I guess it's time the French gave up on the colonialist idea of the "Francophonie" and accepted that French is evolving independently in other countries just like English, Spanish, Portuguese or Dutch.

I wonder how much of this being perceived as "changing French" rather than just other countries having their own variants of similar languages goes back to France holding onto its colonies and trying to keep them close even after some of them formally gained independence.

Nobody would write an article about how Mexicans are "changing Spanish" or Brazilians are "changing Portuguese" let alone about how South Africans are "changing Dutch" (it's called Afrikaans and considered a distinct language just like Belgian Flemish). Some "spillback" via migration from the former colonies is hardly worth writing about.