French colonial administration in Senegal imposed French as the sole medium of instruction in schools, discouraging Wolof and other local languages to create loyal elites. This assimilationist approach prioritized French for administrative roles, altering educational access and linguistic prestige in West Africa.

It produced francophone African poets like Léopold Sédar Senghor, whose Negritude movement reclaimed African essence through French, subverting colonial language. This hybridity influenced global literary movements, highlighting tensions between imposed and indigenous expression.