Dakar, Senegal – On a weekday at Dakar’s open-air Fass Market, merchants name out in a rhythmic buzz as some patrons strategy from a close-by main freeway: Boulevard du Common de Gaulle, a street named after a former French president and a person not everybody right here is aware of.
It irks meat vendor Matar Seck that road names like these – remnants of a painful colonial previous – exist in any respect. Standing in entrance of his stall the place he patiently waited for a buyer, Seck questioned the purpose of getting an Avenue Faidherbe, named after a brutal colonial governor, or a Rue de Jules Ferry, after a French politician who as soon as claimed colonialism was vital. Like many Senegalese, Seck stated he desires change.
“I’ve lived in Europe. I’ve been to Barcelona, Rome and Milan, however I’ve by no means seen white folks give the names of their most prestigious historic monuments and buildings to a Senegalese,” he stated. “We’ve no scarcity of individuals to call our most necessary streets [after]. I need to see a Youssou Ndour Road for instance,” Seck added, referring to the beloved Senegalese crooner.
Certainly, streets within the capital metropolis and throughout Senegal have been initially named by the French colonial authorities and honoured officers or royals of the French empire. Many years after independence, they’ve largely stayed that approach, a legacy of 300 years of conquest, slavery and colonialism.
However which may quickly change: President Bassirou Diomaye Faye in December introduced plans for a brand new authorities company to rename streets and public squares to honour Senegalese.
It’s a notable step for Senegal, which has traditionally maintained shut ties with Paris. In November, Faye requested Paris to take away about 350 French soldiers stationed there, in impact ending a decades-long defence pact and persevering with a development in West Africa, the place nations are downgrading once-strong ties with France.
After a fraught election marketing campaign final yr that adopted weeks of protests in opposition to former President Macky Sall, Faye got here to energy in April, promising to strengthen Senegalese identification and shrink ties with France – even exchange French because the nation’s official language. Underneath Sall, critics noticed Senegal as a puppet that put France’s wants above all. Faye promised to be completely different. Now, not solely will the brand new company rename streets, however it should additionally rewrite Senegal’s textbooks.
Dakar-based city planner Rakhiat Diallo Fall informed Al Jazeera these efforts are essential to put off the bitter style of the previous – from Senegal’s function as a significant slave port to its centuries of colonial rule.
“Reminiscence additionally passes via toponymy,” Diallo stated, referring to the research of place names. “Seeing streets named after folks we don’t know, individuals who have mistreated us, is a shame.”
Shrinking Francafrique
Throughout Francafrique, or former French West Africa, international locations are sharply turning against France – militarily and culturally.
Many governments and residents, particularly within the military-led international locations of the Sahel, detest France’s actual and perceived political interference of their international locations. They see France as paternalistic for its deep involvement of their economies in sectors like mining and petroleum. French corporations just like the petroleum large Whole are deeply entwined within the enterprise panorama.
The frequent CFA franc forex, utilized by former French colonies in West and Central Africa, has been an enormous level of controversy. The forex, created in colonial occasions, is pegged to the French-used euro, and critics stated it continues to hinder the event of African nations.
Paris has additionally come beneath hearth for failing to halt the unfold of armed teams within the Sahel regardless of hundreds of French troopers being deployed to the area.
In Niger, the place the navy authorities kicked out French forces in 2024, officers have been the primary to rename Avenue de Gaulle within the capital, Niamey. In December, the freeway grew to become Avenue Djibo Bakary after the necessary anti-colonial activist who grew to become the primary Indigenous mayor of Niamey.
Ruault Avenue in Bamako, Mali’s capital, was additionally modified by its navy authorities in December to honour Captain Sekou Traore, an officer who in 2012 refused to give up throughout an ambush by secessionist fighters of the Azawad motion. Traore was ultimately captured and executed.
French ties run notably deep in Senegal. The area was the primary to be conquered earlier than colonisers unfold out throughout West Africa. The northern metropolis of Saint Louis, or Ndar within the predominant Wolof language, is famend for its pastel-coloured colonial homes and was the capital of French West Africa till 1902. There too, road names, squares, bridges and plaques honour mid-1800s French Governor Louis Faidherbe to the ire of many locals. In 2020, in the course of the Black Lives Matter protests that swept the USA and ignited demonstrations in lots of different international locations, residents awoke to discover a statue of Faidherbe toppled and sprayed with paint. The statue has now been eliminated.
