On the margins of the Françafrique: Franco-Burundian and Franco-Rwandan bonds from an historical perspective

The article comparatively analyses Franco-Burundian and Franco-Rwandan relations during the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s. From the 1970s, the two former Belgian colonies were integrated into the complex political, economic, cultural and military system that France implemented with its former colonies. By the mid-1980s, Paris achieved a formal co-optation of the two states in the traditional Franco-African order, with more success in Rwanda than in Burundi. Nevertheless, in both cases this co-optation was partial: the interconnections between Paris, Bujumbura and Kigali in 1985 were not as intense and as close as the other traditional Franco-African bonds. The article explores the process of inclusion of the two states in the pré carré africain français. The purpose is to highlight the main features of the relationship between Paris, Bujumbura and Kigali and to evaluate the results achieved by 1985 through an historical and in-depth analysis. The article contributes significantly to existing knowledge on Franco-African relations, and provides a better understanding of the Franco-Burundian and Franco-Rwandan dynamics that emerged in the early 1990s.