Supporters of Socialist Party candidate for the presidential election Francois Hollande celebrate with champagne after the first results of the second round of French presidential elections outside Socialist Party campaign headquarters in Paris, France, Sunday, May 6, 2012.
France’s Socialist candidate Francois Hollande was celebrating a presidential victory Sunday, but the country’s former colonies in Africa have nothing to cheer, said Burundi economic consultant Zenon Nicayenzi.
“Yes, the Left has won,” he said. “But this doesn’t signify that the Left is going to fundamentally change the strategy of France.”
The economy, jobs and immigration were hotly debated during France’s presidential campaign. But foreign affairs – including the country’s longstanding ties with Africa – often took a backseat.
In Paris’ Chateau Rouge neighborhood, African businesses line the street, catering African immigrants who call Paris their second home.
Cheikh Lo, an illegal immigrant from Senegal, told VOA reporter Lisa Bryant he thought Hollande’s win was a victory for Africans, because he said life in France under President Sarkozy has been difficult. He believes the Socialist Hollande will help illegal immigrants like himself get their working papers in France.
Sarkozy cracked down on illegal immigration during his five years in office. During his campaign, he also said that France has too many immigrants – in what analysts described as a bid to woo far-right voters.
But analyst Nicayenzi said Lo will probably see no change. “I saw [Socialist] Mitterrand in 1981, when he was elected Africans danced,” he said. “But when he left, we saw there was no big change between him and Chirac.”
Nicayenzi said Africa must foster its own development.
“Africa must say, ‘We are independent but at the same time dependent. We have been independent for years, at the same time the world is globalizing. All the time, the deep solutions don’t come from France or Hollande, or America or England, Russia or China,” said Nicayenzi.
“They have enormous problems in their own countries,” Nicayenzi added. “Africans must say, ‘We also have enormous problems and it’s firstly for me to find the solutions.’”
Late Sunday, projections estimated that Hollande had won just over 50 percent of the vote, becoming France’s first Socialist president in nearly two decades. Shortly after the polls closed, Sarkozy called his challenger to concede defeat.
Ghana and Nigeria have already shown their proficiency at youth level in African women’s football, and they have the chance to provide further evidence of their advances again this month. Their U-20 sides are one tie away from qualifying for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Japan later this year, and they are seeking to emulate the feat of their U-17 girls, who have already booked their places at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Azerbaijan.
Nigeria, who were runners-up at the last U-20 event in Germany two years ago, will begin at home by facing off against the Democratic Republic of Congo in the third and final round of qualifying. The Congolese have been to two previous FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cups, in Russia in 2006 and Chile two years later. The other decisive tie is between Ghana and Tunisia, who hope to become the first north African nation to qualify for a FIFA women’s football tournament.
Ghana will be favourites based on the fact they had a side at the last FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Germany, the first time they had qualified at that level. “No doubt our motivation is to get to the World Cup again,” said Black Princesses coach Robert Sackey, whose side are away in the first leg of their tie at the Soukara Municipal Stadium in Tunis on Saturday. “We will not be satisfied until we deliver. The most important thing is the delivery.”
“We will not be satisfied until we deliver. The most important thing is the delivery.”
Ghana coach Robert Sackey on his team’s goal of reaching Japan
Ghana were quite formidable in the previous round against a well-drilled South African side with Priscilla Saahenen and Jane Ayiyam setting themselves out as players to watch in the future. In the end, Ghana’s 5-0 aggregate triumph reflected their dominance. Their Tunisian opponents have got further than ever before in qualifying with wins over Morocco and Kenya in the previous rounds. Part of the reason for their success has been their ability to draw on players from the diaspora in Europe. When they thrashed Morocco away in the first round, the goals came from Paris St. Germain striker Leila Maknoun and the Lyon-based Amel Majri. Also in the squad is Ella Kaabachi from PSG.
