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PARIS - The crisis in Chad has forced France to struggle between a reflex to keep a local pro-French dictator in power and a declared ambition to end this tradition of meddling in its former colonies.
France has 1900 troops in the oil-rich Saharan nation, backed by Mirage fighter bombers, helicopters and airborne surveillance, and has a co-operation accord to help Chad with logistics and intelligence.
When the rebels briefly seized the centre of N'Djamena, only to be forced out by troops loyal to President Idriss Deby, French forces provided Deby with logistical support in line with the co-operation agreement. President Nicolas Sarkozy warned the rebels France "will do its duty" if need be, but so far not a French shot has apparently been fired.
The crisis has provided a difficult test of Sarkozy's goal, unveiled with fanfare after his election last year, to "break" with the so-called Franafrique interventionism of his predecessors.
For more than four decades, from Charles de Gaulle to Jacques Chirac, Presidents viewed Africa from Congo to the Sahara as France's fiefdom.
They would send planes and paratroops and money to prop up pro-French tyrants with grim records on human rights, bank accounts in Switzerland and penchants for long shopping trips to Paris.
"Africa has changed and France's relationships with Africa must also change," Sarkozy said at the start of 2008, reaffirming that France would "fight for lasting progress in peace, human rights and economic growth, which are indissolubly bound to the Millennium Goals".
In a token of Sarkozy's sincerity, the conservative President's choice as minister for co-operation with Africa is a Socialist, Jean-Marie Bockel.
Bockel says he is desperate to "sign the death certificate" of Franafrique. But whether he will get the chance to flourish his pen is unclear.
So far, there has been no shift of policy - indeed, Sarkozy dismayed many last July, in his first tour of Africa, by firstly calling on President Omar Bongo of Gabon, an ally of France for the past 40 years and, to critics, one of the very symbols of Franafrique.
Bongo is under United States and French investigation for allegedly pillaging state assets and investing them abroad.
France's Africa policy under Sarkozy "has changed in style ... but continues in substance", President Paul Biya of Cameroun, in power for the past 25 years, said last October.
Those who favour French involvement in Africa say it can benefit both sides - provided the itch of presidents to play power politics and grease palms is kept at bay.
Countries mired in poverty and ethnic tensions caused by the colonial drawing of the map can be stabilised and secure vital support (economic, educational, medical and so on) by being under France's umbrella, goes this argument.
France, for its part, can help protect vital oil and gas resources now flowing abundantly out of Africa. And it can ensure that poor or troubled countries do not become Somalia-style basket cases that become havens for terrorists. But many observers believe the temptation to meddle is almost irresistible. Too much prestige and too many assets are at stake.
Breaking with Franafrique "has proved more difficult than people in French political circles would have liked", says Kaye Whiteman, a specialist in West African affairs based in London.
"The African connection has always been what gave France its status as a middle-ranking power which deserved to have a seat on the UN Security Council."
Claude Imbert, leader-writer of the weekly magazine Le Point, says there are deeper and darker reasons why France cannot let go: "The repressed subconsciousness of the master-and-slave relationship and the stench of a historical psychodrama that remains unfinished."
France has three main bases in Africa - Dakar (Senegal), Libreville (Gabon) and Djibouti, where US personnel are also deployed under a joint Horn of Africa force.
There are also the 1900 troops in Chad, plus around 300 in the Central African Republic and 3000 in Ivory Coast.
But, increasingly, French military involvement is done under an international flag rather than unilaterally, for political expediency and budget reasons.
The Central African troops are part of a force mandated by other countries in this region, and the 3000 troops in Ivory Coast, patrolling a buffer between areas held by rebel and Government forces, have UN approval.
So, for now, France has to walk a tightrope, and quietly put up with Deby, putting off the pledge to break with the past.
