Ibahim Traoré, president of the transitional government of Burkina Faso. Photo: Government of Burkina Faso.
By Prabhat Patnaik – May 10, 2025
Francophone Africa was never fully decolonised. In the name of protecting French property located in its former colonies, France insisted on, and the former colonies agreed to, the stationing of French troops in those countries. This gave France immense opportunities to intervene in the politics of its former colonies.
In addition, these countries were made to adopt a currency, the CFA franc, which had a fixed exchange rate vis-Ă -vis the French franc. And to maintain this fixed exchange rate, the monetary policy of these countries was controlled by the French central bank. Since monetary policy cannot be separated from economic policy in general, this basically meant that economic policy in these countries was largely controlled by France.
This entire arrangement also survived the integration of France into the European Union system. The independence of these former French colonies, therefore, was always severely circumscribed; and attempts to break out of this situation by revolutionaries who happened to come to power in any of these countries, were met with acts of neo-colonial ruthlessness perpetrated by France with American support against such recalcitrant governments.
Thomas Sankara, a revolutionary who came to power in Burkina Faso and who wanted to get French troops out of his country was killed in a coup, staged by one of his own party members but obviously at French instigation and with French support. The struggle against neo-colonialism in these countries, however, has continued, with the local armed forces often being the sector from which the leadership of such resistance is recruited.
Captain Ibrahim Traore, a leader of the Patriotic Movement for Safeguard and Restoration (PMSR) that was established in early 2022 in Burkina Faso, insisted on getting French troops out of his country after coming to power on September 30, 2022, and actually succeeded in doing so. What is more, he also put an end to the CFA franc arrangement that his country had been trapped in.
Traore formed the Association of Sahel States (AES) along with two neighbouring countries, Mali and Niger, both of whom had also been convulsed with the desire for genuine decolonisation. French and American troops were forced to withdraw from Niger and a Pentagon drone station there was closed down. The AES thus began to emerge as a thorn in the flesh of imperialism in a region that is very rich in mineral resources.
Among these resources, gold occupies an important position and Burkina Faso is among the largest gold producers in Africa, producing 57 tonnes of gold in 2024. But the people of that country hardly benefit from its gold production, with the bulk of the earnings from gold going to foreign companies that own the gold mines.
The PMSR government set up a State-owned company called SOPAMIB in 2024, used it for gradually taking over foreign-owned companies that were engaged in gold extraction, and devoted the much larger revenue that began to accrue to the government from nationalised gold mines to industrialising the country and spreading education and healthcare among the Burkinabe population.
With gold prices rising of late, as clouds begin to gather over the fate of the dollar and make many dollar-holders move to holding gold, the government of Burkina Faso finds itself in a position to take advantage of this situation and negate to an extent the effects of the economic sanctions directly and indirectly imposed by the Western powers in the wake of the expulsion of French troops from its soil.
That was not all. Traoreâs government also regulated the artisanal gold sector, set up a gold refinery in the country, sought to process the other primary products of Burkina Faso domestically, helped the peasants to increase agricultural output, and took steps toward achieving foodgrain self-sufficiency.
These measures predictably attracted the anger of the US, and the chief of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM), General Michael Langley, in a hearing before an American Senate Committee, maliciously accused Traore of using the revenue earned from gold for his personal use, specifically for stepping up his personal security.
Langleyâs comments, which were much publicised by the media all over Africa, drew widespread criticism from people across the entire continent. But Langleyâs remarks were perhaps meant to set the stage for a coup against Traore.
An attempt at a coup duly followed on April 16, amidst a plethora of writings in the West, often from unnamed sources, about the âdictatorialâ nature of the Traore government and the human rights violations occurring in Burkina Faso. The coup attempt, however, was unsuccessful, and the plotters were arrested, thus ensuring that Traore did not meet Sankaraâs fate.
The coup attempt, which is such a predictable response of imperialism to an African government seeking to achieve decolonisation that one almost feels as if one is reading an old and hackneyed script, underscores the difficulties that the struggle for decolonisation faces in the African continent, including in Francophone Africa.
These difficulties arise from multiple sources. Burkina Faso, for instance, even while confronting imperialism, is simultaneously faced with an insurgency by Islamic terrorists who control as much as 40% of the countryâs land area.
Additionally, the region is also dotted with pro-Western regimes funded by imperialism and which enjoy power through ritually-staged periodic elections in which people stripped of any effective agency are allowed to participate. Imperialism uses such regimes to serve its ends, from getting them to impose sanctions against deviant governments to providing the base for staging coups against them.
The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), for instance, was mobilised against Burkina Faso. It threatened Burkina Faso with economic sanctions ostensibly in the name of defending democracy (for the revolutionary regime there had come to power by overthrowing a âdemocratically electedâ pro-Western government). But this effort did not cut much ice given the strong popular support that, ironically, the so-called âanti-democraticâ Traore enjoyed among the Burkinabes, which was shown by the large street demonstrations in support of his government; and the AES was formed as a breakaway from ECOWAS.
Ivory Coast, a neighbouring country, has been used as a base for French interests to stage coups in Burkina Faso. In fact, the plotters of the coup against Sankara eventually fled to Ivory Coast and are still enjoying sanctuary there, and even the failed coup in April this year is reported to have used Ivory Coast as its base.
Against such difficulties, the drive for decolonisation initiated in West Africa has found immense and enthusiastic support over the African continent as a whole. Thousands of people staged demonstrations all over Africa in support of Traore, asking imperialists to lay their hands off Burkina Faso. The cause for which Patrice Lumumba, Amilcar Cabral, Eduardo Mondlane and Thomas Sankara laid down their lives and for which Kwame Nkrumah and Julius Nyerere fought all their life, resonates strongly with the people of Africa. And we are seeing at present the beginning of a new chapter in the struggle for Africaâs liberation.
Imperialism, however, is going to become even more vicious in the days to come against this struggle. In addition to the old French interests, now there is the new quest for raw materials all over the world by the Donald Trump regime in which Africa obviously will play a crucial role. In fact, Trump has already drawn up a plan to control the mineral resources of the Congo with the connivance of the Congolese regime.
The urgency with which Trump is seeking to control the mineral resources of the world, especially those resources that are required by the new and emerging technologies, is a matter we shall discuss in a later article. But this urgency is evident in his deal with Ukraine, in his desire to take over Greenland, in his plans to make Canada the 51st state of the US, and in his covetous designs to control even the ocean floor. Even his desire to act as the âhonest brokerâ for peace in the war between Russia and Ukraine cannot be seen to be altogether unrelated to his desire to have access to the rich mineral resources of both countries.
Africa, it follows, will emerge in the coming days as a theatre of intense struggle between imperialism on the one hand, and the forces of decolonisation on the otherâthe former wanting to control its rich natural resources for itself and the latter wanting to acquire possession of these resources for improving the lives of the people.
Prabhat Patnaik
Prabhat Patnaik is an Indian Marxist economist and political analyst. He taught at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning in the School of Social Sciences at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi, India, from 1974 until his retirement in 2010. He is the author of several books including Accumulation and Stability under Capitalism (1997), Re-Envisioning Socialism (2011), The Value of Money (2008), Retreat to Unfreedom: Essays on the Emerging World Order (2003), A Theory of Imperialism (with Utsa Patnaik, 2016), etc.