Can Falconets make it six from six?Nigeria’s Falconets have been to each of the past five FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cups and the country still has a stranglehold on the upper-echelon of women’s soccer on the continent. It means the confident statement by their coach Edwin Okon ahead of Saturday’s first leg at the MKO Abiola Stadium in Abeotuka is not unexpected. “Our game plan is to win both legs and qualify Nigeria for the World Cup,” he said, adding his squad was complete without any injuries or suspension. Both Nigeria and the Lady Leopards from Congo DR scored six goals over two legs in the previous round, but Okon says: “[Congo DR] won’t be able to score goals when we meet on Saturday”.
Nigeria again have exciting talent, much of it promoted up from the team that played at the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Trinidad and Tobago two years ago. But their key to success remains talents like Desire Oparanozie and Ebere Orji, who competed in Germany two years ago. Congo DR have sent former men’s national team coach Joseph Mukeba to Nigeria to assist Raphael Monsi on the bench, hoping a little more experience can help plot the downfall of their confident hosts.
The return legs will be played in Kinshasa and Accra on 18-20 May, and the winner of the home-and-away aggregate score will go through to Japan.
The trip of a lifetime to celebrate a Scottish woman’s 60th birthday turned brutal when two supposedly tame cheetahs attacked the woman at a game reserve in South Africa.
Violet D’Mello and her husband Archie were allowed to get up close and pet two brother cheetahs, Mark and Monty, at the Kragga Kamma Game Park in Port Elizabeth last weekend.
“They seemed to be pretty docile. They said they were hand reared from cubs and were extremely tame and one could you know stroke them and not only that lay on them and they’ll do nothing to you,” Archie D’Mello said.
Cheetah Mauling a Woman
The couple had just taken photos with the animals and were still in the petting area when one of the cats grabbed an 8-year-old girl by the leg.
Violet D’Mello tried to stop the attack. After the girl ran for safety, D’Mello said both cheetahs turned on her in a savage attack that lasted for more than three minutes.
Incredibly, Archie D’Mello kept taking pictures, documenting the horrific scene as the animals bit and scratched his wife’s head, legs and stomach.
Violet D’Mello said her instinct took over while a guide tried to pull the cats off of her.
“Something inside me just said, ‘Don’t move. Don’t move at all. Don’t react, just play dead’,” she told the Port Elizabeth Herald.
Miraculously, Violet D’Mello walked away with no life-threatening wounds.
The 60-year-old lost a lot of blood during the attack and has a lot of stitches on both her thighs and her scalp, her husband said.
Park manager Mike Cantor told the newspaper the park had never had any problems with the previously beloved cheetahs.
“It’s not something we’ve ever really experienced. It’s obviously very unfortunate, and we’re looking into what may have startled or riled up the cheetahs,” Cantor said.
The petting facility is closed to the public while the park investigates the attack.
Muammar Gaddafi’s former prime minister, in jail in neighboring Tunisia, says the ousted Libyan leader funded French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign to the tune of 50 million euros ($66 million), according to his lawyer.
Sarkozy, fighting an uphill battle for re-election at polls on Sunday, dismissed the accusation in comments to Canal + television. “Who believes this rubbish?,” he asked. “It’s outrageous, grotesque.”
Sarkozy had previously dismissed as false a 2006 letter purportedly from Libya’s former secret services and discussing an “agreement in principle” to pay 50 million euros to Sarkozy’s campaign.
Sarkozy has said he will sue the news website Mediapart for publishing the document it says proves Gaddafi’s government sought to finance Sarkozy’s run at the presidency when he was interior minister.
But the lawyer for former Libyan Prime Minister Al Baghdadi Ali al-Mahmoudi, who is being held in Tunisia pending a decision on his extradition to Libya, said on Thursday the letter was authentic and that the funding went ahead.
“Mahmoudi told me that Gaddafi really did fund the election campaign of Nicolas Sarkozy,” the lawyer, Bechir Sid, told journalists in Tunis.
Sid said Mahmoudi had informed him that Moussa Koussa, Gaddafi’s former foreign minister, was the one who signed the letter authorizing funding. Koussa fled Libya to Britain in March 2011, seeking refuge after quitting Gaddafi’s government.
“He said Moussa Koussa was the one who signed the document with funding of 50 million euros,” he told a news conference.
