Readers' Blog: Ireland should not join La Francophonie
In 1939 the Irish Government declared that Ireland would be a neutral state, and in 1949 Ireland became a republic and left the British Commonwealth.
These decisions have been supported by the majority of the Irish people.
In 1973 we joined what is now the European Union as an organisation of states with supposedly equal status but the EU has been evolving into a super-state with its own army and a two-tier system dominated by Germany and France.
However, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been trying to get Ireland ever closer to Nato and an EU army by joining Partnership for Peace, EU Pesco, and questionable Nato and EU military missions.
Now our Government is taking us into La Francophonie even though French is spoken by very few Irish people. Brexit is cited as one of the reasons for this bizarre move.
La Francophonie is not all it seems to be.
In Africa especially, La Francophonie has become a form of cultural colonialism used to enhance French neo-colonial interests, often enforced by French military interventions.
During the Rwandan genocide in 1994 the French government provided active military and political support to the genocidal Rwandan government, before, during, and after the genocide, in an attempt to prevent Rwanda from abandoning La Francophonie and becoming an Anglophone state.
Books by credible authors such as Adam Lebor, Linda Melvern, A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide, Andrew Wallis, Silent Accomplice: The Untold Story of France’s Role in the Rwandan Genocide, and General Romeo Dallaire, Shake Hands with the Devil document the role of France in the Rwandan genocide.
Ireland’s decision to join La Francophonie is a vain attempt to gain French support within a post-Brexit EU and is a serious mistake and should be reversed, or at least approved by Dáil Éireann.
