France-Africa relations

France–Africa relations cover a period of several centuries, starting around in the Middle Ages, and have been very influential to both regions.

Following the invasion of Spain by the Berber Commander Tariq ibn Ziyad in 711, during the 8th century Arab and Berber armies invaded Southern France, as far as Poitiers and the Rhône valley as far as Avignon, Lyon, Autun, until the turning point of the Battle of Tours in 732.

Cultural exchanges followed. In the 10th century, the French monk Gerbert d'Aurillac, who became the first French Pope Sylvester II in 999, traveled to Spain to learn about Islamic culture, and may even have studied at the University of Al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco.

France would become again threatened by the proximity of the expanding Moroccan Almoravid Empire in the 11th and 12th centuries.

According to some historians, French merchants from the Normandy cities of Dieppe and Rouen traded with the Gambia and Senegal coasts, and with the Ivory Coast and the Gold Coast, between 1364 and 1413. Probably as a result, an ivory-carving industry developed in Dieppe after 1364. These travels however were soon forgotten with the advent of the Hundred Years War in France.

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