Learn about current or recent events connecting US and European countries with Francophone African nations.

 Learn about current or recent events connecting US and European countries with Francophone African nations.

 Overview: France and Belgium’s involvement in Africa did not end when their former colonies gained independence.  As you have seen through your classmates’ presentations, terrorist groups are unfortunately active in many of these countries, and both France and the US have military troops on the ground to assist in anti-terrorist operations.  Another area where France remains very active is economically; my lecture this week will include the concept known as “Françafrique” which refers to the economic and political web that links France to its former African colonies.  France has also maintained important ties to other countries such as Lebanon, as you can see from Macron’s involvement after the explosion in Beirut.   Finally, Belgium’s history in Congo has meant continued ties between those two countries. 

Please be sure your articles are news articles from newspapers of record or other respected news sites.  Try a variety of Google search terms rather than choosing the first article you see (remember to click on the “news” tab in your search).  See this page (section entitled “For newspaper articles”) if needed for a reminder on how to search newspapers/ news sites (some people for their short country presentation used background information sites rather than actual news reporting). 

For each of your articles, make a separate post  containing the following information:

(1) The first words in your post must be the “category” above, so students can search effectively.  Start your post with:

Category A: (or the appropriate letter), then

(2) Give the title, source, and link (if available) to each article.  [The color-coding is for the following example; you do not have to color-code!]

Here is an example using a French article (so I didn’t use up one you might want to use!) —

Category D: “Emmanuel Macron: «Libanais, vous êtes comme des frères pour les Français»,” Le Figaro,  https://www.lefigaro.fr/flash-actu/liban-emmanuel-macron-arrive-a-beytouh-pour-sa-deuxieme-visite-en-moins-d-un-mois-20200831 (Links to an external site.)

Note: if you found the article through the library databases, instead of a link you can give the date of the article; with the date, source, and title, others could find it.

(3) Give a BRIEF summary of the article you read (1-2 paragraphs).

(4) Give your reaction to the article (1-2 paragraphs).

Instructions: For your discussion this week, you will find and report on a total of TWO newspaper articles (published since 2017), ONE each about TWO of the following topics:

A. Francophone African countries’ own military operations

B. French military involvement in Africa 

C. US military involvement in Africa

D. French involvement in Lebanon

E. French economic ties to any African country

F.  Belgium’s current relations with Congo (DRC)