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$Unique_ID{bob00299}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Cote d'Ivoire
Chapter 2B.   The Road to Independence}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{T.D. Roberts, Donald M. Bouton, Irving Kaplan, Barbara Lent, Charles Townsend, Neda A. Walpole}
$Affiliation{HQ, Department of the Army}
$Subject{french
african
france
political
coast
assembly
government
ivory
constitution
colonies}
$Date{1973}
$Log{}
Title:       Cote d'Ivoire
Book:        Area Handbook for Ivory Coast
Author:      T.D. Roberts, Donald M. Bouton, Irving Kaplan, Barbara Lent, Charles Townsend, Neda A. Walpole
Affiliation: HQ, Department of the Army
Date:        1973

Chapter 2B.   The Road to Independence

The Impact of World War II

     World War II had a profound effect on the future of all French West
Africa. With the outbreak of the war, the fall of France and the creation of
the German-allied, Vichy government in France, the French colonies were faced
with the problem of declaring their loyalty to Marshal Philippe Petain, who
headed the Vichy regime, or to the Free French under General Charles de
Gaulle, whose headquarters were in London. Pierre Boisson, Governor General of
the OAF, and all of his subordinate governors remained personally loyal to
Petain but the African population of the Ivory Coast largely favored the Free
French. The Vichy government was considered a usurper without right to govern
France or its colonies. A number of prominent chiefs organized their people
into resistance movements which actively sabotaged the Vichy war effort and
supported de Gaulle through agents in the neighboring Gold Coast. Some even
led their people into voluntary exile in the Gold Coast until the return to
power of the "true French."

     Under Vichy, French West Africa was subject to heavy economic
exploitation and fierce racism. Nazi theories of a superior race were applied
against the Black African and resulted in acute discrimination. The
recruitment of forced labor was intensified as was the drafting of men into
the armed forces. Farmers were assigned production quotas for foodstuffs which
often could be met only at the expense of the local residents, whose standard
of living had already been greatly lowered by the cutting off of imports from
Europe.

     The resentment engendered by Vichy policies gave rise to a feeling of
African consciousness and nationalism and a hope of greater autonomy after the
war. The differences in loyalty among the people also matured their political
awareness. Negro intellectuals, who had for some time been under the influence
of socialist ideas of the Popular Front in prewar France, were attracted by
some of the Marxist ideas expounded by the anti-Nazi movements and by some
French teachers and labor organizers. In 1943 branches of an organization
known as Communist Study Groups (Groupes d'Etudes Communistes-GEC) were
established in the principal cities of West Africa, including Abidjan. In
these groups African intellectuals discussed African problems in Communist
terms, many of the participants later became prominent as postwar national
leaders.

     After the Allied landings in North Africa in November 1942, Governor
General Boisson, on the orders of Admiral Darlan, came over to the Allied
side and, on November 25, declared the allegiance of the AOF to the French
Provisional Government in Algiers. A French consultative assembly was called
by the government to Algiers in early 1943 and convened in an atmosphere of
reform.

     In early 1944, Rene Pleven, Commissioner of Colonies in the Provisional
Government, called a conference of governors of French Black Africa to
Brazzaville. Events of the war and the comportment of the Africans toward the
French made the governors realize that it was time to revise radically their
former relationship. Inspired also by the principle of the Atlantic Charter
and its affirmation of the right of self-determination, the conference
recommended far-reaching political, social and economic reforms. In effect,
the recommendations were a compromise between the points of view of
assimilationists such as Pleven and federalists such as Felix Eboue, the Negro
governor of Chad. The conference considered it necessary that the colonies
send delegates to the constituent assembly which was to draw up a new French
constitution after the war and that they be granted political representation
in whatever parliamentary body the constitution provided for. The colonies
themselves were to be given greater autonomy in administration and a
legislative assembly elected on a double slate by both French citizens and
Africans. A program for economic development was also proposed. The most
striking recommendations, however, were in the social field and were inspired
by Eboue: local customs were to be respected and safeguarded; l'Indigenat was
to be abolished and a new penal code adopted; labor conscription was to be
ended; and health and education facilities were to be improved. In addition,
positions in the colonial administration were to be opened to Africans.

     The Brazzaville Conference signaled the beginning of a new era in
colonial policy, but its only immediate effect was the passage of a law in
August 1944 granting labor in the AOF the right to organize.

Postwar Reforms

     In October 1945 the first country-wide elections were held in the Ivory
Coast to choose two delegates for the Constituent Assembly which was to meet
in Paris before the end of the year. One was chosen by the French metropolitan
citizens and the other by a restricted African electorate, which chose Felix
Houphouet-Boigny to represent its interests (see ch. 12, Constitution and
Government).

