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# The Globalization Project of the International Organisation of the Francophonie (IOF)

Trang Phan-Labays

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Trang Phan-Labays. The Globalization Project of the International Organisation of the Francophonie (IOF). Ulf Engel; Jens Herpolsheimer; Frank Mattheis. Globalization projects of regional organisation, 2, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, pp.327-344, 2025, Handbooks of Globalization Projects, 978-3-666-34035-2. 10.13109/9783666340352.327 . hal-05202833

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# The Globalization Project of the International Organisation of the Francophonie (IOF)

## Introduction

The French geographer Onésime Reclus is credited with inventing the word “francophonie.” He first used it in 1886 in his book *France, Algeria and Colonies*<fnref n="1" /> to describe “all those who are or seem destined to remain or become participants in our language.” The word “francophonie” began as a geolinguistic term used to identify French speakers around the world. Its birth was strongly linked to the second period of French colonial expansion in Africa and Asia.

In Reclus’s thinking, the language question was destined to play a major strategic role for states. That is the reason why he undertook a census of the number of speakers of the world’s main languages. He estimated the number of French speakers to be 47,825,000, including 41,600,000 in Europe; 3,560,000 in Africa; 2,580,000 in America; and 85,000 in Oceania.

The term, which had fallen into obscurity, was revived in the 1960s under the impetus of the African presidents Léopold Sédar Senghor, Hamani Diori, and Habib Bourguiba, as well as King Norodom Sihanouk.<fnref n="2" /> These were the statesmen of the newly independent former French colonies. The word “francophonie” was gradually used to refer to the community of peoples sharing not only a common language, French, but also common values, a humanist ideal, and a spirit of cross-fertilization. Since Reclus coined the term, a little over a century, its meaning has become much broader. It is linguistic and geographical, but also spiritual, institutional and political. The French-speaking community today—known as the Francophonie, with a capital F—comprises 93 French-speaking states and governments (32 of which are observers), all of which have signed a common charter: the Charter of the Francophonie, adopted at the 7th Francophonie Summit (Hanoi, Vietnam, 1997) and amended in 2005 at the Ministerial Conference of the Francophonie (MCF) in Antananarivo (Madagascar). This geopolitical grouping has its

<footnote n="1">1 Onésime Reclus, *France, Algérie et colonies* [France, Algeria and Colonies] (Paris: Hachette, 1886).</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2 Léopold Sédar Senghor (1906–2001), former president of Senegal, promoter of the international francophone project. Habib Bourguiba (1903–2000), former president of Tunisia, reformer of Tunisian society and campaigner for women’s rights, active ambassador for the francophone project. Hamani Diori (1916–1989), former president of Niger, symbol of the emancipation of sub-Saharan Africa and tireless promoter of the creation of a French-speaking community. Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012), former king of Cambodia, who supported the French-speaking movement from its earliest years.</footnote>
own institutional structure, the nerve center of which is the International Organisation of the Francophonie (Organisation internationale de La Francophonie, IOF).

## Responding to the Global Condition

The march toward a political francophone project has been particularly slow. It took almost half a century if we refer to President Senghor's first words. In 1955, when Senghor was the secretary of state at the Presidency of the Council in Edgar Faure's French government, he spoke to Bourguiba, who was under house arrest in France, about his project “to elaborate and then build a *Commonwealth à la française*.”<fnref n="3" />

Later, Senghor majestically defined his francophone project in his article published in the issue 311 of the *Esprit* magazine in November 1962 on “La langue française, langue vivante” (The French Language, a Living Language):

> The Francophonie is this integral humanism that weaves itself around the Earth: this symbiosis of dormant energies from all continents, all races, awakening to their complementary warmth.

It is worth noting that this issue of the *Esprit* magazine is considered to be the birth of the francophone movement. Its interest lies primarily in the impact of Senghor's text, which promotes the idea that French is not just the language of the French people but the vector of a universal culture and which conceives a new way of approaching the concept of the Francophonie. The francophone project is also at the crossroads of three particular aspirations from France, sub-Saharan Africa, and Quebec. For French authors such as Jean-Marie Domenach, Camille Bourniquet, and Pierre-Henri Simon, once Algerian independence was achieved, the end of the colonial era became not synonymous with the decline of France but, on the contrary, opened up new prospects for action. The future influence of the Hexagone appeared to be linked, in particular, to the maintenance of a global policy based on new relations with French speakers around the world. For Africa, Senghor's argument emphasized the need for newly independent African countries to cooperate on an equal footing with France and other French-speaking countries around the world in order to achieve a dual objective: to avoid the fragmentation of French-speaking Africa and to build a civilizational project around the French language. For Quebec, Jean-Marc Léger<fnref n="4" /> defended the specificity of the French language for the identity of his people while welcoming Quebec's international importance in promoting the French language. At the same time, the French language was now seen as a “shared responsibility” of all French speakers around the world. Even

<footnote n="3">³ Léopold Sédar Senghor, “Le dialogue des cultures” [The Dialogue of Cultures], *Liberté* 5 (1993): 134.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴ Jean Marc Leger (1927–2011) was a Quebec writer and journalist, sovereignist, ardent defender of the French language, “Francophonie activist,” and one of the founders of the multilateral francophone project.</footnote>
if such authors had their own national aspirations and logics, a syncretism seemed to be emerging around the francophone idea and its incarnation within new institutions.

