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Africa does go to the head: honors and advantages can be won, which are hard to attain in France, and some of the “tribes” of the French elite seem easily lured by this. Media advisers, journalists, press barons, and lawyers with a keen sense of constitutional bricolage deserve particular attention on this count. While the end of the Chirac era brings a historical cycle to an end, these relics of the Françafrique perpetuate an archaic dependency link—and try to adapt it to the new zeitgeist—in collaboration with most of the pré carré autocrats, elected or not, who fear its dilution. Sarkozy’s mantra of “rupture” is little more than wishful thinking.