In contrast with the imperial period, historians have overlooked African exile politics during the subsequent decades of one-party and military rule. Focusing on the Malian case, this article proceeds in three parts. The first section explores the creation in Africa, in particular in Ivory Coast and Senegal, of clandestine opposition movements to Moussa Traoré's regime. The second section focuses on Europe, particularly France, where dissidents benefitted from an unparalleled openness of the political system compared to that seen in African countries. The final section investigates the influence of these networks spanning Africa and Europe on the formation of pro-democracy organizations in Mali and the final overthrow of the Traoré regime in 1991. Theorizing exile as a process which enabled activists to operate in abeyance despite repression – before being able to emerge more openly – refines our understanding of political transitions which were driven by the juncture of internal and external dynamics.

This article locates itself at the intersection of the social history of postcolonial migrations and the intellectual history of leftism and Third-Worldism in the aftermath of May ’68. It is the first study of the radical political group Révolution Afrique. From 1972 until its ban by the French government in 1977, this organization forged by African and French activists mobilized against neocolonial ideologies and policies on both sides of the Mediterranean. By tracing the organization's rise and fall through extensive archival research and in-depth interviews, the article explores the changing meanings of transnational activism by weaving together the biographical paths of the activists, the institutional and political constraints they faced, and the ideological framework within which they operated. During this short time frame, the transnational agenda that made sense among African workers and students in the early 1970s became irrelevant. The increasing repression of political dissent in Africa and France, the suspension of migratory flows, and the French government's implementation of return policies in the late 1970s forced the group's African activists to adopt a more national approach to their actions, or simply withdraw from high-risk activism. Despite the dissolution of Révolution Afrique, this collective endeavor appears to have been a unique experience of political education for African activists, transcending distinct social and national boundaries that until now have been left unexamined by social scientists specialized in the complex history of the relationships between France and Africa.

This article aims to analyze the emergence of the migration-development nexus after decolonization in Francophone sub-Saharan Africa. The first section explores the way in which French governmental bodies and NGOs started to frame public policies linking migration and development in the 1960s and 1970s. The second section highlights how developmentalist ideology was mobilized in the 1980s in order to set up return policies in partnership with African governments who were increasingly inclined to control migrants’ monetary remittances. The last section emphasizes how the migration-development nexus was orchestrated to control migratory flows from the late 1980s onwards.

In an article titled “Paris on My Mind,” writer Abdourahman Waberi, born in Djibouti and a resident of France, maps the path of his protagonist’s migrations: “Of course, he will leave Paris with all his family. His wanderings will widen forever. The migration will continue. Let us follow his itinerary, year after year: Lusaka, Lagos, Nairobi, London, Denver, Philadelphia ... “ The migration pattern of Waberi’s protagonist is all too common and real. After short returns to African soil, many Africans make their final move to the United States.