From 1960 to 1986, only heads of state from newly independent countries—Senghor of Senegal, Diori of Niger, Félix Houphouët-Boigny of the Ivory Coast, Bourguiba of Tunisia, Sihanouk of Cambodia, and a handful of others—advocated a *Commonwealth à la française*. Across the Atlantic, not only had Quebec not yet consolidated its Quiet Revolution or asserted its desire to become a player on the international stage, but the federal government of Canada was also contesting this possibility. In France, General Charles de Gaulle—aware of the danger at the time of launching France into such a multilateral construction, which would have been immediately labeled neocolonialism and neoimperialism and thus irremediably weakened—wanted to leave it to other players to build the Francophonie without France taking the initiative or the lead. Thus, the multilateral francophone movement took root in the “rubble of colonialism,” at a time when “young nations” in Africa and Asia had achieved international sovereignty. This followed the failed attempts at association initiated by France through the French Union, instituted in 1946, and the French Community, enshrined in the 1958 Constitution of the Fifth Republic. It was against this backdrop that the idea of creating a multilateral francophone project was put forward by early activists, including the “founding fathers” Senghor, Diori, Bourguiba, and Sihanouk.

The francophone project was not developed by states in its early stages. Rather, it drew “a large part of its power of dream and attraction from the innumerable discussions and proposals of the leaders and activists of the many ‘NGOs’ [and of] the most diverse French-speaking associations, national and international, which have sprung up and proliferated since the Second World War.”<fnref n="5" /> The francophone hope and project have been forged and popularized by hundreds of associations of professionals from all domains (doctors, lawyers, linguists, parliamentarians, mayors, teachers, journalists, academics, writers, artists, researchers, etc.) who use the French language. Some of these associations had set themselves the mission of promoting and disseminating the French language, others the creation of a *Commonwealth à la française*. It is worth noting that this teeming francophone project of associations from the early days contributed to the ideas and orientation of the basic values of the international francophone project. These values included a dialogue between cultures and their equal respect; the progressive acceptance by all member countries of the Francophonie of the European conception of freedoms, democracy, and the status of women, as well as the universality of human rights; as well as the awareness of belonging to Senghor’s “noosphere.” Furthermore, the need to promote the French language in common and fruitful interactions with the other languages present in the francophone space—including the international status

<footnote n="5">5 Arnaud Serge, Michel Guillou, and Albert Salon, *Les défis de la Francophonie : pour une mondialisation humaniste* [The Challenges of the Francophonie : For a Humanist Globalization] (Paris : Alpharès, 2002).</footnote>
of languages such as Spanish, Portuguese, Arabic, and English or with more regional (Creole, Swahili, Dioula, etc.), national (Kinyarwanda, Kirundi, Malagasy, Sango, etc.), or local varieties—was also promoted. The francophone project also pushed the urgent need to constitute a space of privileged solidarity for the development of all; the aim of regional cooperation or even integration; the primacy of education as well as the training of human resources; technology transfers adapted to local cultures; and so on.

This high-level political struggle was connected with the international fabric of French-speaking associations. Senghor and Léger were at the origin of some of the major international French-speaking associations of the time: the Francophone Cultural Union (Union culturelle francophone, UCF), the International Association of French-Speaking Parliamentarians (Association internationale des parlementaires de langue française, AIPLF), the Association of Partially and Entirely French-Language Universities (Association des universités partiellement et entièrement de langue française), and others. The French language thus represented a tool par excellence for cooperation and unity. The reasons behind this francophone political and cultural struggle stemmed in particular from a sense of urgency regarding both young independent countries in the context of decolonization and French speakers around the world worried about the decline of the French language as an international one. In fact, the French language lost its monopoly position as the world's diplomatic language in 1919 with the Treaty of Versailles, when, for the first time, an international legal treaty was drafted in two languages: English and French, instead of just French.

Senghor always stressed the need to establish a multilateral cultural solidarity project underpinned by the French language and its humanist values. But why choose French over African languages? In his view, no African language was ready to bring French-speaking African countries together, especially as Africa needed French more than ever for its postindependence modernization. An agrégé of French grammar, poet, and cultural expert, Senghor always advocated the virtue of French as a language of openness and development for Africa, in place of local languages deemed rather “intuitive” or “poetic.” However, this choice of French should, in his view, respect Africa’s linguistic diversity in order to preserve the development of its peoples. On the other hand, the idea of organizing a multilateral francophone project responds above all to an imperative of solidarity between peoples who share the use of French. This solidarity needed resources to take root and last. Senghor and the founding fathers therefore played the role of a transmission belt between the associative francophone project and the states. To achieve this, Senghor, along with other founding fathers, never ceased to deploy his talents for persuasion as a statesman and his political convictions within the African Regional Conferences. This led to the creation of the Agency for Cultural and Technical Cooperation (Agence de coopération culturelle et technique, ACTC) in 1970.

