The rise in Western Europe of capitalism and the consequent industrialization led to a fast-growing demand for African raw materials like rubber, palm oil and cotton. With the help of a handful of local French administrators and officers, the British, and the Belgian government in exile Charles de Gaulle's Free French won over large parts of the French Empire. Further radicalization elsewhere in Africa as a result of the decolonization led to revolt against the dictatorial rule of Youlou. As a heterogeneous state, political parties very quickly began to focus solely on ethnic and regionalist groupings. The case of the Congolese trade unionist André Matsoua (Matswa) shows his tough approach to political dissent.
Establishing French control was difficult.

The absence of the Bakongo from early politics led to a power vacuum into which the Vili and Mbochi moved until independence.[8]. [1][2], Initially relations were limited and considered beneficial to both sides. Under his reign Christianity gained a strong foothold in the country. The Congo went in the space of fourteen years from having no political freedom whatsoever to complete independence, making the rise of legitimate democratic institutions respected by a substantial proportion of the population near-impossible. On November 15, 1908, the Belgian parliament annexed the colony, the reign of Leopold II over Congo being discredited. After two years in power, Yhombi-Opango was accused of corruption and deviation from party directives, and removed from office on February 5, 1979, by the Central Committee of the PCT, which then simultaneously designated Vice President and Defense Minister Col. Denis Sassou-Nguesso as interim President. Together with Ivorian leader Félix Houphouët-Boigny and others, he formed the Rassemblement Démocratique Africain (RDA) in 1946 and, in 1947, the Parti Progressiste Africain. This led to the establishment of the Republic of Congo on 28 November 1958 (with Brazzaville replacing Point Noire as the country's capital). Many of these were policies already put forward by Eboué in his 1941 book entitled "La nouvelle politique coloniale de l'A.E.F."

It is situated on the north bank of the Congo River below Malebo (Stanley) Pool, across from Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. [citation needed] The main Bantu tribe living in the region were the Kongo, also known as Bakongo, who established mostly weak and unstable kingdoms along the mouth, north and south of the Congo River. The first name given officially on 1 August 1886 for the new colony was Colony of Gabon and Congo. Those who had these raw materials could have their economy grow strong. However, the eruption in late 1998 of fighting between Sassou Nguesso's government forces and an armed opposition disrupted the transitional return to democracy. Congo may refer to either of two countries that border the Congo River in central Africa: . With Christianity easily accepted by the local nobility, leading on 3 May 1491 to the baptism of king Nzinga a Nkuwu as the first Christian Kongolese king João I. With the Kingdom of Loango in the north and the Kingdom of Mbundu in the south being tributary states. After decades of turbulent politics bolstered by Marxist-Leninist rhetoric, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Congolese gradually moderated their economic and political views to the point that, in 1992, Congo completed a transition to multi-party democracy. In May, a visit by Sassou Nguesso to Owando, Joachim Yhombi-Opango's political stronghold, led to the outbreak of violence between their supporters. [13], Together these forces took Brazzaville and Pointe-Noire in the morning of October 16. The reason was that in Algeria a war of independence was fought, and the French were losing. Ivory and rubber virtually disappeared from the concessionary areas; indigenous populations were decimated by brutal forced labor, disease, and maladministration, and some fled to neighboring colonies.[5]. As the French company Elf Aquitaine (which reaped much of its profits from the Republic of the Congo) had only just recently opened a large deep-water oil platform off the coast of Pointe-Noire, Mr. Lissouba was pressured by the French into canceling all contracts with Occidental Petroleum, but suspicions of Lissouba remained. [citation needed], From the capital they ruled over an empire encompassing large parts of present-day Angola, the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Development of the sector has been hampered by the nation's traditionally powerful trade unionist movement, political uncertainties, as well as the costs of exploitation in a country with poor transport infrastructure.[10].
Only then did France start exploiting these reserves. This resulted in a loss of influence as the Congo prepared for independence, influenced by nationalist anti-colonial leaders as Kwame Nkrumah from Ghana and Egyptian President Gamel Abdel Nasser.

[citation needed]. The Republic of the Congo, also known as Congo-Brazzaville, the Congo Republic or simply either Congo or the Congo is a country located in the western coast of Central Africa. The Portuguese abolished the kingdom after the revolt of the Kongolese in 1914. This in turn led to the new French constitution of the Fourth Republic approved on 27 October 1946 and the election of the first Equatorial African members of Parliament in Paris. For some the discovery of oil of the Congolese coast was a blessing. The locals were governed through the use of the repressive Code de l'indigénat Act. "[18] Sassou was re-elected for a further seven-year term at the next presidential election in July 2009.