IT’S NOT ONLINE (er, unless you subscribe) but the Tuesday, 10/14 issue of the Wall Street Journal has an interesting article entitled “France Feels a Wind of Change: Francophone Africa Starts to Turn Against Its Former Colonizer.” Best quote:

Many Ivorians in the nation’s Christian south are angry with France for refusing to fight against mostly Muslim norther rebels when a civil awr erupted here last year, and for imposing at peace talks near Paris a power-sharing deal with the guerrillas. So it’s not surprising that Ivorian nationalists like Mr. BleGoude are looking for an alliance with one superpower that has scores to settle with France — the U.S.

“The Americans are not hypocritical; if they want to harm you, they tell you, like in Iraq,” he says. “But the French will tell you we are friends, we are together, and then they attack you when you are asleep.”

I wish our diplomacy were in fact that straightforward, but the article is interesting. Reportedly the U.S. is not trying very hard to hurt French interests in West Africa. Too bad.