At the same time, the first steps were taken toward more political institutions. The prudence of French leaders in the 1960s did not prevent the creation of ministerial conferences of a technical nature, at first exclusively Franco-African. The Conference of
Ministers of Education of French-Speaking Countries (Conférence des Ministres de l'éducation des pays francophones, CONFEMEN) was created in 1961, and the Conference of Ministers of Youth and Sports of French-Speaking Countries (Conférence des Ministres de la jeunesse et des sports de la Francophonie, CONFEJES) in 1968—both recognized as institutions of the francophone project. It was the first of these technical ministerial conferences, CONFEMEN, that first raised the delicate issue of Quebec's participation in multilateral cooperation. Quebec, a Canadian province with exclusive jurisdiction over education under the federal constitution, was invited by Gabon to take part in the CONFEMEN meeting in Libreville in 1968. Canada vigorously opposed the invitation, arguing that foreign policy was its sole responsibility. The Gabonese government maintained its official invitation, and Quebec's minister of education attended the meeting. Diplomatic relations between Canada and Gabon were broken off. This participation, albeit difficult, was a first step in the direction of advocates of multilateral francophone cooperation.

In 1970, the three presidents of Senegal (Senghor), Tunisia (Bourguiba), and Niger (Diori) succeeded in bringing together representatives from some 20 French-speaking countries in the latter's capital, Niamey. At the end of their talks, the participating countries (Benin, Upper Volta, Burundi, Canada, Ivory Coast, France, Gabon, Luxembourg, Mali, Mauritius, Monaco, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal, Chad, Togo, Tunisia, and Vietnam) agreed to set up the ACTC. Admittedly, this agency was only for cultural and technical cooperation, as its name implies. Nevertheless, it was based on a formal convention, which was gradually ratified by its signatories. The intergovernmental francophone project thus acquired an existence and an instrument for action.

Although its birth marked an important stage in the progress of the francophone project, marking the transition from an associative to an interstate francophone project, it only partially fulfilled Senghor's vision of a *Commonwealth à la française*, which he later called the Francophone Organic Community (Communauté organique Francophone), to the extent that its areas of competence were essentially cultural and technical. In Niamey, a francophone project based on solidarity was born, but without a political scope. Léger was elected the ACTC's first general secretary. Although Quebec was not a signatory to the convention, it established itself as a full member of the ACTC a year later under the label of a participating government.

It should be noted that the IOF is not a *Commonwealth à la française*. Admittedly, the founding fathers used this expression at the outset, but they emphasized the differences in the objectives of the two organizations. Both were born of the extension of international society, long limited to Europe, to the rest of the world. They owe their existence to the mutation of the colonial empires created by the French and British in the sixteenth century. For both, decolonization was the main vector that made them what they are today. But the similarity of origins ends there. Senghor put it this way,
In accordance with both the practice and theory of this latter association, once English has been accepted as the language of international communication, the objective of the Commonwealth is the economic prosperity, wealth, of each nation within the framework of world peace. In the Francophonie [francophone project], without neglecting the economic aspect of the problem, of which the franc zone is a sign, the emphasis will be on culture without, however, repudiating economics or politics. But why the emphasis on culture? In French thinking, culture, that is to say the creation or spirit of a civilization, is the sine qua non, or rather, the most effective factor in development.<fnref n="6" />

Unlike the Commonwealth, the francophone project was structured pragmatically rather than on a legal basis. The French colonial empire underwent a number of institutional adaptations, in particular as a result of the different statuses (colony, protectorate, associated states, etc.). The first stage was marked by the creation of the French Union, for which the 1946 Constitution of the Fourth Republic had set the legal framework. However, given the realities of international life, this union did not survive the Fourth Republic. The 1958 Constitution of the Fifth Republic proposed the French Community, in which the former African colonies could find a place. Then came decolonization, with its various twists and turns, and many relations were maintained between France and its former colonies. But the French Community did not exist for long. It all came to an end in 1960, after which the French president de Gaulle created the Ministry of Cooperation in 1961. It took the political courage of these founding fathers to create the ACTC in 1970, the first French-speaking intergovernmental organization based more on cultural affinity and political choice than on colonial past, which became the IOF in 2005. The Francophonie Summits, organized every two years since 1986 (with 3 exceptions), have added a new political dimension to francophone cooperation programs.

## The IOF Globalization Project in Practice

Over the next three decades, the ACTC's 21 founding members were gradually joined by some 40 new countries. The number of member countries rose from 18 to 51 in 1997 and today stands at 61, not counting the 32 observers. In the course of its long history, the IOF has sunk its roots in Europe, North America, Africa, and finally all five continents.