     When the Constituent Assembly met in Paris, 63 out of 600 delegates
represented the African colonies. The Africans among them, all of them members
of the educated elite, played an active role in the deliberations. The
Assembly offered them their first real opportunity to air publicly the
grievances and aspirations of their fellow Africans; their demands for liberal
reforms received strong support from the Socialists and the then strong
Communists. Out of the debates of the Assembly came a re-evaluation of
colonial policy and a draft plan for the union of France and the former
colonies.

     In the meantime, a number of important reforms concerning Africans had
been achieved by decree. The hated l'Indigenat and forced labor system were
abolished; residents of the colonies were granted freedom of speech,
association, and assembly; the Monnet Plan for economic reconstruction in
France was extended to the West African colonies; and funds were provided for
economic and social development. Houphouet-Boigny is credited with having
achieved the abolishment of forced labor, and the law implementing it bears
his name. A new penal code for the AOF was adopted in April 1946, and in May
the Law Lamine Gueye (so called after the African socialist deputy from
Senegal) extended French citizenship to all the inhabitants of French
colonies. Its failure to define closely the rights of citizenship, however,
prevented inhabitants of the colonies from the full exercise of civil rights
on the ground that they were not yet ready for it.

     The first French constitution, which included whole passages of the
Brazzaville recommendations, proved too liberal for the French electorate
which rejected it in a referendum in May 1946. When a second constituent
assembly convened in June, pressure from conservative elements in France and
in the colonies was strong, and sharp differences of opinion developed among
the delegates. The advocates of colonial autonomy included all the colonial
deputies and the French political left wing. They favored political autonomy
within the framework of metropolitan France in a strong revival of
assimilationist ideas. The extremists among them, including deputies from
north Africa and Madagascar, demanded political independence, whereas the
deputies from Black Africa, including Houphouet-Boigny from the Ivory Coast,
supported the idea of local self-government and political equality of
Frenchmen and the colonial people. Colonial interests, on the other hand, and
the French political right and center inclined toward a nominally federalist
system, within which France would preserve its dominant position. A compromise
was finally reached, and the plan for the French Union was written into a new
draft constitution, which was adopted by the assembly on September 28, 1946,
by a vote of 440 to 106. All deputies from Black Africa voted for it, and it
was approved as the Constitution of the Fourth Republic in a referendum held
throughout France and the overseas possessions on October 13, 1946.

     The French Union, established by the constitution of the Fourth Republic
in 1946, consisted of metropolitan France and its overseas possessions, which
were classified as Overseas Departments, Overseas Territories, Associated
Territories, Protectorates and Associated States. The West African colonies
were designated as Overseas Territories, which together with the Overseas
Departments and metropolitan France comprised the French Republic.

     The President of the French Republic was President ex officio of the
French Union, the organs of which were the High Council and the Assembly. In
practice, as before, metropolitan France dominated. The French Government
exercised all legislative and executive powers, and the administration of the
overseas possessions continued on centralized pattern by the Ministry for
Overseas France (Ministere de la France d'Outre-Mer). Despite its federal
trappings, it was a unitary and in many aspects strongly assimilationist
system. Laws, administration, citizenship and the educational system were all
French, and the basic premise of economic planning was full integration of
colonial economy with that of France. A first step toward political autonomy
was taken in giving some administrative and financial powers to the elective
general councils in each territory (known as territorial assemblies after
1952), in granting limited suffrage and in removing the ban on political
association.

     The AOF continued as a regional federation with its structure unchanged
except for the addition of elective bodies at the federal and territorial
levels. Each territory elected a general council (Conseil General) on the
basis of a double electoral college, one for Africans and one for Frenchmen,
which in turn sent five of its members to the Grand Council (Grand Conseil)
of the federation. The councils had advisory and regulatory functions but no
legislative power. The exclusive right to legislate for the overseas
territories remained with the French Assembly and was carried out in practice
by executive decree. The councils were nevertheless important as
representative bodies where debate could take place, and they had considerable
influence over matters of finance.

     In addition to the territorial and federal council, the French Union
provided for African representation in the two houses of the French
Parliament, in the Assembly of the French Union and on the Economic Council.
The representatives were elected by a complicated system of direct and
indirect voting.

