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Former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is dead. I wrote my dissertation about his record of military interventions in Africa. To make a long story short, it was a disaster. A short thread: https://www.lemonde.fr/disparitions/article/2020/12/02/valery-giscard-d-estaing-ancien-president-de-la-republique-est-mort_6061969_3382.html
His most "successful" action was a risky airborne assault on the Zairian city of Kolwezi, which aimed to save European citizens held hostage by rebels, protect Mobutu's regime, and stop the spread of Soviet/Eastern bloc/Cuban influence in Africa.
While a brilliantly conducted operation on its own terms, it's important to note that it was based on faulty and manipulated intelligence about a non-existent Cuban/Eastern bloc role in the rebellion. More importantly though, it bolstered and potentially saved Mobutu's regime.
It also signaled a French security guarantee for Mobutu which, in conjunction with other Western support, facilitated his rapacious rule over Zaire for the next two decades. It should be noted that France was also the last Western country standing in defense of Mobutu in 1996/97.
I wrote about it here if you're interested (DM me if you can't get past the paywall): https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/10.1162/JCWS_a_00638?mobileUi=0
I also wrote about it here: https://open.bu.edu/handle/2144/38406
Giscard royally messed things up in Chad, though. The short version is that he sent troops to stop Libyan-backed rebels from taking N'Djamena and to stop Libya from eventually taking over Chad. When his presidency ended, Chad was under a Libyan military occupation. Oops.
How the hell did that happen? Well, the story is so twisted that I wrote a book about it and still don't really get it. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/frances-wars-in-chad/6B7D8F9C8A81E0A83028C24EA0CF8D28
The short version is that though Chadian armed groups really didn't like Gaddafi either, ham fisted French military efforts, negotiations gone awry, and Giscard's decision to overthrow Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa, pushed lots of those groups into Libyan arms.
Diplomatically isolated and with no clear side to support, French troops left as a civil war erupted around them. This brought in the Libyan army who chased a guy named Hissène Habré out of the country, and a few weeks later Gaddafi was calling for the merger of Libya and Chad.
And speaking of Bokassa--that's a whole weird story by itself. Basically, when he decided to crown himself emperor, Giscard thought it would be a great idea to help finance his coronation (which cost the same as the French aid budget to the country).
Then, a year later, Bokassa killed a hundred schoolchildren as part of his repression of a series of protests against his regime. Normally this wouldn't have fazed the French very much, but Amnesty International got involved, and things got embarrassing.
Other African leaders called up Giscard and told him that Bokassa was giving the African ruling classes a bad name, and he should do something about it. Giscard, naturally, sent in the army to overthrow him. But this wasn't just about image.
Gaddafi had begun supplying Bokassa with desperately needed cash, and had sent military advisors and intelligence operatives to Bangui. For Giscard, this was a clear challenge to French influence, and threatened neighboring Chad. Bokassa had to go.
The problem was that Operation Barracuda--the military operation that overthrew Bokassa, was actually launched from Chad, which really pissed off Chadian provisional government officials who felt it undermined their own credibility and was a violation of Chadian sovereignty.
It also scared some of them into fearing that France might come after them too. How could such a close ally of Bokassa turn on him overnight and overthrow him? Might France not do the same to them? So they turned to Gaddafi as a more *cough cough* reliable partner.
Also, it turned out that in the past Bokassa had given Giscard some diamonds during visits to the country. These actually weren't worth much, but when a furious Bokassa leaked it to the press, they had a field day. The "diamond affair" probably cost Giscard his reelection in 1981
Anyway, in the final analysis, Giscard not only carried on the proud tradition of backing local tyrants and protecting French influence, but was not a particularly competent practitioner of the trade.
