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#africanews #blackhistory #africa If you go online to research countries with the biggest nuclear powers, one of the countries that would pop out after the USA is France. They would tell you that France is the leading nuclear power in Europe, its nuclear energy sector is the third-largest industrial sector and nuclear power brings in an excess of 6 billion dollars annually. These articles would also say that this sector is responsible for providing electricity for the whole of France and has made France the biggest exporter of electricity. In addition, they would say that nuclear power is a source of pride for France, and all these achievements were possible because of the cumulative years of research that stretch back to the discovery of polonium and radium by Marie Skłodowska Curie and Pierre Curie in Paris in the late 1890s. Well, they are very correct. But, what few people talk about is the fact that France could only achieve all this with the aid of a very important natural element that they do not possess, Uranium. Yes, they had the technology but the only reason why they decided to go into the nuclear power industry fully was because Uranium had been discovered in a former colony which meant they had easy access to the uranium. So, which former colony is that and how is the relationship between France and this former colony? Let’s find out in this video. France's nuclear power infrastructure was born out of the French government's efforts in the 1950s and 1960s to develop a nuclear bomb during the Cold War, and so a lot of resources were poured into nuclear research. Now, at the end of World War 2, a country’s global status was determined not by its colonial empire but by the size of its nuclear arsenal and France didn't want to be left behind. But, it wouldn't be because, before this time in 1954, a French geological survey had discovered Uranium in one of its former colonies, Niger. So, after Niger gained independence, negotiations between Niger and France began. Now, recall that before Niger was granted independence by the reluctant French colonial elites who wanted to keep their hold on their African colonies, Niger together with other fourteen African countries had signed a colonial pact with France. This colonial pact ensured that in exchange for Independence, African financial decisions were made with French interests at heart and that postcolonial Francophone markets were reserved for French companies and traders. Also, it ensured that France had easy access to its former colonies' natural resources of which uranium was part.