     The complex of representative institutions provided the environment for
political organization and a growing political maturity among the African
population. Elective office offered the elite an outlet for their talents and
aspirations, and, despite their limited powers, the councils became a useful
training ground for future politicians. The educated evolue, fluent in French
and familiar with French political institutions and practice, had a definite
advantage in gaining political office over traditional leaders, whose
influence in the community steadily decreased. The electorate got considerable
training in the business of politics through actual voting and through the
almost perpetual campaigning of the new politicians. The interconnection of
the various bodies through the indirectly elected representatives stimulated
the formation of alliances and affiliations between African and French
political parties, trade unions and other organizations. Despite the growing
political activity, however, there was little if any agitation for complete
self-government or independence.

     In the early 1950s the French Government granted additional reforms
which were to a large extent the work of the African deputies in the National
Assembly. In 1950 the Second Law Lamine Gueye admitted Africans to all high
civil service positions on equal terms with Europeans, and in 1952 a new labor
code was adopted in the AOF patterned on the code in force in metropolitan
France. The most significant reform was the passage in June 1956 of the
so-called loi-cadre which granted universal suffrage and a single electoral
college, thus giving Africans and Europeans equal political rights. In
addition, the loi-cadre gave broad legislative powers to the territorial
assemblies, while enumerating the powers reserved to the French Government.

     Elections for the new assemblies were held in March 1956 and in May
the African governments took office. Since Houphouet-Boigny was serving in
the French government in Paris, Philippe Gregoire Yace, Secretary General of
the majority party, became vice-president of the Council of Government in the
Ivory Coast.

     While at last implementing fully the egalitarian features of
assimilation, the loi-cadre in effect adopted association as the basis of
future relations between France and its possessions. This reorientation of
philosophy opened the way for independence within four years.

Growth of Political Consciousness

     The development of anticolonialism in the Ivory Coast had its roots in
economic grievances. It began in the interwar period when the introduction
of coffee and cocoa as cash crops gave rise to an African planter class which
competed on the market with the Europeans who had come to the Ivory Coast to
make their fortune. Colonial policy strongly favored the Europeans: the forced
labor system supplied them with workers; their crops commanded higher prices;
and they had access to protected markets. African resentment against this
discrimination was brought to a head by the economic hardships of World War
II, when discrimination was heightened to a point where African plantations
were faced with extinction. In September 1944, therefore, Felix
Houphouet-Boigny, a wealthy African planter who was also a chief and a
French-educated physician, founded the African Agricultural Union (Syndicat
Agricole Africain-SAA) to fight for the abolition of forced labor and a fair
deal for the African planter.

     The SAA became the first anticolonial organization in the Ivory Coast.
Its membership included some 20,000 African planters as well as laborers,
civil servants, traders and every kind of African engaged in the money
economy. It cut across ethnic lines with an efficient organization which
covered a large part of the country. Houphouet-Boigny's leadership of the
SAA catapulted him into national prominence.

     The constitutional reforms of 1946, by guaranteeing the right of free
speech and assembly and by creating several bodies composed of elected
representatives of the people, signaled the formation of African political
parties. A number of parties based on ethnic and regional interests were
organized in the Ivory Coast and elected members to the territorial assembly
and the Abidjan municipal council. From the beginning, the dominant party was
the Democratic Party of the Ivory Coast (Parti Democratique de Cote
d'Ivoire-PDCI), which was created in 1946 out of the SAA to attract a wider
following than its predecessor. It soon attracted the radical intellectuals
from the wartime Communist Study Groups and became a political force to be
reckoned with in French West Africa. Its leader, Houphouet-Boigny, was elected
to the constituent assembly in Paris in 1946 and later that same year to the
newly constituted French National Assembly.

     Increasing political activity and a growing national consciousness were
both responsible for and stimulated by the postwar constitutional reforms.
Pressure from the SAA and similar organizations in other territories brought
about most of the reforms of 1946 (notably the law abolishing forced labor),
and the reforms, in turn, by granting Africans greater equality and a limited
participation in government, induced further interest and action. By providing
for territorial elective assemblies and territorial representatives in the
French National Assembly, the reforms stressed the importance of the territory
as a political entity and fostered a national consciousness. On the other
hand, by grouping the territories into the AOF with its own elected council
and by joining territorial deputies with French deputies in the National
Assembly, the reforms encouraged cooperation not only across territorial
boundaries but also with French political organizations.