However, it was not until almost 16 years later after the creation of ACTC that the 1st Francophonie Summit (Versailles, France, 1986) was held. Moving from a simple intergovernmental agency, based on an international convention, to a meeting at an eminently political level posed an even more difficult problem for Ottawa, especially as

<footnote n="6">6 Léopold Sédar Senghor, “De la Francophonie à la Francité” [From Francophonie to Francité], *Liberté 5 - Le dialogue des cultures* (Paris : Seuil, 1993), 263–64.</footnote>
Quebec was seeking, and increasingly actively, to emancipate itself from the tutelage of federal Canada. It enacted its own language laws: Bill 22 in 1974 and then Bill 101 in 1977, with René Lévesque as the head of the Parti Québécois, providing strong and effective protection for the French language. Finally, in 1980, Quebec launched its first referendum on "sovereignty-association," which was to prove unsuccessful. The insistence of President Senghor and his colleagues only came to fruition when the new prime ministers Brian Mulroney (Canada) and Robert Bourassa (Quebec) agreed in late 1985 on the tried-and-tested formula of the participating government status for the latter.

The arrival in power of François Mitterrand in France marked an evolution in the French position toward the francophone project. In 1986, after the Canadian blockade of the question of Quebec's status at the Francophonie Summit was lifted, President Mitterrand was finally able to invite French-speaking heads of state and government to Versailles for the 1st Francophonie Summit, officially titled "Sommet des pays ayant en commun l'usage du français" (Summit of Countries Having in Common the Use of French). A few years later, the summit was renamed the "Summit of Countries Sharing French." By bringing together 41 countries from 5 continents, including 23 heads of state and government, all of whom use the French language in various situations, the francophone project acquired its political dimension. The agenda includes topics such as the global political and economic situation and francophone cooperation.

The francophone project was officially launched at the first summit, with the main aim of establishing multifaceted cooperation between its members for peace and development. Since then, the determination to develop the project and make it a policy tool for creating a French-speaking pole within the globalizing world has never ceased.

During this period, informal bodies were set up and cooperative ventures undertaken. It was a period of experimentation, rich in innovation and progress. At the 6th Francophonie Summit (Cotonou, Benin, 1995), the heads of state and government decided to create the post of general secretary of the IOF.

The legal formulation of the francophone project through the summits should naturally have been the subject of a new treaty. However, given the fears of certain states that they would not be able to ratify the treaty and above all Quebec's "fear" that, on this occasion, the federal government of Canada would renege on its participation in the summit as a participating government, it was decided in the end not to draft a new treaty but to use the Niamey Convention (1970) and to nestle the organizational instances of the francophone project within the ACTC: the Conference of Heads of State and Government, the MCF, and the Permanent Council of the Francophonie (PCF).

In 1997, the 7th Francophonie Summit adopted the Charter of the Francophonie by amending the ACTC Charter and appointed Boutros Boutros-Ghali, former general secretary of the United Nations (UN), as the first general secretary of the IOF. The choice of Boutros-Ghali is significant, aiming to strengthen the position of the IOF on the international stage. At the same time, it reveals the close ties between the two
organizations, particularly in terms of actions for peace and democracy. On his initiative, the French-speaking institutional grouping took on the name International Organisation of the Francophonie, but in a virtual way and without any legal basis insofar as it did not yet have an international legal personality.

The general secretary of the IOF is the political spokesperson and official representative of the IOF at the international level. The spokesperson is responsible for leading and coordinating multilateral cooperation in the French-speaking world. Heads of state and government meet every two years at the Francophonie Summit. The summit sets the broad political orientation of the IOF, as well as the main lines and priorities of cooperation for the coming years. The MCF, comprising the ministers of foreign affairs or ministers of the Francophonie of the member countries, and the PCF, made up of the personal representatives of the heads of state and government, meet every year and every three months respectively between summits to follow up on decisions taken and to prepare for the following summit.

From the 2nd Francophonie Summit (Quebec City, Canada, 1987) to the 7th Francophonie Summit, the multilateral francophone project was marked by institutional strengthening, particularly in terms of cooperation:

- The ACTC became the main body for French-speaking multilateral cooperation. In 1988, it created a new subsidiary body, the Institute of Energy and Environment, based in Quebec City, which became the Francophonie Institute for Sustainable Development in 2013.

- The Association of Partially and Entirely French-Language Universities–University of French-Speaking Networks (Association des universités partiellement ou entièrement de langue française, Université des réseaux d'expression française, AUPELF-UREF), founded in 1961 in Montreal, became the preferred body for teaching and research. Since 1998, it has been known as the Francophonie University Agency (Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie, AUF).

- TV5, international French-language television—created in 1984 on France's initiative as part of its foreign audiovisual policy by five French-language European television channels and joined two years later by the Quebec-Canada television consortium—became the preferred media body. Its current name is TV5Monde.

