The french colonies ... I think there's problems nearly everywhere. But the worse is Belgian ones : Congo (it was Zaire something about four years ago), Rwanda and Brundi (remember 1994) ...
Now please don't forget UN have already troops there.
But french presidents, well no, gaullist ones, do things like if France has still its colonies, here's the result ...
Note that the ex-British colonies are much more democratic and less screwed up.
Yes, bust most of them have oil ... There's nearly nothing in Centrafrica (is it the name in english btw ?), Niger, etc. Except Iraq, there's also problems in Sudan isnt'it ?
In terms of democracy, only Canada, Senegal and Louisiana has a long term history, but Senegal is along with Botswana the countries with the longest democratic governments in Africa. In terms of stability countries like Cote D'Ivoire, Benin, Gabon, Cameroun, Niger and Madagascar had been doing pretty well.
Unlike the British the French colonies where establised during a relativly short periode of time. France lost most of her colonies in North America and India after the Pressian 7-years war and during the Napoleonic wars. The colonial empire of 1939 was aquired from 1830 (Algir) to 1920 (Syria) and cannot be described as the most valuable parts of the world (most of the African possesions where dessert or jungle). Unlike the British France kept a serious commitment (with US blessings) in most of her former African colonies. The most important effort was the CFA-franc, a currency attached to the Franc (and today to the Euro) and used by most former colonies south of the Sahara.
Those former colonies that kept the strong coorporation with France (including visits from La Legion Etrangere if there was trouble) has enjoyed a fairly stable ride since independence, with fewer coups, fewer civil wars and no communist or socialist regimes (countries like Mali, Guinea and Congo-Brazzaville detached themselves from French influence before becomming "socialist")
Madagascar isn't that good : I rememebr there were hundreds of murdrs just two or three years ago. About the CFA-Franc now ... It's ... well... pityful ... If you're a tourist in one of those countries, you'd better pay in euro, nearly nobody would accept CFA-Franc.
About the countries which detached themselves from France, ther's also Chad, Mauritania and Niger.
Btw excuse me for my poor level of english
