In Burkina, anything which comes straight from Europe is called "France Au Revoir", meaning it has left France (or any other European country) to be sold on in Africa and is of a quality often superior to things coming from Asia or other continents thanks to the more constraining standards of the European common market. Besides, in Burkina Made in China goods are also shoddier and cheaper than articles Made in EU. Which is why "France Au Revoir" things are prized items to be haggled over in the local markets! The ability of Burkinabè to repair, recuperate, recycle, rehabilitate, reinvent and reuse any object or material that Europeans simply discard is impressive.

I also gave that name to this composition, based on an Afro Beat rhythm of Fela Kuti, in contrast to France Afrique which is still, it seems to me, as real as it ever was. The influence of the former colonial power in Burkina is still tangible administratively, culturally, financially and economically. The hold it exerts is sometimes akin to neocolonialism, but it's not just France, nor is it all negative of course, but it keeps alive a system which for the Burkinabè is not conducive to cultural and economic emancipation. This system serves to keep them in dependence and submission and feeds their identity and inferiority complex. "The Francophonie is a strategy to control our creativity and even our future", as Thomas Sankara said during his presidency in the eighties. The situation today, twenty-five years later, remains largely unchanged. Without tarring everyone with the same brush, the hypocrisy of foreign capitals is palpable in Burkina Faso. Foreign Western powers, (EU, France, Canada, United States, etc) in the guise of grand development projects, are accomplices to the plundering of natural and financial resources that the Burkinabè State is in charge of. Local and transnational elites monopolise the manna and strengthen their monopole that way while the widest section of the society continues to face high material poverty. Sometimes I get the impression that the vast majority of people are being deliberately kept in ignorance and hunger so they have no choice but to struggle day after day for survival and are unable to stand up to the injustice they suffer. "An empty stomach has no ears" as they say in the Democratic Republic of Congo!