Why France is Actually Preparing for War With Russia

Select video clips courtesy of Getty Images

Select video clips courtesy of the AP Archive

Special thanks to MapTiler / OpenStreetMap Contributors and GEOlayers 3

[kittavares]

As a Frenchman, I can tell you most people have zero clue what the government is doing with their tax money in Africa. This is the first time I hear about what happened in Guinea… wtf…

[nekomakhea]

stealing all the light bulbs in your former colony on the way out is some ranked competitive levels of pettiness

[khitsentertainment]

As a Guinean citizen this is 100% facts and there is a video where Ahmed Sekou Toure told the French we would suffer in freedom than living rich as slave

[tostisgood]

Can you please cite your sources and/or post a link to a bibliography in the description? It’d be great for following up on all of these topics!

[pascalbercker]

Viewing from France. I must admit that French media hardly reports on any of this.

[Tnpt_studios]

Neo-colonialism is a topic that needs to get more attention.

[georgeanto]

You should add your sources to your description that would be 10/10 content✊

[eurtunwagens]

This is excellent material. Half of them I did not know, despite my obsession with details of history. Thank you. I subscribe immediately.

[danijeljovic]

It's scary how few people know about this

[lexiqu]

This was so interesting to see how much meddling France has done in Africa. Would you do a video on US involvement in central america?

[hc]

I was in northern Ivory Coast back in 2002 when the civil war started. I remember seeing French troops being stationed a block away from our house. We were elated to watch these soldiers roll in with their big guns and tanks after months of violent fighting between the government forces and rebels that cost the lives of thousands. At the time, we saw the French military as saviors because we were lead to believe that President Laurent Gbagbo hated us northerners and wanted to exterminate us. Fortunately my entire family was able to escape the conflict by clandestinely crossing the border into neighboring Mali where my parents are from. We spent 4 days and 4 nights hiding in the back of a semi truck trying to avoid all roadblocks put in place by the rebels. I remember on our 3rd day we got caught by the rebels and we all thought we were going to die in the most horrific ways. I will never forget the terrifying look on my younger brother’s face who started screaming “We’re dead! We’re dead!” as the rebels fired warning shots and aimed their weapons at us. The driver was able to bribe them so they let us go.

It wasn’t until decades later that I truly understood what the real story was. Turns out President Gbagbo wanted to leave the Franc CFA and gain back control of the cacao industry to benefit local producers rather than foreign multinationals. So France in conjunction with Alassane Dramane Ouattara (ADO) who is currently the president of Ivory Coast, lead both a demonizing media campaign and a devastating rebellion against the Government of Laurent Gbagbo to stamp out his nationalist ambitions.

So it makes my blood boil when most French media and political commentators reduce our rejection of France’s neocolonialism to a simple “anti-French sentiment”.

[Nightman]

Amazing quality. Thank you for shining a spotlight on this

[cameronmclennan]

Been living in France for 7 years and it's so hard to find this sort of context and analysis from French sources. Love your work and appreciate so much being able to watch your extra stuff on Nebula

[htbvwjy]

I'm french and that's litterally the first time in my life i've heard about that. That's actually scary

[victorwekesa]

Thanks for making this video concerning Francophone Africa, as these countries are refered to. Please make more videos on Africa such as "China in Africa", "History of the Congo", "The Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya", etc.

[RobKlarmann]

Your videos are of such high journalistic value, and so incredibly informative. Thank you! This is brilliant work that deserves to be heard by all! Keep it up.

[KaptifLaDistillerie]

As a former French Foreign legionnaire who was in Mali during Operation Barkhane, I remember encountering Wagner Group in a village near Tessalit and even though both sides knew the other was there and it was ok, there was still a bit of tension. One of our guy, a Lithuanian, started an argument with one of Wagner after he apparently said something insulting in russian. I remember how we all looked at each others and instantly understood " let's chill, there's no need to excalate a situation we wouldn't be able to handle ", because let's face it, no matter how much training you have, when your only experience is fighting some dude in ragtags with a rusty AK, you don't feel confident taking on a similar force.

I can't imagine fighting in the same place again against trained troops, heavy artillery, armor and drones... Especially in such an open place as the Sahel.

[tonyhawk]

You've missed half of the story as France is also fighting back in the former USSR backyard :
- Defense pact with Moldova
- Military procurement and training in Armenia
- Economic deals with Kazakhstan and Mongolia
- Potential military procurement in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan
This is the underground war between Russia and France both fighting in the other's backyard.

[jasmeenmalhotra]

More people should be talking about this.

[donwolff]

Please, please, oh for the sake of clarity, and my poor old waning eye sight, make your text font size slightly larger. I so love your programs, but become thoroughly frustrated by not being able to read your small charts which so distracts from both the engagement and the learning. I so want to get the full benefit from the effort you put into these vids, but in the instance of some texts sizes, it becomes completely fruitless and often times even sadly aggravating (especially when a charts you did will help really clarify the issue and I am just bleeding out the sides of my eyeballs squinting so hard to try to read the text...which I just cant seem to do...and then I'm pissed and covered in eye blood ;-)
Remember, many of us are on phones and thus can't see the very small text. However, nearly every time, on all your vids, you have enough space to make the font sizes slightly larger without blocking the rest of the primary focus of the picture being displayed. So, please, please, I keep, and will continue to keep asking you to please, for the sake of all that is decent and good in humanity, please increase your font size.