- The International Association of Mayors and Leaders of Partially and Fully French-Speaking Capitalts and Metropolises (Association internationale des maires francophones, AIMF), founded in 1979 on the joint initiative of Jacques Chirac and Jacques Pelletier, respectively mayors of Paris and Quebec City, is recognized as a privileged body for cooperation between major cities.

- Last but not least, the Senghor University of Alexandria, an institution created by the 3rd Francophonie Summit (Dakar, Senegal, 1989), became the last privileged body at the service of development on the African continent.
The decision to organize the Games of the Francophonie (Jeux de la Francophonie) on a quadrennial basis was taken at the 2nd Francophonie Summit. With the first Games of the Francophonie in Rabat (Morocco) in July 1989, the institutional francophone project took on a popular dimension and began to listen to young people: Morocco welcomed 1,700 young people from 31 French-speaking countries to take part in cultural and sporting competitions.

The adoption of the Charter of the Francophonie at the 7th Francophonie Summit confirmed the full political shift and established a new institutional framework. The “organic community” envisioned by Senghor was finally taking shape, with its dual dimensions of politics and solidarity.

A decisive step was therefore taken in Hanoi in 1997. If the organization was to become the influential humanist pole it hoped to be in the globalized world, then the IOF must quickly take another turn: that of a complete overhaul of its institutional organization and that of renewed cooperation with new resources. Indeed, an international organization with no legal personality—where the general secretary is legally dependent on the ACTC, a structure for which he/she is the institutional guardian and whose stated objectives in its ten-year plan (2004–2014) are to carry out cooperation in the essential fields of sustainable development, but which does not involve the technical ministers of member countries in charge of these issues, and which, finally, has far too few resources in relation to the missions entrusted to it—is inevitably handicapped and quickly limited in terms of its real possibilities for action. As a result, the IOF appears neither relevant to its partners nor useful to the populations concerned. Finally, it cannot be recognized and respected at the international level.

The Charter of the Francophonie was amended at the MCF in Antananarivo (Madagasgar) in 2005 to give full legal personality to the IOF and to remove the dyarchy between the general secretary of the IOF and the general administrator of the ACTC. The amended version, validated by the 11th Francophonie Summit (Bucharest, Romania, 2006), included the name change of the ACTC that became the Agency of the Francophonie in 1997, the Intergovernmental Agency of the Francophonie in 1998, to the IOF, headed by the general secretary of the IOF. The latter appoints the IOF administrator in charge of multilateral francophone cooperation.

## Evolution of the IOF Globalization Project

Since the creation of the Francophonie Summits in 1986, the multilateral francophone project has seen several turning points marking its evolution as a player in the international system.
*The 4th Francophonie Summit (Paris, France, November 19–21, 1991): The Post-Cold War Francophone Project Opens Up to Eastern European Members*

In a context marked by the end of the bipolar world with the collapse of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), the 4th Francophonie Summit—at the Palais de Chaillot, with the participation of 45 French-speaking delegations—was driven by the idea of involving the IOF more closely in the new international system. In line with this desire, the summit outlined a three-pronged approach aimed at integrating the IOF into global multilateralism, expanding its scope and strengthening its institutions.

Indeed, the 4th Francophonie Summit provided an opportunity to endorse the common strategy adopted by French-speaking environment ministers in Tunis in April 1991, with a focus on the UN Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro in June 1992. Summit participants also agreed on the need to find common solutions for the Uruguay Round negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The willingness to engage in the practice of multilateralism was fueled by the idea that this mode of action would be a vector for international peace.

As far as enlargement is concerned, this summit above all marks the beginning of the opening up to Central and Eastern European countries. It symbolizes the transition from a postcolonial francophone project to a post-Cold War one. While welcoming Romania and Bulgaria is justified from a linguistic point of view, given the significant use of French in these two countries as a result of the special historical ties forged with France, the enlargement should also extend the IOF's area of influence around the world. With the presence of countries that have never been colonized by either France or Belgium, the IOF is freed for many from the neocolonialist suspicion with which it has often been inflicted. However, the absence of Algeria among its members shows the complexity of memories of the colonial past.

*Adoption of the Bamako Declaration (November 3, 2000): The IOF as a Player in Conflict Resolution and Crisis Management*

At the start of the 1990s, the implosion of the Soviet Union and the liberation movement in Eastern Europe led many to believe that democracy would spread throughout the world, but in 2000, the breath of democracy had not swept away authoritarian regimes or the practice of coups d'état. This is why, aware of the progress still to be made, the French-speaking heads of state and government decided at the close of the 8th Francophonie Summit (Moncton, Canada, 1999) to organize an international symposium in the year 2000 to assess the practice of democracy, rights, and freedom in the French-speaking world as part of the UN Decade for Human Rights Education (1994–2004).

