Lili Vessereau — Research Fellow, Harvard’s Growth Lab.
Looking across the Atlantic to the United States offers a worrying reflection of what the future of international solidarity may hold. The dissolution of USAID in October 2025 serves as a stark warning of how quickly established institutions can vanish. In our own country, development aid is currently being debated in a polarized political arena where the shadow of the American experience looms large. The rise of figures like Sarah Knafo against a backdrop of global shifts—including the AfD in Germany and Donald Trump in the US—signals a precarious moment for development aid. The warning is clear: as cynically noted by Knafo, “we see with the example of the United States that a stroke of a pen is enough to go and suppress these follies.”1 As we look toward 2027 elections, with some populist candidates already promising cuts to development aid, the French system must urgently examine its own vulnerabilities to avoid a fate similar to its US counterpart.
The Zero-Sum Sentiment: Why “France First” is winning
In a time of economic strain and rising unemployment, populist voices are increasingly emphasizing a simple but troubling argument: we should put ourselves first. If in the US “America First” already demonstrated its appeal, in France this sentiment is exemplified by Sarah Knafo’s critique of France “sending 120 million euros in development aid to China every year, […] while we are running fundraisers to buy scanners at the Georges-Pompidou hospital.”2 This domestic strain makes the rhetoric of leaders like Nikki Haley—who called Trump’s funding cuts “a major victory for our troops, our taxpayers and our vital interests”—increasingly attractive to a frustrated electorate.3
The problem is that development has been increasingly justified through a “security framing” that actually crowds out genuine solidarity. When aid is presented primarily as a tool for preventing migration, countering China, or stabilizing fragile states, it weakens its own ethical foundation. This feeds populist claims that aid is cynical or wasteful, exemplified by Jordan Bardella’s focus on “conditionality on migration control.”4 Knafo further challenges the lack of reciprocity, stating: “I bet you that you cannot find the counterpart of our €800 million development aid to Algeria.”5
Digital platforms amplify this distrust, as algorithms reward scandal, outrage, and corruption narratives. Even minor failures by NGOs become viral proof of “systemic rot.” Institutions remain structurally ill-equipped to operate in this media ecosystem. The €800 million in development aid to Algeria mentioned earlier is in reality almost ten times lower than the actual amount, but the fake news took time to be debunked.6 Furthermore, aid institutions are often seen as elite-dominated, with leadership circulating in narrow professional networks. This perceived link to specific gender and climate agendas has opened a space for a “reformist populism,” where Knafo argues that “Public development aid is much more a ‘woke power’ than a ‘soft power.’”7 This mirrors the American critique found in Max Primorac’s essay, “How USAID Went Woke and Destroyed Itself.”8
The Institutional Blind Spot: Technocracy in an Age of Identity
We must admit that our own failures have contributed to this shift. Development institutions were built as technocratic problem-solvers, but populists now attack them as cultural actors. Disagreements have shifted from policy to identity conflict: “their values vs. ours.” This is illustrated by French member of Parliament Guillaume Bigot, who claims “Paris acts like a penniless squire who would organize balls to mask his misery,” adding that “we are financing the vacuum, myriads of NGOs, predatory elites.”9
Our failure lies in the inability to narrate work in moral terms that resonate domestically. There is a narrative asymmetry: populists are better storytellers using anecdotes, scandals, and slogans, while institutions rely on statistics, impact evaluations, and technical language. Populists see, as William Easterly frames it, development institutions in Washington DC as “a collection of the world’s most unaccountable bureaucracies.”10 In France, Bigot denounces a lack of accountability at the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), suggesting that “theoretically placed under the supervision of Bercy and the Quai d’Orsay, the AFD explains to the first that it owes it no account because it works for the service of French diplomacy, and conversely informs the Quai d’Orsay that as a public bank, it cannot receive diplomatic directives.”11
We must admit that our own failures have contributed to this shift. Development institutions were built as technocratic problem-solvers, but populists now attack them as cultural actors.
When emotions dominate politics, the side that wins emotionally usually wins the debate. We have failed to craft a compelling narrative for development, leaving citizens to see only the costs rather than the benefits like pandemic preparedness, financial stability, and migration prevention. Bigot’s rhetoric in Le Figaro, describing aid as “a financial abyss for unfortunately limited results,” gains traction because development is a global public good, with local political blindness.12 This risks a self-fulfilling delegitimization: as trust declines and budgets shrink, results deteriorate, which then “confirms” populist claims of failure.
The Human Side of the .CSV: Bringing Development Stories to the French Political Life
To avoid following the US example, accessible transparency must be embraced. Data must not only be available, it must be easily understandable for all citizens. While the French Development Agency has made progress by establishing an Open Data portal and adhering to international transparency standards, these remain “expert-facing” tools. Accessibility must be increased through interactive dashboards that provide plain-language summaries of results but also of processes. Showcasing the “behind the scenes” architecture is the only way to demonstrate the democratic legitimacy of decisions.
It is likewise crucial to move beyond expert-facing data to citizen-facing communication. Right now, the face of development is made of economists and bureaucrats. Instead, voices of mayors, doctors, farmers, and diaspora communities should be at the center of the stories told by development institutions. Not through stock pictures, but through raw, unpolished testimonials and on-the-ground video diaries that allow those closest to the work to speak directly to French citizens, re-anchoring aid in lived experience.
Finally, we must reconnect to democratic debates and stop hiding behind neutrality values. This means engaging critics, debating populists, and answering hard questions publicly. To debunk viral “fake news,” the X account “French responses” show how traditional institutions can adapt their discourse to communicate on important topics and correct fake news in a light tone that goes viral. One can only hope that this modern way of communicating would be taken up by more development institutions. Only by accepting political contestation can we rebuild the domestic legitimacy of international development.
1. Quentin Gérard, “Genre en Albanie, écologie en Chine… Les révélations chocs de Sarah Knafo sur l’Agence française de développement,” Le Journal du Dimanche, 18 February 2025.
2. RMC, “Sarah Knafo pointe la générosité de la France avec l’Algérie et la Chine,” YouTube, 20 September 2024.
3. Nikki Haley, “I’ll Cut the Billions in Foreign Aid We Send Our Enemies,” New York Post, 24 February 2023.
4. Jordan Bardella, “Conditionnons toute aide au co-développement pour l’Afrique à la maîtrise des flux migratoires !,” YouTube, c. 2022.
5. RMC, “Sarah Knafo pointe la générosité de la France avec l’Algérie et la Chine.”
6. Achille Dupas, “La France donne 800 millions à l’Algérie tous les ans ? Pourquoi ces affirmations doivent être nuancées,” 20 Minutes, 23 September 2024.
7. CNews, “« L’aide publique au développement est bien plus un ‘woke power’ qu’un ‘soft power’ », pointe Sarah Knafo,” CNews, 19 March 2025.
8. Max Primorac, “How USAID Went Woke and Destroyed Itself,” The Heritage Foundation, February 10, 2025.
9. Guillaume Bigot, “Gel de l’aide au développement : la France doit-elle imiter les États-Unis ?,” Le Figaro, 11 February 2025.
10. William Easterly, “Playing the Aid Game,” Forbes, 11 August 2003.
11. Bigot, “Gel de l’aide au développement.”
12. Id.