This well-written and well-argued volume revisits French political history, especially its colonial (and neocolonial) aspects, which are a blind spot for many historians and political scientists.The intellectual pillar of the book is the notion of 'electoral imperialism'.The authors use this expression in reference to the way in which elections were used in the colonial period as a device to enable the selection and legitimisation of leaders that were seen in Paris as being favourable to French interests; then, during the post-independence era, to maintain a neocolonial order; and, since the end of the Cold War, to support a formally 'democratic ' order.(9) In the first chapter of De la dmocratie en Franafrique -Une histoire de l'imprialisme electoral, Pigeaud and Sylla remind us that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the main political thinkers and founding fathers of our so-called democracies were in fact very reluctant to give ordinary people a voice in their republics.Another counter-argument to mainstream contemporary views on democracy is, critically, that the association between the idea of democracy and the use of elections is a historical misconception, especially if we consider that many monarchies were elective, while the classic model of Athenian democracy -despite its various limitations -was based on selecting ordinary citizens by lot rather than voting for representatives.In the following chapters, the authors revisit history and demonstrate how the French state has silenced the voices of indigenous peoples by different means, even if these were contradictory to the principles and values proclaimed since the
Pascal Bianchini (2026) studied this question.