Moussa Koussa could not be reached for comment. However, a source close to him said he reaffirmed a statement he gave to French media a few days ago in which he said: “All these allegations are false.”
Mahmoudi was for years a powerful figure inside Gaddafi’s ruling elite. He served as Gaddafi’s prime minister from 2006 until he fled to neighboring Tunisia around the time that rebel fighters took the country’s capital Tripoli in August.
Mustafa Abdel Jalil, the head of Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) which has ruled Libya since Gaddafi’s ouster last year, said on Wednesday the letter was fake.
“After the media reported about this letter, we have seen this letter, and we checked it and we didn’t find any reference to this letter in Libyan archives,” he told a news conference, adding that it was worded unusually for the former regime.
Beyonce, Queen Latifa and other African-American pop icons who have recently gone blond can use a scientific basis as a reason for their fashion choice now that scientists have established a blond gene in Africans in the South Pacific. The native inhabitants of the Solomon Islands – east of Papua New Guinea – are very dark-skinned – but have puzzled scientists for decades with their blond hair. The ancestors of these native inhabitants migrated from Southeast Asia and had originated in Africa 50,000 to 70,000 years ago.
Now a genetic study has found that the islanders have a ‘homegrown’ gene that gives them blond hair – and it’s different from the one in Europeans.
‘Its frequency is between 5 and 10 percent across the Solomon Islands, which is about the same as where I’m from,’ said study author Eimear Kenny, PhD, who was born in Ireland.
Globally, blond hair is rare, occurring with substantial frequency only in northern Europe and in Oceania, which includes the Solomon Islands and its neighbours.
Many assumed the blond hair of Melanesia was the result of gene flow — a trait passed on by European explorers, traders and others who visited in the preceding centuries.
The islanders themselves give several possible explanations for its presence – they generally chalked it up to sun exposure, or a diet rich in fish, say the researchers.
‘Within a week we had our initial result. It was such a striking signal pointing to a single gene — a result you could hang your hat on. That rarely happens in science,’ said Kenny‘It was one of the best experiences of my career.’
In terms of genetic studies, the analysis was straightforward, said Kenny.
But gathering the data, accomplished in 2009 by Myles and co-first author Nicholas Timpson, PhD, was more difficult. Much of the Solomon Islands is undeveloped, without roads, electricity or telephones.
It’s also one of the most linguistically diverse nations in the world, with dozens of languages spoken.
‘They have this very dark skin and bright blond hair. It was mind-blowing,’ said Myles. ‘As a geneticist on the beach watching the kids playing, you count up the frequency of kids with blond hair, and say, ‘Wow, it’s 5 to 10 percent.’
Myles and Timpson went village to village explaining what they wanted to do and asking for permission to gather data, Myles speaking in Solomon Islands pidgin, the most widely understood language.
When the local chief gave the OK, the researchers recruited participants and assessed hair and skin colour using a light reflectance meter, took blood pressure readings and measured heights and weights.
They asked the villagers to spit into small tubes to provide saliva to be used for DNA extraction. In the span of a month, they collected more than 1,000 samples.
Soon after, Kenny joined the lab and started the analysis, selecting 43 blond- and 42 dark-haired Solomon Islanders from the opposite 10 percent extremes of the hair pigmentation range.
She used these in a genome-wide association study, a method to reveal differences in the frequency of genetic variants between two groups, that usually requires thousands of samples.
Because the vast majority of human physical characteristics analysed to date have many genetic and environmental factors, Kenny expected an inconclusive result that would require much further study. Instead, she immediately saw a single strong signal on chromosome 9, which accounted for 50 percent of the variance in the Solomon Islanders’ hair colour.
The team went on to identify the gene responsible, TYRP1, which encodes tyrosinase-related protein 1, an enzyme previously recognised as influencing pigmentation in mice and humans. Further research revealed that the particular variant responsible for blond hair in the Solomon Islands is absent in the genomes of Europeans.
‘So the human characteristic of blond hair arose independently in equatorial Oceania. That’s quite unexpected and fascinating,’ Kenny said.
