Christine Desouches – Photo © Public Debates – Click on the image to enlarge it.
Published at the start of the year by Public Debates editions, “ Francophonie “, From Christine Desouches, imposes herself as a lucid and committed reflection on the history, the values and the contemporary challenges of the Francophonie. The author, also president of the Asom*, has just presented her book to a collective of Parisian militants from La Francophonie.
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by Alfred Mignot with Desk Africapresse.paris (app)
@africa_presse
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With an experience of more than twenty-five years as a senior manager at the heart of the International Organization of La Francophonie (OIF), the author, academic, delivers an essay that is both documented, critical and carrying hope.
From the first pages, Christine Desouches recalls that the Francophonie is not reduced to a simple linguistic community. It is, she argues, a political project, born in the wake of African independence, carried by figures like Senghor, Bourguiba or Sihanouk, and long looked at with suspicion as a neocolonial instrument. France itself, under de Gaulle, was first held at a distance, before François Mitterrand then Jacques Chirac seized it to make it a space for leading political consultation.
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A space in identity crisis
The book returns to the main institutional stages-from the Versailles summit in 1986 to that of Villers-Cotterêts in 2024-and analyzes the slow affirmation of a multilateral, united and humanist Francophonie. But Desouches does not hide its concern: the Francophonie, today, is going through a crisis of legitimacy and efficiency. The enthusiasm of the Bamako or Ouagadougou years seems far away, while Certians Member States, now led by military junts, call into question the founding values of democracy and human rights. The OIF, formerly recognized diplomatic actor, now appears as a secondary actor, struggling to enforce his own standards.
The collective of representatives of French -speaking associations who attended the presentation of the work “ Francophonie »On the premises of the Feram (Forum of Echanges and World Administrative Meetings), in Paris on June 17, 2025. Photo © AM/APP
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Plea for a start
The author immediately points to the ambiguities of the Francophonie: the expansion to states little – if not at all – French -speaking, the difficulty in sanctioning democratic breaches without being accused of interference, the temptation to reduce the Francophonie to a simple linguistic space when it was thought as a political and economic lever.
At a time when North-South fractures are widening, when new international actors are essential, Christine Desouches thus calls for clarification of the criteria of belonging and a redefinition of the objectives of the OIF.
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A tonic and beneficial test
This book is also a profession of faith. The president of the Asom believes in the values of the Francophonie and pleads for a collective start, so that the organization remains a relevant actor in the reconfiguration of the world. It invites France to defend the place of French more firmly in international institutions and to engage for a dynamic Francophonie, capable of promoting dialogue between the southern and the fractured West.
« Francophonie Is a precise, sincere and tonic essay, which combines institutional analysis with a personal look of a privileged actress and observer. It is aimed as much to specialists in international relations as to citizens concerned with the future of French -speaking multilateralism. A book that invites you to reflect and action, at a pivotal moment for the Francophonie.
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* ASOM: Academy of Overseas Sciences (Paris)
https://www.academieoutremer.fr/
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