     It was this need for cooperation which in 1946 prompted Houphouet-Boigny
and several other French West African leaders to form the African Democratic
Rally (Rassemblement Democratique Africain-RDA). The RDA was conceived in the
period between the two constituent assemblies when the defeat of the first
draft constitution in May threatened a resurgence of conservative and colonial
feeling in France. Five leading African delegates to the assembly, including
Houphouet-Boigny, issued a joint manifesto calling for a united front of all
African organizations in the fight for political and economic democracy in
Black Africa. It specifically rejected, however, the idea of autonomy and
supported the proposed French Union. In October 1946 the RDA was formally
established by a congress called at Bamako by the signatories of the
manifesto. Its aims were declared as "the union of Africans and their alliance
with French democrats" for the achievement of a "real French Union-that of
different peoples who are free and equal in their rights and duties." Its
militant call to equality and its tightly knit organization made the RDA an
immediate success in all of French West Africa. It had a wide popular
following and gained dominance in most of the elective assemblies under the
French Union. In the French National Assembly the RDA deputies formed an
alliance of convenience with the French Communist Party. As a result the RDA
was branded as communist and aroused the animosity of the French. In 1946,
when the alliance was formed, the French Communist Party was a member of the
coalition government, and its strong support of the RDA platform held promise
of favorable legislative action. But in 1947 the Communists were asked to
withdraw from the coalition and lost their influence in the government.
Nevertheless, the RDA retained the support of the 183 Communist votes in the
National Assembly, and the alliance was maintained until 1950.

     Although the RDA was an interterritorial party, its stronghold was the
Ivory Coast. From the beginning Houphouet-Boigny emerged as its leader, and
the postwar colonial administration under Governor Latrille was favorably
disposed toward it. The economic situation in the Ivory Coast also favored a
militant African party since here more than in any other French West African
territory, African planters, evolues and even laborers were in direct
competition with European settlers. Numerous other African parties appeared
and disappeared, but none could compete effectively with the PDCI, the Ivory
Coast branch of the RDA, and most were eventually absorbed by it.

     After 1947, Governor Latrille's administration was replaced by a strongly
conservative one, favoring the settlers and metropolitan France in every way,
and relations between the PDCI and the administration abruptly changed from
cooperation to open hostility. The administration actively sponsored rival
parties and manipulated elections; PDCI supporters were dismissed from
government employment; and most of the leaders were jailed. Houphouet-Boigny
is one of the rare nationalist leaders who, because of his parliamentary
immunity, was never jailed. The PDCI retaliated by organizing strikes,
boycotts of European goods and services and mass demonstrations. In 1949 the
hostility erupted into violence when government troops began to fire on
African demonstrators.

     In 1951 the PDCI reached a low ebb, and its existence was threatened. Its
alliance, through the RDA, with the French Communist Party had caused the
disaffection of the more moderate elements in the party, and
government-sponsored rival parties had eaten away much of its popular support
and drastically weakened its position in elective bodies of the Union.
Houphouet-Boigny then affected a drastic change of policy. He broke all
connections with the Communist Party; dramatically expelled the Secretary
General of the RDA, G. d'Arboussier, who was an ardent supporter of such a
connection; abandoned the policy of militant opposition to the administration;
and embarked on a policy of practical cooperation. Opposition had been
extremely costly in terms of lives and good will and had achieved nothing.
Cooperation along practical lines, which restored the strength and prestige of
the PDCI at home and of the RDA in the rest of the AOF and France, led not
only to political concessions but also to significant economic cooperation
with France and members of the local French community which made the Ivory
Coast the richest territory in the AOF.

The French Community

     The dissolution of the Fourth Republic in 1958, after General Charles de
Gaulle came to power, offered the opportunity to write into the constitution
for the new Fifth Republic a revised relationship between France and its
colonies which would reflect not only General de Gaulle's own ideas but also
the economic and political changes which had occurred since 1946.

     Constitutional reforms since 1946, culminating in the loi-cadre, had
progressively weakened the centralized structure of administration and given
more authority to local bodies. At the same time, the formation of political
parties and the piecemeal extension of the franchise to various groups of
literate and semiliterate Africans, eventually to the whole population,
steadily increased the number of Africans involved in their own government.
Had the principle of assimilation within the framework of the French Union
been carried out to its logical conclusion, France would have become a colony
of its colonies because the West African electorate would have sent a far
greater number of deputies to the National Assembly than metropolitan France.
Assimilation was therefore clearly no longer possible, nor was it any longer
desirable to the Africans, who, with the loi-cadre, had achieved the equality
under law which previously only assimilation offered.

