French ideology equated precolonial African political power with barbarism, just as it did slavery.

Evidence

Roume’s initiatives against chiefs indicate that another facet of French ideology in the early years of the Government General was a conviction that precolonial political power in West Africa, like slavery, was essentially barbaric and therefore conflicted with the principles of French civilization. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 388