From Quebec to Indochina, from Algeria to Rwanda, and now in Ambazonia, the story is the same. France reaches too far, fails, and leaves behind ashes — sometimes its own, too often those of others. This is not strategy. It is not leadership. It is humiliation dressed as grandeur, and history will remember it as such.
By The Independentist editorial desk
France has never recovered from its humiliations. In 1763 it lost Quebec, and with it the dream of a French North America. From that day forward, Paris has tried to project a grandeur it cannot sustain, chasing shadows of empire while lacking the resources to feed its own illusions. Unlike America, which built exceptionalism on the solid ground of continental abundance — fertile land, endless energy, deep markets — France built its pretensions on sand. And every time it has stretched beyond its limits, the result has been the same: defeat, dependency, disgrace.
The Lost Empire That Haunts France
In North America, France folded before Britain. In Indochina, it was humbled by peasant fighters at Dien Bien Phu. In Algeria, it bled and then ran, torn apart by a war it could neither win nor justify. These defeats left scars so deep that French foreign policy became little more than a therapy session for a wounded ego: Africa would become the mirror where Paris pretended still to be a world power.
Françafrique: An Addiction, Not a Strategy
But what is this supposed “greatness”? It is nothing but addiction to weak men in strong palaces. Cameroon’s Paul Biya, a dictator in power for over forty years, is kept on life support by French money, French silence, and French connivance. France calls this stability. The world knows it as corruption, repression, and decline.
And why? Because France has no oil of its own worth speaking of, no uranium, no cocoa. Its agriculture depends on Brussels, its energy on African mines, its currency stability on the CFA franc — a colonial leash it dares to call a partnership. Remove Africa, and France collapses into irrelevance.
Rwanda: The Shame of Genocide
This dependency has turned deadly. In Rwanda, France backed a genocidal regime for the sake of its influence. It armed, advised, and defended men who butchered close to a million people. While the rivers of Kigali ran red, Paris was more concerned with saving its “zone of influence” than saving lives. To this day, Rwanda remains the single greatest moral stain on France’s modern history — and yet it has learned nothing.
Ambazonia: The New Genocide
Now in Ambazonia, history repeats itself. France shields Paul Biya at the UN, fuels his war machine through the CFA system, and closes its eyes as villages burn. Thousands have been killed, millions displaced, and still France whispers that it is defending “Francophonie.” Let us be clear: this is not Francophonie. This is complicity in genocide. Once again, France chooses its illusion of grandeur over human lives.
A Power Without a Foundation
Here lies the cruel irony. America’s exceptionalism, however reckless, stands on abundance. France’s neocon arrogance stands on nothing but dependency. It is the bluff of a gambler with no chips, trying to buy time with other people’s blood. Every veto in New York, every bribe in Yaoundé, every staged “summit” in Paris — all of it is theater to disguise a simple truth: France is a small power pretending at empire, and every day its mask slips.
The Humiliation of Overreach
From Quebec to Indochina, from Algeria to Rwanda, and now in Ambazonia, the story is the same. France reaches too far, fails, and leaves behind ashes — sometimes its own, too often those of others. This is not strategy. It is not leadership. It is humiliation dressed as grandeur, and history will remember it as such.
The Independentist editorial desk