     The Constitution of 1958, creating the Fifth Republic, provided for the
free association of autonomous republics within a French Community where
France was envisaged as the senior partner. The Community had jurisdiction
over foreign policy, defense currency, common ethnic and financial policy,
policy on strategic raw materials, and unless specifically excluded by
agreement, over higher education, internal and external communications and
supervision of tribunals. The Community's executive was presided over by an
elected president, who was also the President of the French Republic, and
consisted of an Executive Council (composed of the President, the prime
ministers of the member states and the French ministers concerned with
Community affairs) and a Senate (elected indirectly by each member state in
proportion to the population). The Community also had a common High Court of
Arbitration. Each member state was to have its own government established by
separate constitutions (see ch. 12, Constitution and Government).

     The new constitution was submitted to the electorate of the French Union
in a referendum on September 28, 1958. The choice was either to accept the
constitution and consequent membership in the Community or to reject it, which
would result in immediate severance of all ties with France. No provision was
made in the Constitution for eventual independence for members of the
Community. The Ivory Coast voted almost unanimously (99.9 percent) in favor of
the Constitution.

     Two main factors lay behind the overwhelming support which the people of
the Ivory Coast gave to the formation of the Community and their rejection of
independence. One was an almost mystical feeling of brotherhood with France
which more than 50 years of cultural assimilation had instilled, particularly
in the elite and the political leaders. The second was a purely practical
consideration of the advantages of continued association with France. Although
it was the wealthiest French African territory, the Ivory Coast had neither
the financial resources nor the trained manpower to develop independently.
Since Africanization of responsible posts in the government had barely begun
in 1957, there were no Africans who could reasonably be expected to operate
the government should the French withdraw, and the country's economy was so
completely tied to France that it was inconceivable to survive without it.
Ever since 1946, France had been pouring money and technical assistance into
the development of the African economies. Through a 10-year development plan
financed by the Investment Fund for Economic and Social Development of
Overseas Territories (FIDES), over $750 million of public capital was invested
in French West Africa between the years 1947 and 1957. Approximately 70
percent of rapidly growing African exports were sold within the franc zone,
where they were highly protected from outside competition, sometimes
commanding prices 15 to 20 percent higher than on the world market. In
addition to this heavy capital investment and export subsidy, France, between
1947 and 1957, absorbed about 27 percent of the normal cost of administration
of the colonies by paying for the salaries of civil servants, most of the
defense establishment, and many other hidden items.

     Adoption of the 1958 French Constitution brought the Community into
being, and in March 1959 the Ivory Coast adopted its first constitution as a
self-governing republic. It provided for a unicameral legislature elected
by universal, direct suffrage and an executive headed by a prime minister
elected by a majority vote of the legislature and responsible to it. The PDCI
won all seats of the newly formed legislature, and Houphouet-Boigny resigned
his post in the French government to form the first government of the Ivory
Coast. He had played a major role in the events leading up to the
establishment of the Community and with its establishment seemed to have
achieved his main goal: self-government with close direct ties to France but
without an intermediary federal organization. The AOF had long been a thorn in
the side of the Ivory Coast and its elimination against strong opposition from
several other West African leaders was a major victory for Houphouet-Boigny.
His antifederalism was based purely on economic reasons-the AOF had been set
up to pool the area's resources and have the richer territories help support
the poorer ones. The federation had claim to all the revenues levied by
export duties and after deducting the costs of federal services, was to
redistribute the surplus to the component territories in proportion to their
original contribution. But the amount of rebate, decided on annually by the
Grand Council of the federation, in practice always favored the poorer
territories. The Ivory Coast, as the richest territory in the federation,
bitterly resented having its resources distributed without having a
controlling voice in the distribution. The lack of control over the
distribution of funds and not the distribution itself was the important factor
in the grievance because in May 1959, only one month after the AOF ceased its
legal existence, the Ivory Coast joined with Niger, Upper Volta and Dahomey
in the Council of the Entente (Counseil de l'Entente) for the express purpose
of pooling their resources for economic development. The Entente agreements,
however, provide for a fixed mathematical formula for the distribution of
funds which can be changed only with the consent of all signatories. Thus the
Ivory Coast cannot be dictated to as it was under the AOF (see ch. 14, Foreign
Policy).

     Although in 1958, when the Community was created, neither the French nor
the Africans seriously considered complete independence for the colonies,
events in the rest of Africa during the next two years altered the situation.
In early 1960 the French government sponsored an amendment to the 1958
Constitution which permitted member states of the Community to gain complete
independence but remain within the Community, which was reconstituted along
commonwealth lines. Houphouet-Boigny was violently opposed to the
"reconstituted Community" which he considered a new federation, and in August
1960 the Ivory Coast withdrew from the Community and became independent.