Crisis in Madagascar: “Get France Out”… Anti-French Reactions have Multiplied Since the President’s Flight

TENSION: Anti-French protests erupted in Madagascar after the alleged exfiltration of President Andry Rajoelina by a French military plane, reigniting anger against the former colonial power with slogans like “Get France out”

Get France Out”. Anti-French signs have flourished in the streets of Madagascar. The shadow of the hand of Paris in the exfiltration of the president Andry Rajoelina revived strong anger against the former colonial power.

The French “are still colonizing us, even though we are supposed to be independent”, protests Koloina, a 26-year-old engineer. The president’s flight on Sunday aboard a French military plane, don’t pass. “It’s unfair that they would intervene in such a matter”, she said. “We do not want a French president for Madagascar”, said another sign from the demonstrators, in reference to Rajoelina’s French nationality which has irritated the country since its revelation in 2023.

“People have not forgiven France”

This negative vision is not surprising, underlines Christiane Rafidinarivo, political scientist and associate researcher at the Cevipof political research center in Paris. In the “Malagasy perception”, she emphasizes, “France is coloniality”. And the colonization of this island in the Indian Ocean, completed with independence in 1960, is marked by numerous abuses. Like the bloody repression of the 1947 insurrection, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives. “This perception is circulating in public opinion and is activated according to current events”, she analyzes.

In 2011, Andry Rajoelina, then transitional president lacking international recognition, made an official visit to France, where he was received by President Nicolas Sarkozy two years after overthrowing the power in place, with the help of the military. “People have not forgiven France” for having given Andry Rajoelina “a form of legitimacy”, believes Adrien Ratsimbaharison, professor of Political Science at an American university. “They also suspected Sarkozy of having financially helped Rajoelina […] to overthrow Ravalomanana. ”

The decline of French influence in Africa

If anti-French sentiment is so fertile, it is because in addition to large contracts, such as the Antananarivo cable car or the motorway, awarded to economic players in France, interactions with the French do not lend themselves always to sympathy. Added to the many French seniors visiting Madagascar for sex tourism is the arduous work in the call centers of French companies established thanks to the creation of free zones, which represent thousands of jobs.

Just before disappearing, Andry Rajoelina also granted presidential pardons to a Franco-Malagasy and a Frenchman, both convicted of coup d’état, and since transferred to France. Bargaining “between French people”, many accuse in the street.