ABSTRACT
In the case of aid quality, Paris has gradually increased the concessionality of her assistance (91.5 per cent) to around the level of the average DAC donor (91.9 per cent) in 1996-97 (see Table 5.2). France has also pursued, since June 1990, a policy of converting existing loans to the poorest nations into grants. She has, moreover, signed up to the OECD-wide Helsinki Agreement which limits the use of commercial tying and restricts the offer of mixed credits to countries with a per capita income of less than $2465 as well as to projects that are not commercially viable. Significantly too, the French government has, unilaterally and through its chairmanship of the Paris Club, taken a leading role in providing debt relief (concessionality in which is a form of aid). Following up on the 1988 Toronto Summit, where France had written off a third of the debts of the poorest states, President Mitterrand announced, in May 1989, the cancellation of the debt of 35 least developed countries (more than 27 billion francs in loans). At the Franco-African summit in Libreville in September
1992, French Prime Minister, Pierre Beregovoy, promised to create a 4 billion franc Debt Conversion Fund for four middle income African countries (Cameroon, Congo, Ivory Coast, Gabon).4 In the wake of the 1994 devaluation of the CFA franc, unilateral cancellations of French official debt to the Franc Zone countries together with subsequent restructuring by the Paris Club totalled $6.8 billion (DAC, 1994a: 28). Overall, debt reorganisation rose from 4.8 per cent of the French aid budget in 1984-85 to nearly a quarter in 1994-95, which was more than double the DAC average of about 11 per cent in 1993-94 (DAC, 1997a : 29). While debt relief has since fallen back, it is set to rise again as the current donor-wide debt reduction scheme for Highly Indebted Poor Countries comes into full swing (see final chapter).