Vlisco has unveiled its latest campaign and it asks you to channel your inner goddess with luxurious looks that’ll make you feel glamorous and as free as the wind. The Vlisco Palais des sentiments collection features an opulent mix of textures, jewel-toned prints and fluid silhouettes, inspired by dreams of exotic palaces, of delicate, dancing fabrics and of glittering golden moons. Add a touch of rich romance to your wardrobe with the Palais des sentiments collection. Create an alluring effect with flowing lines and layers of textiles. Get that lavish look with paisley patterns in bright colours and vibrant floral fabrics, set off by intricate embellishments in gleaming gold and sequins. These designs will also form part of the Palais des sentiments fashion & accessories collection, available at selected Vlisco boutiques from may 2012.
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The economy, jobs and immigration are hotly debated issues during France’s presidential campaign. But foreign affairs are taking a backseat – and the country’s longstanding ties with Africa are no exception.
Francois Hollande and Nicolas Sarkozy
The Chateau Rouge neighborhood in northern Paris is a second home to many immigrants from North and sub-Saharan Africa. The busy streets are lined with African hairdressers, restaurants, clothing shops and phone stores offering cheap calls to families back home.
There are also a few battered posters of the two finalists in Sunday’s presidential runoff vote – incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy and Socialist Party frontrunner Francois Hollande.
Forty-year-old Paulette Wetche, a hairdresser from Cameroon, is not interested in either candidate.
Wetche, who has French citizenship, is not sure how she will cast her ballot on May 6. As far as she is concerned, all politicians make promises they never keep. So there is not much difference between Sarkozy and Hollande.
Cheikh Lo, an illegal immigrant from Senegal, does not agree.
Lo says under President Sarkozy, life in France has been difficult. He is praying for Hollande to win the elections because he believes the Socialist candidate will help illegal immigrants like himself get their working papers in France.
Sarkozy has cracked down on illegal immigration during his five years in office. During his campaign, he has also said that France has too many immigrants – in what analysts describe as a bid to woo far-right voters.
But it is not certain that Hollande will help illegal immigrants like Lo if he becomes president. In an interview on French radio Friday, he said that during the current economic slowdown, it is necessary to limit economic immigration to France – and that he would crack down on illegal immigrants.
France’s relationship with Africa is, of course, far broader than just immigration. When he was elected to office in 2007, Sarkozy vowed to a radical break from traditional French-African relations, which critics say was marked by lack of transparency and cronyism.
At a 2010 summit with African leaders in the southern city of Nice, Sarkozy said France and Africa have a special relationship – and it is impossible today to address major international issues without Africa.
Has Sarkozy charted the new French-African relationship he promised? Pierre Cherruau, editor-in-chief of the online publication, Slate Afrique, is not so sure.
“It is very difficult to cut these kind of [strings] because there is a strong economic background – some very important French companies are linked to this network, like the oil business or the nuclear business – companies like Areva,” said Cherruau.
Still, Cherruau says there have been some changes. Under Sarkozy, France has reduced its military footprint on the continent. Sarkozy’s government also argues relations are much more transparent.
While Sarkozy has retained ties to some longtime African leaders, he has also forged new ones – including with the current, democratically elected presidents of Ivory Coast and Senegal.
Cherruau believes that if Hollande is elected, he could usher in yet more changes. Hollande, for example, took a tough line early on against former Ivorian leader Laurent Gbagbo, who once had close ties to France’s socialist party.
But Cherruau says Hollande lacks African experience – and that if African leaders could vote next Sunday, they would probably pick Sarkozy.
“Most presidents in Africa feel closer to the conservative party,” he said. “Because in the past, they had relations with the right wing, with the conservative party.”
At Chateau d’Eau, Wetche does not believe Sarkozy has improved French-African ties. She looks at the issue from her own experience; life for her family back in Cameroon is just as tough as ever.
Wetche says things could change under an Hollande presidency. But these are hard times, she says, and it is very difficult to know which politician to trust.
The slave trade once made the people of Nantes rich, but the French city covered up its dark history for decades. It recently erected a memorial to the victims in a project believed to be the first of its kind in Europe. But the effort to shed light on the Continent’s role in the 18th century slave trade with Africa and the New World has not been popular with some residents.
