From the 70s on, France began granting independence to many of it colonies and then signing agreements with them that kept a French hand on the levers of power. A common arrangement was to assign a team of French advisers to guide post-colonial government ministers, with defense, trade, and economic assistance agreements that legitimated potential French interventions. Two things can be fairly said about such arrangements: they often made a mockery of independence and they helped assure reasonably orderly post-colonial national development.
France also worked both to make certain that its preferred candidate won the first post independence "election" and that one of the agreements he signed was for defense support, so that the French Military could train, and French Intelligence monitor, the new nation's armed forces.
Outside of Indochina, the system has worked pretty well for France.