Ivory Coast renames streets: less French more African

STREET names in Ivory Coast’s economic capital have taken on a decidedly more local flavour over the past few weeks, as African names have replaced French ones in France’s former colony.

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The road linking the airport to Abidjan’s city centre, for example, is no longer named after former French president Valerie Giscard d’Estaing, but for the man who led Ivory Coast following its independence from France in 1960, Felix Houphouet-Boigny.

The old names “weren't necessarily used by our people,” Alphonse N’Guessan, the urban planning official in charge of the project, said.

A name “must reflect our history, our culture”, he said.

France once had a sizeable colonial presence in Africa and several of its former colonies in west Africa have sought to distance themselves from Paris.