In the 18th century, cruelty had poetic names, like Le Prudent (“The Prudent”), La Légère (“The Light”) or Les Trois Maries (“The Three Marys”). The ships, named in the hope of a good voyage or baptized with Christian first names, were part of a brutal business between Europe, Africa and America: the slave trade. During a period of approximately 400 years, at least 13 million people were transported under horrendous conditions from Africa to the colonies of the New World.
The northwestern French city of Nantes played a central role in what has been described as the largest forced migration in global history. Although the city’s merchants came late to the lucrative slave trade, long after the Portuguese, Spanish and British, over the course of the 18th century the city on the Loire River became a central hub of the Atlantic triangular slave trade — and with it the most important port city in France.
Over 40 percent of the French slave trade was carried out via the city, with around 450,000 men, women and children abducted from Africa to America. According to curator Marie-Hélène Jouzeau, who is responsible for the city’s historical heritage, it wasn’t just the major merchant families who specialized in the business. “The entire mercantile community was involved, and the whole region profited from it,” she told SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Late last month, and with little fanfare in the international press, Nantes officials opened the Memorial to the Abolition of Slavery, which the organizers claim is unique in Europe. The site of the memorial, the Quai de la Fosse, is a history-steeped wharf where the slave ships moored before they departed for Africa. The installation comprises a sloping wall of opaque glass that cuts through the wharf’s promenade, while a total of 1,710 panels laid into the sidewalk feature the names of slave ships.
On a lower level, a dimly lit passageway where the water from the river washes over the ground, a wooden boardwalk leads along the sloping transparent wall. It features the word “freedom” in 40 languages as well as poems, documents and other fragments which testify to the struggle against slavery and oppression which lasted over 200 years. A “memory trail” leads from the monument to the city’s history museum, where the slave trade is described with moving documents.
Reflecting on a Dark Chapter
“A kind of memory work,” is how Nantes Mayor Jean-Marc Ayrault describes the monument, with which Nantes is openly confronting its past. “It’s an invitation to reflect on a dark chapter in the history of our city,” he says.
Nantes had long suppressed the brutal origins of its wealth. A collective silence covered up the fact that the prosperity of the city’s great families, like the Michels, Montaudouins and Sarrebourse d’Audevilles, not to mention the splendor of the city’s architecture, were built on the slave trade.
The city, which is known today for the Castle of the Dukes of Brittany, its art festival and its annual Mardi Gras-style carnival, has always boasted of its history as a great industrial city and colonial port. After World War II, it continued as a center for industry and shipping, but has transformed itself into a service industry center in recent decades. In the process, the city’s view was always directed at the future, with the aim of expansion and modernization.
Two hundred years ago, however, sailors loaded printed fabrics, jewelry and liquor onto ships in Nantes’ port. Those goods were later exchanged on Africa’s coast for sugar, cocoa, coffee, cotton, indigo — and people. This trade necessitated a comprehensive infrastructure in Nantes. Shipbuilders, shipowners and suppliers were all involved, and the lucrative voyages were generally financed on credit by consortias of several merchants.
Humans Packed in Torturous Conditions
The ships weren’t bartering in cheap trinkets. Original loading lists of a three-masted ship from Nantes document that up to 80 percent of the cargo consisted of textiles, with the rest made up of pistols, swords, pearls and mirrors. It took the heavily laden ships a good two months to reach their destinations in Africa, where at the time there were around 400 trading outposts between the port of Bissau and Mozambique. Here, white traders negotiated with representatives of African kings regarding the purchase of slaves — a process that could sometimes last up to six months.
Following that, the ships were refitted so they were ready to carry their human cargo. An 18th century plan in the Nantes History Museum shows the example of La Marie Séraphique. Supplies were stashed in barrels in the bilge just above the keel, as well as on the upper deck. In the decks in between, the slaves would be held under terribly confined conditions. Men and women were held in separate pens, bound in pairs in leg irons and manacles. Depending on the type of ship, about 300 slaves could be transported in this way. Around two-thirds were men and one-third women.
