https://allafrica.com/view/group/main/main/id/00083641.html
Parts of West Africa have criticized France’s relation with the Economy of the continent of Africa. Opinion Leaders in Burkina Faso, A former French colony, have accused the French of Profiteering. Profiteering is when somebody or a country unfairly and illegally gain money from a source, in this case the country is France and the source of money was Africa. These are serious accusations as it could affect France’s image on a global scale. Africa has already fallen out of favor with the French, this is shown by the steady decrease of French investments and supplying and a steady increase in Chinese investments and supplying since the 2000s, in 2007 China overtook France in ownership of the African Market. China now owns 17% or more than triple France’s amount. Other issues African nations have with the French are unrelated to the economy, according to a survey done by a French company the opinion African Leaders have on France has steadily decreased.
Africa had a rich and long history before European colonization, many groups of people lost everything they knew and had because of European greed. It is impossible to ask for France, Germany, England, or any country that had an African colony to ever repay the debt they owe the African people. Much of the late 1800s and early 1900s were funded on the back of African colonies and the work they did for the world is worth several billions if not trillions of dollars that they were never paid and never will be. I think it is only fair that African Nations are upset that countries like France are still unfairly profiting from Africa. Even if somebody, like China, still profits off of Africa at least it isn’t somebody who has been doing it for hundreds of years.
In class we discussed types of states, one of the types of states was colonies. Nowadays colonies are given much more rights than they were in the late 1800s, Colonies are most often just seen as a non-contiguous part of the home country. Colonies in the late 1800s however were used exclusively for economic and political gain with no concern for the people living in them. This shows the increase there has been in human rights since the late 1800s, but by looking at how we treat people in colonies now we set a precedent for how the people in the African colonies should have been treated, and this criteria was not met at the time by most, if not all, European Nations.