From November 1 to 3, 2000, the Malian capital, Bamako, hosted a symposium devoted to the practice of democracy, rights, and freedom in the French-speaking world, bringing together ministers, heads of delegation from states and governments
of countries sharing the French language, and representatives of civil society. After taking stock of a decade of democratic transition, the symposium adopted a declaration proclaiming that “democracy and the Francophonie are inseparable” and that “there can be no deepening of the Francophone project without constant progress toward democracy and its embodiment in practice” (Article 3.1).<fnref n="7" />

Following the adoption of political resolutions at previous summits and the creation of a general secretariat, the symposium in Bamako marked a new stage in the political practice of the IOF. Confirming the priority accorded to democracy, the Bamako Declaration establishes a mechanism that is both binding and cooperative since a draft action plan, adopted for the benefit of the actors, lists the cooperation actions to be implemented for the period 2002–03. In 2004, the adoption of a ten-year strategic framework to rationalize the actions of the various actors of the IOF made it possible to strengthen programs in favor of democracy since one of the four strategic objectives adopted by the IOF aims to “consolidate democracy, human rights and the rule of law.”<fnref n="8" />

The adoption of this declaration can be seen as a turning point in the history of the francophone project, insofar as it is no longer only the sharing of the French language that appears as the key element of identification with the Francophonie but also the adherence to democratic values. With this new normative instrument, the IOF can claim to participate, alongside other international and regional organizations, in the “mesh” in favor of peace.

In 2006, the adoption of the Saint-Boniface Declaration added to the IOF’s efforts to promote security and human rights. Echoing the UN report “In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security and Human Rights for All” in 2005, it focuses on the notions of the responsibility to protect, of human security, and of conflict prevention.

Boutros-Ghali played a key role in the IOF’s democratic turnaround. Marked by the failure of the UN in the Rwandan tragedy and convinced of the need to strengthen global mechanisms in favor of peace, Boutros-Ghali championed the new direction of the francophone project in his inaugural speech in Hanoi, calling for the IOF to adopt a program for peace and “move toward a democracy of peace.”

By working to bring about a political shift and a change in the nature of the IOF, he was to place democracy at the heart of the francophone project’s commitment even more so than programs related to the French language. At the end of his mandate, Boutros-Ghali wrote in the introduction to his book *Emanciper la Francophonie* (Emancipate

<footnote n="7">7 IOF, “Bamako Declaration,” https://www.francophonie.org/sites/default/files/2019-09/Declaration_Bamako_2000_modif_02122011.pdf.</footnote>

<footnote n="8">8 IOF, “Ten-year Strategic Framework of the Francophonie 2004–2014,” https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/IMG/pdf/CSD_Ouagadougou.</footnote>
the Francophonie) that he was “determined that the great values of democracy, human rights, and the rule of law should form the basis of the Francophonie’s [IOF’s] action.”<fnref n="9" />

However, the Bamako and Saint-Boniface Declarations also reveal the particular interplay of individual states. Some of them have made a point of expressing their disagreement on specific points of the Bamako Declaration. Vietnam and Laos, for example, have expressed reservations about equating democracy with a multiparty system, as laid out in Articles 2–5. For these two member countries, “democracy and multiparty are two different notions and cannot be identified. Democracy is an end in itself, while multiparty is merely a means to an end.”<fnref n="10" />

On the subject of coercive measures at the hands of the IOF, Tunisia, then led by Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, insisted on a restricted interpretation of Articles 3–5, taking the view that “breakdown of democracy” meant coup d'état and “massive violations of human rights” meant genocide.

In other cases, the influence of certain countries is implicit in the origin of certain provisions. Thus, while it was Canada that insisted that the IOF take up the themes of human security and the responsibility to protect, France insisted that the Saint-Boniface Declaration recognize the primordial role of the UN Security Council, on which it has a permanent seat.

Furthermore, it was the countries of the South that insisted on introducing the paragraph of the Bamako Declaration that “condemns coup d'état and any other seizure of power by violence, arms or any other illegal means.”<fnref n="11" /> In this way, by obtaining an automatic suspension from the IOF in the event of a military coup d'état, the heads of state of these countries sought to avert the possibility of an overlap between democratization and radical contestation of a regime in power.

In any case, the closer ties with the UN and regional organizations have consolidated the legitimacy and credibility of the IOF within the international community. The presence of the IOF within international contact groups, on the occasion of the crises in Mauritania, Guinea, and Madagascar, bears witness to this evolution.

In this endeavor, the first general secretary of the IOF, Boutros-Ghali, and his successor, Abdou Diouf, played a considerable role. Thanks to their aura and the networks forged by the Delegation for Democracy and Human Rights, they succeeded in ensuring that the IOF diversified its modes of intervention in order to weigh in on the continuum of democracy, from conflict prevention to conflict resolution.

