Jacques Foccart

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Jacques Foccart (French pronunciation: [ʒak fɔkaʁ]; 31 August 1913 – 19 March 1997) was a French businessman and politician, best known as a chief adviser to French presidents on African colonial, and later post-colonial affairs. He also co-founded in 1959 with Charles Pasqua the Service d'Action Civique (SAC), a controversial organization in the service of Charles de Gaulle. In the 1960s and early 1970s, he exercised significant influence over French policy in Africa, earning the nickname Monsieur Afrique ("Mister Africa"). From 1960 to 1974, Foccart was Secretary-General for African and Malagasy affairs under Presidents Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, and was pivotal in maintaining France's sphere of influence in sub-Saharan Africa (or Françafrique) by putting in place a series of cooperation accords with individual African countries and building a dense web of personal networks that underpinned the informal and family-like relationships between French and African leaders. After de Gaulle, Foccart was seen as the most influential man of the Fifth Republic. But through SAC, he was considered to be involved in various coups d'état in Africa during the 1960s. Nevertheless, Foccart retained his functions during Georges Pompidou's presidency (1969–74). In 1974, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing replaced Foccart with René Journiac, Foccart's former deputy whom he had himself trained. He was then named in 1986 by the new Prime minister Jacques Chirac as an adviser on African affairs for the two years of "cohabitation" with socialist president François Mitterrand. When Chirac finally gained the presidency in 1995, the 81-year-old Foccart was brought back to the Elysée palace as an advisor. He died in 1997. According to the international affairs magazine The National Interest, "Foccart was said to have been telephoning African personalities on the subject of Zaire right up to the week before his death."