La Francophonie's struggle for a 'raison d'etre' goes onBy LEE MWITI in Nairobi | Thursday, October 11   2012 at  13:36

When La Francophonie, that club of the initiated, meets in Kinshasa this weekend for the 14^th biennial summit, the unspoken undercurrent is likely to be one of firefighting, not least for its principal, France.

Debate about Paris’ clout on the continent continues to be animated, but it is one that has over the years generated more heat than light.

The old enemy has been the seemingly unstoppable growth of Anglo-American culture and which has seen the organisation fling open its doors to a motley crowd of countries, many with the weakest of links to France, including Bosnia and Herzegovina and the United Arab Emirates. The membership of India is currently under discussion; it would be a big catch if it materialises.

But this time though there appears to be a real sense that France’s famously protective grouping may have to fight on another battle front as it struggles to justify its raison d'etre.

"France is definitely losing its position [on the continent] to new emerging economies such as Brazil and China,” Congo expert and academic Trefon Théodore told the Africa Review.

"The emergence of other cultural powers [read China] is without doubt changing the cultural landscape in Africa,” Dr Théodore, who has authored the book Congo Masquerade, said.

The means of countering this remains unclear: The new socialist French government under Francois Hollande has looked to adopt a wait-and-see attitude, when Nicolas Sarkozy’s more conservative administration had focused on bulking up its already robust trade ties with Africa, including through military means.

Another influential Francophonie member, Canada, has already indicated that it would be touting trade as its Prime Minister Stephen Harper also makes the trip to a venue that has been an acute source of discomfort since it was announced two years back.

Canada says it is currently negotiating free trade agreements with over 20 Francophonie member and observer countries, a number of them African.

The shift by Rwanda’s Paul Kagame to the Commonwealth was the equivalent of a catastrophe, and the meeting's mood is likely to reflect some anxiety after another crown in the Francophonie jewel, Gabon, strongly hinted that it was looking to follow Kigali’s lead.

Burundi has also been restless, and the choice of neighbour Kinshasa as meeting host could have been influenced by this, although the need to pressurise President Joseph Kabila to improve a deplorable human rights record has been the more visible line.

The organisation's hierarchy has sought to put a brave face on things.

"We are not here to fete one individual, but to celebrate DR Congo and the peoples of central Africa," news agency AFP quoted Francophonie secretary-general Abdou Diouf saying in an interview ahead of the summit.

Organisation Internationale de la Francophonie critics have urged it to look to focus on strengthening its rich cultural and educational ties instead, rather than pushing for more world influence on an already limited budget.

English has more or less cemented its place as the language of international trade and politics, and is also threatening to take over the media. But the threat to its single-most binding ideology of language has also come from within.

The Democratic Republic of Congo has the second-largest French-speaking population and the biggest in Africa, but the popularity of the language has been steadily declining, at least with the younger demographic, in favour of Kiswahili and Lingala. Basic uptake of French has been poor and even more ominously, unattractive, a lecturer in a tertiary Congolese institution says.

It is a scene replicated in other Francophones as diverse as Vietnam.

Francophonie promoters will definitely look to reassure members about the place of wider French culture during the October 12-14 summit, with any communiqué likely to warn against homogenisation. The promise of increased trade and aid looks to a safe bet in rallying the over 3,000 delegates expected, in addition to reaffirming member growth.

"Africa is the future of Francophonie," Mr Diouf, a former President of Senegal, further told Agence France-Presse.

"According to our studies, there will be 715 million Francophones worldwide by 2050 and 85 per cent of them will be in Africa."

There are currently 220 million French speakers globally, with 96 million of them in Africa. Some 13 African states and territories have French as their official language.

Diplomatic intrigue has stalked the Kinshasa summit. The attendance of President Hollande had been in doubt, while former colonial master Belgium would be sending only its Foreign Affairs minister after Prime Minister Elio de Rupo ended strong speculation about his attendance.

President Hollande has already stirred up the waters, slamming Mr Kabila’s record. "The situation in this country is absolutely unacceptable as far as rights, democracy and the recognition of the opposition are concerned,"  he said this week at a press conference in Paris with visiting UN chief Ban Ki-moon.

President Kabila is unlikely to care—the attendance of President Hollande and Mr Harper in addition to an estimated 20 other heads of state will have already given him the international political mileage he craves. There had been pressure to shift the summit following last year’s widely-condemned Congolese elections that served to further isolate the vast country diplomatically.

Whether President Kabila will allow the French leader—who will be in the capital for only the time it takes to get the ball rolling—to meet opposition leader Étienne Tshisekedi as he has requested, remains unclear.

The country's opposition has already threatened to disrupt the summit in protest at the governance record.

France has been under the cosh in recent years for coddling the continent’s remaining rapacious dictators and observers say a tougher line is likely to be taken at the summit. An emergence of younger leaders contemptible of Paris’ indulgence of strongmen in recent years would seem to provide a natural setting for this at the summit.

But it is clear France will not go down without a fight. Its military might was responsible for toppling Ivorian autocrat Laurent Gbagbo, while Paris was last year the setting of a decisive summit of the world’s most powerful military nations that drew up operational details for the blitz on Libya that brought down Muammar Gaddafi.

France has just put together a UN Security Council resolution to hasten an expected international military intervention in Mali in a bid to wrest back northern Mali from Islamists who took advantage of a March putsch to seize half of the country. Paris has, however, ruled out boots on the ground, but has pledged other "aid".

La Francophonie may be sailing in uncertain times, but its potential to create nostalgic bonding remains. A curious fraternity that brings together some of the world’s economic superpowers with more of the world’s weakest, and poorest, countries, how it uses these bonds to navigate the challenges of rapid Anglophonisation of the world and the rise of emerging economies in Africa, will largely determine if the 75-nation organisation continues to die a slow death.