On July 27, 2007, French President

Nicolas Sarkozy Nicolas Paul Stéphane Sarközy de Nagy-Bocsa (; ; born 28 January 1955) is a French politician who served as President of France from 2007 to 2012. Born in Paris, he is of Hungarian, Greek Jewish, and French origin. Mayor of Neuilly-sur-Se ...

delivered a speech at

Cheikh Anta Diop University Cheikh Anta Diop University (french: Université Cheikh Anta Diop or UCAD), also known as the Cheikh Anta Diop University of Dakar, is a university in Dakar, Senegal. It is named after the Senegalese physicist, historian and anthropologist Cheikh ...

Dakar, Senegal Dakar ( ; ; wo, Ndakaaru) (from daqaar ''tamarind''), is the capital and largest city of Senegal. The city of Dakar proper has a population of 1,030,594, whereas the population of the Dakar metropolitan area is estimated at 3.94 million in 20 ...

. The speech, known in France as the Discours de Dakar (Dakar address), drew criticism from Africans who disagreed with Sarkozy's statement that "the tragedy of Africa is that the African has not fully entered into history... They have never really launched themselves into the future." The speech came as part of a foreign trip with then-wife

Cécilia Attias Cécilia María Sara Isabel Attias ( Ciganer-Albéniz, formerly Martin and Sarkozy; born 12 November 1957) was the second spouse of French president Nicolas Sarkozy until October 2007. Background Cecilia Attias was born Cécilia María Sara Is ...

, anticipated as an effort to repair French relations with the continent after Sarkozy's predecessor

Jacques Chirac Jacques René Chirac (, , ; 29 November 193226 September 2019) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1995 to 2007. Chirac was previously Prime Minister of France from 1974 to 1976 and from 1986 to 1988, as well as Ma ...

had been perceived as supporting authoritarian governments in former French colonies.

References

External links

French text
of Sarkozy's Dakar Address reprinted by ''

Le Monde ''Le Monde'' (; ) is a French daily afternoon newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average circulation of 323,039 copies per issue in 2009, about 40,000 of which were sold abroad. It has had its own website si ...

''
Unofficial English translation
of Sarkozy's Dakar Address at AfricaResource.com 2007 speeches 21st century in France 21st century in Senegal History of colonialism Postcolonialism Nicolas Sarkozy {{postcolonialism-stub