85

"Africa, the French president’s private domain under the Fifth Republic, has gone from being the “King’s secret” channel for diplomacy, as embodied by Jacques Foccart, to a source of highly-publicized scandals. The so-called “Diamond Affair” in 1973, when a Central African dictator, Emperor Bokassa, gave then-minister and future French president, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, two diamonds, is the archetype of this change. The Diamond Affair dramatically altered how France’s Africa policy was perceived; it fell from a lofty platform for national independence, as imagined by General de Gaulle, to a series of lowly scandals studded with shady secret agents. Digging through the media coverage of Françafrique should allow us to understand the “Foccart Syndrome” and move beyond the gossip associated with the Africa Unit in the Elysée Palace, long considered the French Republic’s most secret black box."