Saucisson, French mustard-flavored chips, six types of Camembert – even the rolls of toilet paper in the Auchan supermarket come from France. That is striking, because this Auchan hypermarché is not on the edge of a French suburb, but in the middle of a residential area of Dakar, the city where my family and I settled a few weeks ago.
Although it is estimated that more than 25 thousand French people live in Senegal, the French supermarket does not only serve the French community: the lion's share of the customers we encounter in the Casino, Auchan and Carrefour supermarkets are Senegalese. The number of Senegalese (from the richer middle and upper class) coming to the Auchan has even increased considerably in recent years, since that big grocer unleashed a price war a few years ago.
The fact that there are so many supermarkets that almost exclusively sell French products says a lot about the close ties that Senegal still has with its former colonizer. Many Senegalese have adopted French eating habits, as I saw when I recently made my first report on baguettes here. More than 8 million typical French baguettes are eaten in Senegal every day, even though the wheat used for the breads cannot grow anywhere in Senegal.
For the story about the baguettes, I spoke to an entrepreneur who wants to get rid of French dependence, a sentiment that more Senegalese companies are responding to. While imported French products often show exactly which region in France they come from, even displaying a proud French flag, there are now more and more companies that consciously profile themselves as a 'Senegalese brand'.
About how those Senegalese brands market themselves, the growing anti-French sentiment in Senegal and its neighboring countries and what French companies (which together are responsible for a quarter of Senegalese GDP) like Auchan are trying to turn the tide , you can read in this column that I wrote for de Volkskrant here.