Today, the IOF has recognized know-how in mediation and facilitation. It has also acquired field expertise in supporting electoral processes through electoral assistance and election observation. For some years now, it has been lending its expertise to

<footnote n="9">9 Boutros Boutros-Ghali. *Émanciper la Francophonie* [Emancipate the Francophonie] (Paris : L'Harmattan, 2002).</footnote>

<footnote n="10">10 IOF, “Bamako Declaration,” 6.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">11 IOF, 7.</footnote>
peacekeeping operations (PKOs), notably in French-language training for peacekeepers in French-speaking countries.

*The 9th Francophonie Summit (Beirut, Lebanon, 2002): The Start of a Globalized Francophone Project*

In 2002, for the first time, a Francophonie Summit took place in the capital of an Arab country. While the 7th Francophonie Summit had provided the IOF with institutions enabling it to play a role in international relations, it still needed a clear commitment from governments, and this is took place in Beirut.

Just one year after the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001, in the United States, this summit focused on political aspects, especially since the chosen theme, “Dialogue between Cultures,” recorded at the previous summit, turned out to be prescient. The IOF was seeking to assert its usefulness on the international stage. In this context of crisis, it saw itself as an alternative to the American vision of the world. On the one hand, by asserting its defense of multilateralism and the UN, it was taking a stand against the policy pursued by the United States with regard to Iraq. On the other hand, it also reaffirmed the major role of cultural dialogue as an instrument of peace, democracy, and human rights. Thus, by adhering to the open concept of cultural diversity, the French-speaking heads of state and government decided to contribute actively to the adoption by the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) of an international convention on cultural diversity, which the United States fiercely opposed.

It is precisely in the new context of globalization that the IOF has been able to look forward rather than staring at the rearview mirror—in this case, the colonial one. In short, the new IOF, in meeting the challenges of globalization, is an alternative to the dominant model. Its missions must now serve to make it a player that defends and promotes, first and foremost, the common goods of humanity, solidarity, and multilateralism in international relations. Cultures, languages, the environment, and peace are common goods dear to the IOF, as they constitute its core values. They underpin “the actions of many social and cultural players seeking alternative ways of life in a world perceived as a global marketplace.”<fnref n="12" />

At the 9th Francophonie Summit, the former Senegalese president Diouf succeeded Boutros-Ghali. He remained in office for 12 years. The political and spiritual heir to Senghor, Diouf continued to emphasize democratic and crisis management in the field of mediation and diplomatic facilitation. With him, the IOF was fully in tune with the challenges of globalization:

<footnote n="12">12 Armand Mattelart, *Diversité culturelle et mondialisation* [Cultural Diversity and Globalization] (Paris : La Découverte, 2017).</footnote>
The future of the Francophonie [IOF] cannot be seen in isolation from that of the world. This would be a mistake of both perception and strategy. A mistake of perception, first of all, because the Francophonie is already firmly rooted in the realities of today's world, fully aware of the issues and challenges facing us as a result of globalization. A misperception, then, because the Francophonie today is not an organization that lives in autarky, but one that works in close partnership with the UN, the European Union, the African Union, the Commonwealth or the League of Arable States, as well as with other linguistic-cultural areas. A strategic error, finally, because the missions of the Francophonie will have to continue to evolve with the world, and we don't know, today, what tomorrow's context will be.<fnref n="13" />

At the 10th Francophonie Summit (Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, 2004), with a thematic focus on sustainable development, the first strategic framework of the IOF was adopted. But it is above all its efforts to promote cultural diversity at international level that have made the IOF an influential player in the international system. For example, Diouf's policy of consultation with the lusophone and iberophone unions was instrumental in getting UNESCO to adopt the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in 2005.

At the 15th Francophonie Summit (Dakar, Senegal, 2014), which saw the departure of President Diouf as head of the IOF, a new strategic framework (2014–2022) was adopted. Alongside sustainable development and solidarity, its fourth mission now includes the economy. In fact, after several decades of hesitation or even avoidance on this theme, the heads of state and government, by adopting a first strategy for the economy, have opened a new chapter in multilateral francophone cooperation. French is now officially recognized as “a vector for economic integration and growth.” While this text is not in itself an action plan, it does have the merit of laying down the main principles of francophone economic cooperation. The former Canadian governor Michaël Jean was elected to succeed President Diouf. With the second strategic framework, the IOF prioritizes young people and women in its cooperation programs, affirming that Africa is its future.

It was also at this summit that the heads of state and government took the decision to endow the IOF with a new tool designed to support the countries of the French-speaking South, in Africa in particular, in their efforts to improve their education systems. Thus, in 2016, the Institute of the Francophonie for Education and Training (Institut de la Francophonie pour l'éducation et la formation, IFEF), one of the IOF's subsidiary bodies, was created in Dakar (Senegal). The first report by the Observatory of the French Language (Observatoire de la langue française, OLF) on the French language in the world presented at the 15th Francophonie Summit highlights the urgency of targeted measures to help Africa meet the challenge of basic education. The establishment of the

<footnote n="13">13 Abdou Diouf, “Les défis de la francophonie” [The Challenges of the Francophonie], *La revue internationale et stratégique*, no. 71 (2008).</footnote>
IFEF is a logical extension of the IOF's efforts in the field of education. From the outset, the IOF has been involved in the education sector through a wide range of expertise and experience covered by its institutions and actors.

