France to review Africa defense pacts: Sarkozy

By Wendell Roelf and Serena Chaudhry

CAPE TOWN (Reuters) - France will renegotiate all its defense accords with African countries, President Nicolas Sarkozy said on Thursday in a move that could scale back France's military support for some of its closest allies.

France has defense cooperation agreements with several former colonies under which its forces provide varying degrees of military assistance, but Sarkozy has set out to reshape the country's relationship with Africa.

"France has no call to maintain armed forces in Africa indefinitely," Sarkozy told South Africa's parliament on a state visit to the continental power.

"I am not saying that the existing agreements should necessarily be scrapped and that everything should be erased with the stroke of a pen," Sarkozy continued. "They must reflect Africa as it is today and not as it was yesterday."

After colonial rule ended in the 1960s, France regularly intervened to prop up favored rulers in French-speaking Africa, sometimes drawing accusations of helping dictators to protect entrenched business and political interests.

France has around 9,500 troops stationed in Africa, of whom 2,900 are based in Djibouti.

"The drafting of these (defense) agreements is obsolete and it is no longer conceivable, for example, that the French army should be dragged into internal conflicts," Sarkozy said.

Defense agreements would be transparent, the "best antidote" to what he called misunderstandings about Paris' intentions.

"This does not mean that France is disengaging from Africa," he said.

"On the contrary, I want France to engage to an even greater extent, alongside the African Union, in putting together the collective security system that Africa needs, because African security is of course first and foremost a matter for the Africans to handle."

Jean-Dominique Merchet, a journalist at left-wing French dialy Liberation who specializes in defense matters, said France was seeking to get out of confrontational situations in Africa and shift some of the burden onto international bodies.

"The idea is to leave on tiptoes while emphasizing that we are Africanizing, Europeanizing or internationalizing operations on African soil," he said.

The change in French policy comes as the United States steps up its own security engagement on the continent with the creation last year of a new military command for Africa.

Washington too has stressed it wants to help Africans help themselves, but has been forced to allay fears that its presence may fan terrorism instead of combating it.

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