Jacques Foccart

Robert Bourgi the 79-year-old last éminence grise of Françafrique has revealed all – mostly – in a book about his 40-year-career first as a trusted lieutenant of Jacques Foccart and then after inheriting his mantle...

The cosy and corrupt relationships between France and its ex-colonies nurtured by Charles de Gaulle's eminence grise Jacques Foccart have been commonly referred to by one word: Françafrique...

Originally Bolloré built his African network out of the contacts book of Jacques Foccart the shadowy master of intrigue who created a murky network of influence known as Françafrique under President Charles de Gaulle which has connected French presidents with top French businesses and Francophone African leaders ever since...

When it began in 1973 27 summits ago Franco-African policy was the province of the fabled and feared Jacques Foccart who ruthlessly managed the sub-Saharan business and political network out of the Elysée palace...

Toubon is a member of the opaque and influential political Club 89 - as is Maurice Robert who worked with the Françafrique dinosaur Jacques Foccart and lawyer Robert Bourgi Sarkozy's current Africa go-between...

The late President Charles de Gaulle's old Africa chief Jacques Foccart whom Chirac had brought out of retirement died at the same time...

Back in 1967 he was sponsored by France's legendary Monsieur Afrique Jacques Foccart on the assumption that someone lacking wide ethnic support could be manipulated...

There will be no return to the old personal networks entrusted to presidential Africa advisors such as Gaullists Jacques Foccart and Fernand Wibaux or President François Mitterrand's son Jean-Christophe (dubbed Papa m'a dit - 'Daddy told me')...

The most high profile of these is Jean-Christophe Mitterrand son of the late President who cultivated his African networks as assiduously as Chirac's friend the late Jacques Foccart and until now with more commercial success...

Chirac inherits his African opinions from the Gaullist line through Giscard d'Estaing and the veteran éminence grise Jacques Foccart who until his death would telephone Chirac daily with diplomatic advice (some of it very odd)...