From Nantes, the ships would continue to the Caribbean — usually to the Antilles or to Santo Domingo in what is now the Dominican Republic. There, the local plantation owners and colonialists would be waiting for the arrival of labor from Africa. Historical records show that “negroes and negro children” changed hands. Shipowners, as well as captains, wanted the slaves to survive the journey, which spanned several weeks. Nevertheless, between 13 and 19 percent of the captured perished at sea through sickness, suicide or in quashed rebellions.
Profiting without Scruples
Scruples? Remorse? Moral reservations? They certainly weren’t to be found on the part of the ship owners and citizens of Nantes who profited from the trade. An act known as “Le Code Noir” (the Black Code) had legalized the slave business back in 1685. Not only was it accepted, but it was also explicitly encouraged by the royal family and described by the church as an “ordinary occupation.” Noveau riche families shamelessly outfitted themselves with palatial estates in the city, exotic furniture and even employed freed slaves as servants.
Even during the time of the French Revolution in 1789, the traders’ lobby bitterly fought efforts to eliminate the the slave trade, even though the majority of the city’s residents supported the new Republican values of liberté, egalité and fraternité. Even after the ban on the slave trade in France in 1817, some traders in Nantes continued with what had by then become an illegal practice.
According to curator Jouseau, for a long time there remained a “loss of memory,” supported by a distorted look back at the period of the slave trade. It wasn’t until the end of the 1980s that historians, organizations and local politicians began to experience a shift in thinking. The idea to firmly establish the history of slavery into the town’s landscape came next. “It wasn’t an easy path,” Ayrault, the town mayor recalls. “But after initial resistance from reactionaries in the town, the majority of people and politicians ended up backing the plan.”
The monument, created by Polish artist Krzysztof Wodiczko and American architect Julian Bonder is intended as more than a memento of a past tragedy. At Quai de la Fosse, the founding act of the 1948 United Nations Declaration for Human Rights, “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms,” is accompanied by a shocking fact: An estimated 27 million people around the world continue to be enslaved today.
Together with Dj Nio (Zero Plastica), Nomadic Wax co-produced and recently released this mini audio documentary mixtape that explores the experience of African immigrants in Italy. This topic has raised significant controversy in recent years with a large number of racially motivated violent incidents, protests and political activism. Check it out here.
Controversial beauty contest “Miss Black France” crowned a Senegalese student in Paris this weekend. But the event, picketed by far-right protesters, has divided opinion in France.
Mbathio Beye, a 21-year-old Senegalese student of marketing strategy in Paris was crowned Miss Black France on Saturday night.
Romy Niaba, a 22-year-old political science student of Ivory Coast descent, and Aissata Soumah, 23, a Guinean business student were the runners up.
But while it was all sparkles and smiles inside the Miss Black France studio, situated just off the Arc de Triomphe in the capital, angry protesters picketed the show outside.
One demonstrator told news station Radio France International: “Why should Asians and Africans come here and have more rights than us? This is why we’re demanding a Miss White France.”
Others claim the show goes against the secular ideals of the French republic.
Patrick Lozes, former director of the French Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN), told Le Monde: “This contest is detrimental to the values of French society… These girls need to feel French, not black in French society.
“If I think that there are not enough black people in the most prestigious schools and companies, am I going to go create establishments exclusively reserved for blacks?”
But the contest’s founder, Frédéric Royer, says its aim is to “celebrate black beauty”, claiming the Miss France competition is not fully representative of French society.
“Black women are seldom seen on the front of magazines and in Paris, black models are employed a lot less than in London.”
UPDATE: Below is the photo of the winner of the first Miss Black France that was held in 2012. The winner of the crown is Mbathio Beye Elue. She is a 21-year-old student studying marketing in Paris.
The ships weren’t bartering in cheap trinkets. Original loading lists of a three-masted ship from Nantes document that up to 80 percent of the cargo consisted of textiles, with the rest made up of pistols, swords, pearls and mirrors. It took the heavily laden ships a good two months to reach their destinations in Africa, where at the time there were around 400 trading outposts between the port of Bissau and Mozambique. Here, white traders negotiated with representatives of African kings regarding the purchase of slaves — a process that could sometimes last up to six months.
