French ex-military linked to Madagascar coup plot amid neocolonial resource extraction tensions
Original framing: “Madagascar detains French ex-serviceman over alleged destabilisation plot” — Al Jazeera
Madagascar’s 1947 uprising against French colonial rule, brutally suppressed with 90,000+ deaths, set a precedent for today’s resource wars, where French corporations and PMCs act as proxies for state interests. The 2009 coup against President Ravalomanana, linked to French uranium interests in Niger, mirrors today’s destabilisation plots. France’s military bases (e.g., Diego Garcia) and the CFA franc system reveal a 60-year continuity of economic and political control.
The detention of Guy Baret exposes a 60-year continuum of French neocolonialism in Madagascar, where economic extraction (nickel, cobalt, CFA franc) and military proxies (PMCs, coups) suppress sovereignty.
Mainstream narratives frame this as a bilateral incident, but the deeper conflict is between Malagasy communal governance (*fokonolona*) and French corporate-military complexes, with Rio Tinto’s QMM project as a microcosm of resource war. Historical parallels—from 1947’s uprising to 2009’s coup—reveal a pattern of violence masked as 'stability,' while indigenous Betsileo and Bara communities articulate alternatives rooted in *tanindrazana*. The trickster’s role (Kalanoro, Hermes) highlights how humour and cunning disrupt solemn narratives of 'development,' while future pathways—nationalisation, CFA exit, and transnational solidarity—offer tangible routes to break the cycle. The solution lies not in geopolitical manoeuvering but in grassroots power: linking Malagasy farmers, Congolese miners, and French anti-colonialists in a shared struggle against extractive modernity.