22 Facts About Jacques Foccart

Jacques Foccart was a French businessman and politician, best known as a chief adviser to French presidents on African affairs.

Jacques Foccart co-founded in 1959 with Charles Pasqua the Gaullist Service d'Action Civique, which specialized in covert operations in Africa.

From 1960 to 1974, Foccart was Secretary-General for African and Malagasy affairs under Presidents Charles de Gaulle and Georges Pompidou, and was pivotal in maintaining France's sphere of influence in sub-Saharan Africa by putting in place a series of cooperation accords with individual African countries and building a dense web of personal networks that underpinned the informal and family-like relationships between French and African leaders.

Nevertheless, Jacques Foccart retained his functions during Georges Pompidou's presidency.

Jacques Foccart was then rehabilitated in 1986 by the new Prime minister Jacques Chirac as an adviser on African affairs for the two years of "cohabitation" with socialist president Francois Mitterrand.

When Chirac finally gained the presidency in 1995, the 81-year-old Jacques Foccart was brought back to the Elysee palace as an advisor.

Jacques Foccart was born on August 31,1913, in Ambrieres-les-Vallees, Mayenne, in west-central France, to a family of white planters from the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe.

Jacques Foccart married his wife, Isabelle Fenoglio, in 1939 and worked as a trader before World War II where he ran an import and export business.

Jacques Foccart was a sergeant in the French army during the war and later joined the French Resistance after France fell in 1940.

Jacques Foccart became close to Charles de Gaulle during the war and helped facilitate the latter's return to power in 1958.

Jacques Foccart became secretary-general of Rally of the French People, a Gaullist party, in 1954 during the French Fourth Republic.

Jacques Foccart played a central role in what became known as Francafrique, France's sphere of influence over its former colonies in sub-Saharan Africa.

Jacques Foccart was instrumental in putting in place the dense web of personal networks, a central feature of Francafrique, that underpinned the informal and family-like relationships between French and African leaders, which would go on to survive until the 1990s.

Jacques Foccart remained in service under Georges Pompidou's presidency.

Jacques Foccart was then replaced by President Valery Giscard d'Estaing with Rene Journiac, whom he had trained himself.

Jacques Foccart was then rehabilitated in 1986 by new Premier Chirac as an adviser on African affairs for the two years of the "cohabitation".

When Chirac finally made it to the presidency in 1995, Jacques Foccart was brought back to the Elysee at the age of eighty-one, in the main because he still had remarkable contacts with African leaders such as President Omar Bongo of Gabon, who he served as his advisor on African affairs for a number of years after 1974.

Jacques Foccart would criticize the devaluation of the CFA franc in January 1994 under Balladur's government, a month after Houphouet-Boigny's death.

Jacques Foccart admitted in Jacques Foccart Parle that relations with the SDECE intelligence agency were his concerns.

In 1995, Jacques Foccart was part of president Jacques Chirac's visit to Morocco, Senegal, Cote d'Ivoire, and Gabon, all countries led by friends of Francafrique.

The publication of his memoirs under the format of interviews at the end of his life, and the Journal de l'Elysee published, in which, starting from 1965, Jacques Foccart transcribed his daily meetings with De Gaulle, have proved an invaluable resource for the knowledge of French policies in Africa.

Furthermore, at his trial in 2006, mercenary Bob Denard, who was tried for his 1995 coup d'etat in the Comoros, alleged that Jacques Foccart had supported him.