Prénom de l'expert

Alain

Nom de l'expert

ANTIL

The Mauritanian President, Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz, was elected in 2009. The architect of two successful coups: in 2005 against President Maaouya Ould Sid’Ahmed Taya, and in 2008 against President Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdellahi, nowadays he is in his second and last term of office according to the Mauritanian constitution. He is viewed by the country's partners as one of the key figures in the stability of the Sahel.  However, the international community does not see, or pretends not to see, the weakening of his regime. 

The Sahel, often discussed on account of its problems and crises – in particular recently, in view of the crisis in Mali – is in actual fact experiencing a new positive economic era, like the rest of the African continent. For the five countries of the Sahel region we shall be examining – Mauritania, Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger – this favourable evolution, although it varies from country to country, is based on booming extractive industries.

On an initiative of the German Council of Foreign Relations (DGAP), the Study Committee for Franco-German Relations (Cerfa) of the French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and the Polish Institute of International Affairs (PISM) are regularly publishing short contributions on a common subject, written by three experts of these institutes. The purpose of these “Weimar Triangle Analyses” is to give the French, Polish and German views on central questions of European politics and European integration.

A paper brought out last year treating the “Hunger Riots had made it possible, among other things, to point out the extreme difficulties encountered by the authorities in power when trying to control urban populations. Current demographic forecasts relating to sub-Saharan Africa all predict an extremely rapid increase in population and at the same time an even more dramatic rise in the size of urban populations.

Since Mohammed VI came into power, Morocco’s African policy has undergone notable change in comparison to his predecessor’s period.

Our interest in this topic stems both from our annual visits to Mauritania which started fifteen years ago, and the tiny amount of research noticed on trafficking in this country.

"Hunger riots", a stock phrase used to describe protests at the end of 2007 / beginning 2008 in around thirty countries world-wide, mostly African States, places different phenomena into one group. In this paper, we will focus on the case of Senegal, a country in which "Hunger riots" were numerous.