Krzysztof Gorny, an city planning researcher with the College of Poland who has studied and written a guide on Senegal’s road names, informed Al Jazeera the colonial administration had a motive for naming locations and streets in Dakar, the place the capital was moved to in 1902.
“Typically, the thought was for the brand new metropolis to remind everybody that it was in French possession,” he stated. “Such names have been frequent primarily in these districts designated for French settlers. Within the district designated for Africans, the place the streets have been narrower and the buildings denser, a numerical naming system was launched.”
These numbers are nonetheless current at present, like on Rue 34 or Rue ME 30. Previous governments had begun street-renaming initiatives, however none had introduced a devoted authorities company like Faye’s administration.
Souleymane Gueye – a member of the Dakar-based Entrance for Anti-imperialist, Well-liked and Pan-African Revolution (FRAPP), which pushed for colonial names to get replaced throughout Senegal for years – informed Al Jazeera authorities from Sall’s administration had tried to politicise the method.
“In 2022, after we went to submit a letter of grievance to the Dakar Plateau mayor’s workplace to rename Avenue Faidherbe, our consultant was assaulted, his garments torn and his dreadlocks reduce off,” he stated.
In July 2023, the identical street was renamed Avenue Macky Sall.
“It was merely a political determination guided by partisan pursuits. It might have been fairer to ask Senegalese residents to counsel names relatively than impose on them,” Gueye stated.
Weighing priorities
Since he took workplace alongside Faye, Prime Minister Ousmane Sonko, a fierce critic of France, has centered on the sore subject of the 1944 mass murders of West African troopers, together with Senegalese, by the French colonial military.
On the morning of December 1, 1944, troopers of the Tirailleurs Senegalais, a military unit that fought in France’s warfare in opposition to Nazi Germany, had been protesting in opposition to delays in salaries and poor residing situations. In response, colonial troopers fired on them, killing an undetermined quantity. French authorities on the time tried to bury the proof and claimed 35 folks have been killed. Nevertheless, students estimated about 400 folks died.
Though the wound remained contemporary in impartial Senegal, officers stored quiet in regards to the killings till 2012 when then-French President Francois Hollande admitted France’s culpability. In December, when Senegal commemorated the eightieth anniversary of the murders, Faye invited a number of African leaders to the mournful ceremony. The road-renaming venture is predicted to prominently function the Tirailleurs.
Nevertheless, some Senegalese say that whereas they respect this remembrance of historical past, the venture is also a distraction. Faye and Sonko not solely promised a stronger Senegalese identification, however in addition they pledged to enhance and enhance the financial system, which has been hit by a mixture of COVID-19 aftershocks, provide bottlenecks within the wake of Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the worldwide financial downturn.
1000’s of younger folks, particularly males, in recent times have deserted the declining fishing trade looking for a greater life in Europe. Lots of have died making an attempt the lethal crossing throughout the Atlantic to the Spanish Canary Islands.
“For me, altering road names is just not a precedence in any respect,” Mouhamadou, a younger Senegalese in Dakar who stated he has unsuccessfully tried the Atlantic crossing, informed Al Jazeera.
“The precedence needs to be reducing the price of residing. We’re drained. The costs of rice and cooking oil have risen once more. But Sonko promised to vary our situation inside three months of their arrival in energy. It has now been over 10 months since their arrival. I don’t see any actual change,” he stated.
Faye’s Senegal 2050 plan guarantees to lift common wages by 50 p.c over 5 years, specializing in native manufacturing and investments within the power sector. Within the months since he took workplace, the financial system has rebounded considerably. The Worldwide Financial Fund projected that Senegal’s financial system grew by 7 p.c in 2024 and development would attain 10 p.c in 2025. A lot of that growth is fuelled by new oil drilling initiatives signed by Sall however renegotiated and began beneath Faye’s watch.
Nevertheless, for a lot of Senegalese like Mouhamadou, these proceeds have but to translate into actual job alternatives or bodily cash. The younger job seeker stated he’s near giving up and would relatively the administration prioritise financial outcomes first.
“I fought for President Bassirou Diomaye Faye and Ousmane Sonko, however proper now, the state of affairs within the nation doesn’t reassure me in any respect,” he stated. “They should decrease the price of residing earlier than they do something.”
