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Comment by wahern | Hacker News Reader

The 2011 NATO intervention in Libya was part of a century long power struggle between France and Italy over influence of Libya. Italy had a good relationship with Gaddafi, to the detriment of French influence. Europeans and the US understood the motivation behind France's push to intervene and were reticent to get involved (because of the internecine spat, not out of concern for Libya), but France got the UK on their side by appealing to anger over the Lockerbie bombing. Combined with France making it explicitly clear they were demanding it be a NATO operation (France had only just recently joined NATO and were expecting a quid pro quo), the rest of NATO acquiesced, under protest by Italy, of course.

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I've always found it so interesting that the history of France's colonial imperialism in Africa and Asia seems so underappreciated in comparison to how absolutely detrimental it has been to the world.

Yeah. I first learned about France's ongoing imperialist ambitions in Africa reading the famous book on the Rwandan genocide, and ever since then French military involvement in seemingly random places in Africa stands out. I don't think any European country (except maybe Russia), or even the US, has maintained such a broad, cohesive, continuous imperial policy. Maybe it's well known to French people, and Europeans who follow politics, but I think for the rest of the world it's completely hidden.

France's actions in Africa were horrendous, but let's also not forget Asia. The Vietnam War was born out of the French Indochina War and France used anticommunist rhetoric to gain US support for its war against the Viet Minh.

While it would be unfair to say that America's actions in Vietnam were the fault of the French, there was certainly French encouragement if not outright manipulation.

Somebody here on HN told me once that France is the stupidest colonial power, because even though they had the most powerful army and one of the most powerful navies in Europe for a long time, they haven't been able to utilize them optimally, and have only lost more than they gained in their colonial ventures.

I tend to agree. Even now the French can't maintain a cohesive relationship with their client states, which is why they've lost influence severely in the Sahel. They just didn't know when to be cohesive and how to be extractive.

Colonial powers are almost always purely extractive and in the case of the European colonial powers, especially the French, they had an inherent belief in their cultural superiority, which was justification for their brutality.

Eh, it depends. Portugal and Spain were more integrating than the rest (Portugal literally shifted the government to Brazil during Pedro I, while the Spanish were intermarrying and handing out Spanish dukedoms to Native American monarchs).

France was dumb because they barely did any extraction while they exploited the natives.

> Portugal and Spain were more integrating than the rest...

I'm sorry but your characterization is very strange given the history. Portugal and Spain were just as brutal as the French.

Yeah, I realized that when going down the rabbit hole. In a certain respect, the French were the least asshole-ish of the lot, simply because they didn't know how to colonize and extract properly.

They were all despicably brutal beyond redemption. Some things simply can't be rationalized, justified or compared.

>but France got the UK on their side by appealing to anger over the Lockerbie bombing.

I don't believe anyone still gave a shit at that point or expected ghadaffi to redo after he paid for it. I think it might be better to look at the deals of BP and such in the area.

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