At the 17th Francophonie Summit (Yerevan, Armenia, 2018), the heads of state and government elected for a second time a woman to the post of general secretary of the IOF. She is Louise Mushikiwabo, former minister of foreign affairs of Rwanda. Her mandate coincides with the 50th anniversary of the ACTC, the first French-speaking intergovernmental institution.

## Spatialization Effects of the IOF Globalization Project

The IOF is an atypical organization in the international ecosystem: intergovernmental, associative, and media based. It is unique in that it brings together government decision-makers (the Francophonie Summit, MCF, and PCF), parliamentarians (Parliamentary Assembly of the Francophonie [Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie, APF]), academics (AUF), local elected officials (AIMF), and media professionals (TV5Monde) in a single institutional structure. This diversity of players is made up of 93 states and governments on 5 continents, over 1,000 universities, hundreds of parliamentarians, and thousands of local elected representatives, as well as a network of a dozen television channels. The IOF also stands out owing to the close ties it has forged over the years with civil society players through its accredited international nongovernmental organizations. As a stakeholder in the global, forward-looking reflection that guides the orientation of the IOF, civil society enables the IOF to remain fully attuned to the issues and challenges driving the French-speaking world. This uniqueness is undoubtedly one of the IOF's outstanding and envied strengths. It is naturally complemented by a global presence on all five continents. Through an extensive network of representations, offices, institutes, and other structures, the IOF maintains close relations with its audiences and, more generally, with French-speaking populations.<fnref n="14" />

At present, two-thirds of the members of the IOF are developing countries, classified as members of the francophone South, even if several of them are in the Northern hemisphere (such as the francophone countries of Eastern Europe). Moreover, the francophone actor draws its legitimacy from its project of North-South solidarity to defend a world beneficial to all—in other words, a world of balance where everyone has a right to live. The French language, previously a symbol of domination, has emerged with the rise of the multilateral francophone movement as a language of contact, indeed of freedom, a factor of resistance, and a refusal of the standardization induced by

<footnote n="14">14 IOF, “Saviez-vous que la Francophonie est présente sur les 5 continents?” (poster), February 18, 2020, https://www.francophonie.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/ARD_Francophonie_Affiche_A4_20200218_vect.pdf.</footnote>
American cultural and linguistic hegemony since the end of the Second World War. Even if the stakes involved in rallying French-speaking countries to the multilateral francophone project are not the same from one country to the next, a consensus seems to have emerged very early on about the prospects for cooperation based on the French language.

The IOF has come a long way since the ACTC was founded on March 20, 1970. Along the way, it has increasingly asserted itself as a significant geocultural player in the international system. Nevertheless, new challenges await the organization and its member states and governments over the next 50 years. By 2070, according to the latest estimates from the OLF, there could be between 500 and 800 million French speakers in the world, the majority of them being young people living in Africa. This is both a great hope and a huge challenge for the IOF: a hope, as the future of the French language has never looked brighter, and a challenge, as francophone countries need to offer prospects to these young people. However, these estimates must be treated with extreme caution. The French language is facing increasing competition from English and African languages. It is not irreversible. In many African countries, French is often spoken by a minority of the population and seen as an elite language. This is especially apparent since the influence of France has been weakening in recent years in Africa where countries such as China, the United States, Turkey, and Russia have gained ground in all areas: economic, political, and cultural. It is important to note that the IOF comprises 23 least developed countries (LDCs), most of which are in Africa. For the time being, it lacks members from the French-speaking South capable of establishing themselves as an emerging and influential development pole, such as those in the grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa (BRICS). This suggests that the IOF is an area where development is lagging behind.

The Francophonie in general and the IOF in particular currently find themselves at a new juncture, a new turning point in the face of new global challenges: the emergence of new powers in the international system challenging the hegemony of the so-called liberal countries, as well as the transformation of the world brought about by digital technologies, environmental degradation, global health, and so on. This raises the question of the attractiveness of the French language throughout the world and particularly in Africa. In other words, how can the IOF and French speakers work together to meet the political, economic, and cultural challenges of today's world?

It should be pointed out that IOF is currently made up of several member countries where French is neither the official language nor the language of use nor the language of instruction. It is increasingly clear that joining the IOF is first and foremost a political act. However, it is running a major risk with this enlargement without any real deepening. According to Philippe Le Prestre, “To rethink itself, the Francophonie must adapt
to this complex multilateralism and move beyond its heritage.”<fnref n="15" /> Finally, francophone multilateralism is immune neither to criticism of the lack of democratic legitimacy of international organizations nor to aspirations for alternative forms of transnational governance in the face of the crises of globalization nor to the “triangle of functionality”<fnref n="16" />: representativeness, legitimacy, effectiveness of international organizations since 1945.

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