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Former Ambassador’s Column in Le Monde Highlights the Negative View of “Chinafrique” Among Political & Media Elites in France

by Eric Olander
HEADLINE TRANSLATION: China's presence in Africa is harmful.

Generally speaking, the widely-held narrative among media and political elites in France about the Chinese in Africa is very similar to that in the United States where the Chinese presence on the continent is viewed in decidedly negative terms.

That sentiment was on full display last week in the opinion pages of Le Monde, France’s newspaper of record, where Eugène Berg, a former ambassador to Namibia and Botswana and now a professor at the Center for Diplomatic and Strategic Studies in Paris, penned a column that concluded “Chinafrique” is substantively no different than “Françafrique” or the actions of other colonial powers:

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