sentenced<\/a>\u00a0Teodorin Obiang, vice president of Equatorial Guinea, to three years in prison and a \u20ac30 million fine for laundering money through French properties.<\/p>\nRedirecting illicit money back to the people is also part\u00a0of a diplomatic strategy to boost France\u2019s image in Africa.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis aspect seems so morally sound that it\u2019s almost impossible to be against it,\u201d said Magali Chelpi-den Hamer, the head of the humanitarian and development program at Paris-based think-tank IRIS\u00a0(the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs). \u201cHowever, the volume of money concerned will be relatively low.\u201d<\/p>\n
Avoiding the debt trap<\/strong><\/p>\nFrance has had a long and complicated relationship with Africa. It gained control of vast\u00a0swaths\u00a0of the continent \u2013 mainly by seizing most of western Africa \u2013\u00a0in the competitive conquest of the continent launched by European powers from the 17th century.<\/p>\n
After a wave of successful independence movements in the 1950s\u00a0and 1960s, France maintained close relations with many Francophone ex-colonies\u00a0in a policy that came to be known as\u00a0Fran\u00e7afrique<\/em>. Advocates of this approach saw France as a guarantor of stability on the continent, but critics saw France\u00a0as loath to give up its colonial-era influence and continuing to play a clientelist role.<\/p>\nThe French state\u2019s focus on Africa\u00a0waned\u00a0in the 1990s as it turned its attention toward European integration.\u00a0But France has once again set its sights on the continent to counter China\u2019s rising influence.<\/p>\n
And this time France seeks to ensure that its activities on the continent do not carry any reminiscence of neo-colonialism, with a new aid policy favoring grants over loans.<\/p>\n
Analysts have become increasingly\u00a0concerned\u00a0about China creating debt traps with its hefty loans to African countries, for which it is the biggest bilateral lender. Chinese loans to underdeveloped countries are even bigger\u00a0than indicated by the\u00a0official figures: around half of them are not reported to the\u00a0International Monetary Fund\u00a0or World Bank, a\u00a0report\u00a0for German think-tank the Kiel Institute for the World Economy found in 2019.<\/p>\n
Until now, France has not had a stellar record on\u00a0loans either:\u00a0in 2018, half of its development aid was in loans instead of grants, according to Oxfam. Nevertheless, while \u201cWestern countries also use debt to gain influence in African countries, unlike China they\u2019re very keen to avoid setting debt traps,\u201d\u00a0said IRIS\u2019s Chelpi-den Hamer.<\/p>\n