France is under fire.

Across the country, students have blocked schools demanding more teachers, smaller classes and better-equipped classrooms, while teachers, firefighters and other public-sector workers have taken to the streets over funding, wages and deteriorating public services.

The immediate dispute is about France's education system and government spending.

But there is a much bigger historical question sitting behind the current crisis:

What happens to a former colonial power when the countries it once controlled begin demanding genuine economic independence?

For decades, France maintained exceptionally close political, military and economic relationships with its former African colonies. Formal colonialism ended, but critics have long argued that a system of neocolonialism survived one in which African countries became legally independent while important economic and strategic relationships continued to disproportionately benefit France.

Niger's uranium industry became one of the most powerful examples used to illustrate that argument.

Niger possesses some of the world's significant uranium resources, and French nuclear giant Orano, formerly Areva, operated major uranium mines in the country for decades. France's nuclear-energy system has historically depended heavily on uranium imports, making Niger strategically important to French energy security.

The relationship became increasingly controversial because Nigerien critics argued that their country's enormous natural resources had not translated into comparable prosperity for ordinary Nigeriens.

That criticism became even louder after the military coup in Niger in 2023.

The new authorities openly challenged France's traditional influence and eventually ordered French troops out of the country. They also moved to reconsider the country's relationship with foreign mining companies.

For France, this represented something much bigger than the loss of a military partnership.

It represented the erosion of a relationship that had existed for generations.

And Niger was not alone.

Across the Sahel, governments have increasingly questioned the traditional French presence. Mali and Burkina Faso have also expelled French forces, while Russia and other powers have sought to expand their influence in the region.

The old French sphere of influence is therefore being challenged from multiple directions.

This is where the term neocolonialism enters the argument.

The argument is not that France still formally owns Niger.

It doesn't.

Niger is an independent sovereign state.

The argument is that independence does not automatically mean economic independence.

A country can possess a flag, a parliament and a president while still having economic structures that were created during colonialism and continue to disproportionately benefit external powers.

That is the heart of the neocolonialism critique.

And uranium makes the argument particularly powerful because it connects Africa directly to European strategic power.

France built one of the world's largest nuclear-energy industries.

Niger possessed an important strategic mineral.

French companies became deeply involved in extracting that mineral.

The uranium was then transported into the international market and ultimately contributed to the fuel supply of France's nuclear system.

Yet Niger remained one of the world's poorest countries.

That contrast naturally raises an uncomfortable question:

If a country can possess valuable strategic resources for decades while its population remains overwhelmingly poor, who is actually capturing the economic value?

There is no simple answer.

Mining creates employment, taxes, infrastructure and foreign exchange, and companies also bear substantial costs and risks. Uranium prices fluctuate, mines become economically unviable and governments negotiate royalties, taxes and ownership arrangements.

But those facts do not eliminate the broader historical question.

Colonial economies were frequently designed around extracting raw materials and exporting them rather than developing diversified domestic industries.

One of the criticisms of post-colonial Africa is that many countries inherited this structure rather than escaping it.

That is why the recent push by Sahel governments to renegotiate mining contracts and foreign relationships is so significant.

They are not merely changing diplomatic partners.

They are challenging the economic architecture inherited from the colonial era.

And France is now confronting the consequences.

The irony is striking.

France once possessed an enormous African empire.

Today, French students are protesting because their schools need teachers and resources.

French public-sector workers are protesting over spending pressures.

Meanwhile, France is attempting to preserve its position as a global military and diplomatic power while its traditional influence in Africa is shrinking.

It would be wrong to claim that France's current education problems were directly caused by losing Niger's uranium.

The French economy is far too large and diversified for that argument to make sense.

But it is equally wrong to pretend that the end of colonialism had no economic consequences for France.

Empire provided France with access to territories, markets, resources and geopolitical influence on a scale that no longer exists.

And even after formal independence, France maintained unusually deep economic relationships with its former colonies.

That system is now being challenged.

The question therefore isn't simply whether France has "lost Africa."

France hasn't.

French companies still operate across Africa. French businesses still trade with African countries. France remains a major diplomatic and economic actor on the continent.

But something more important has changed:

African governments increasingly believe they have the right to determine who controls their resources, which foreign companies operate on their soil and how much value remains inside their economies.

That is a fundamental challenge to the old relationship.

And it is particularly uncomfortable for France because its African influence was never purely military.

It was economic, political, monetary, cultural and institutional.

The military withdrawals are therefore only one part of a much bigger transformation.

The old arrangement is being questioned from the ground up.

For decades, Africans were told that independence meant political sovereignty.

The new generation is asking a harder question:

What is the meaning of political independence if the most valuable resources in your country are still extracted primarily for the benefit of foreign economies?

That question is not limited to Niger.

It applies to oil in Nigeria and Angola, cobalt in the Democratic Republic of Congo, gold across West Africa and critical minerals throughout the continent.

Africa is entering a period in which governments are increasingly demanding more local processing, greater state participation, higher royalties and greater control over strategic resources.

For France, this means the relationship with Africa cannot simply return to the way it operated decades ago.

The era when Paris could expect unquestioned political and economic influence across large parts of francophone Africa is disappearing.

And perhaps that is the real story behind France's current moment.

The protests in French schools are about teachers.

The protests among public workers are about resources.

The political disputes in the Sahel are about sovereignty.

But underneath all of them is a much larger transformation:

France is being forced to operate in a world where the advantages of empire can no longer be taken for granted.

The former colonies are no longer simply asking for independence.

They are increasingly asking for economic independence.

And that is a much more consequential battle.