A symbol of ‘Françafrique,’ Robert Bourgi’s book examines his life, his relationship with his mentor Jacques Foccart, and the ‘missions’ he undertook over nearly forty years on behalf of African and French presidents, including prominent figures on the Right (Jacques Chirac, Nicolas Sarkozy, Charles Pasqua, Jacques Toubon, Dominique de Villepin, Claude Guéant, François Fillon, etc.).
He reveals the financing circuits of French political parties, drawing from personal notes kept over four decades. Bourgi also deciphers the sensitive issues in which he was involved: the release of French journalists from Lebanon in the 1980s, the rehabilitation of Mobutu Sese Seko, the release of French hostage Clothilde Reiss in Iran, the rescue of Laurent Gbagbo, the resignation of Jean-Marie Bockel, the appointment of French ambassadors to Africa, and lobbying the Élysée Palace on behalf of African heads of state, among others.
From Félix Houphouët-Boigny and Laurent Gbagbo (Côte d’Ivoire) to Mobutu Sese Seko (DR Congo), through Blaise Compaoré (Burkina Faso), Mathieu Kérékou (Benin), Abdoulaye Wade and Macky Sall (Senegal), Mohamed ould Abdel Aziz (Mauritania), and Gnassingbé Eyadéma (Togo), as well as Pascal Lissouba and Denis Sassou Nguesso (Congo), and notably Omar and Ali Bongo (Gabon), Bourgi lifts the veil on the psychology of many presidents south of the Sahara and their regimes, providing readers with a fresh perspective on France’s African policy over several decades.
